en one of
the first to adopt it. Goethe's anatomical researches appear to have
been more important, but I cannot find that he insisted on any new
principle, or grasped any unfamiliar conception, which had not been long
since grasped and widely promulgated by Buffon and by Dr. Erasmus
Darwin.

Treviranus (1776-1837), whom Professor Haeckel places second to Goethe,
is clearly a disciple of Buffon, and uses the word "degeneration" in the
same sense as Buffon used it many years earlier, that is to say, as
"descent with modification," without any reference to whether the
offspring was, as Buffon says, "perfectionne ou degrade." He cannot
claim, any more than Goethe, to rank as a principal figure in the
history of evolution.

Of Oken, Professor Haeckel says that his 'Naturphilosophie,' which
appeared in 1809--in the same year, that is to say, as the 'Philosophie
Zoologique' of Lamarck--was "the nearest approach to the natural theory
of descent, newly established by Mr. Charles Darwin," of any work that
appeared in the first decade of our century. But I do not detect any
important difference of principle between his system and that of Dr.
Erasmus Darwin, among whose disciples he should be reckoned.

"We now turn," says Professor Haeckel after referring to a few more
German writers who adopted a belief in evolution, "from the German to
the French nature-philosophers who have likewise held the theory of
descent, since the beginning of this century. At their head stands Jean
Lamarck, who occupies the first place next to Darwin and Goethe in the
history of the doctrine of Filiation."[36] This is rather a surprising
assertion, but I will leave the reader of the present volume to assign
the value which should be attached to it.

Professor Haeckel devotes ten lines to Dr. Erasmus Darwin, who he
declares "expresses views very similar to those of Goethe and Lamarck,
without, however, _then_ knowing anything about these two men;" which is
all the more strange inasmuch as Dr. Darwin preceded them, and was a
good deal better known to them, probably, than they to him; but it is
plain Professor Haeckel has no acquaintance with the 'Zoonomia' of Dr.
Erasmus Darwin. From all, then, that I am able to collect, I conclude
that I shall best convey to the reader an idea of the different phases
which the theory of descent with modification has gone through, by
confining his attention almost entirely to Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin,
Lamarck, and