vable a man that his opposition to evolution held back
the advance of the Darwinian idea in America as Cuvier's influence
had held back the Lamarckian idea in Europe. For the brilliant Cuvier
simply laughed before his students at each "new folly" of Buffon and
of Lamarck. Under this ridicule the influence of both men withered and
died.

A little later the great poet, Goethe, turned his attention to the
problem of evolution, giving an interesting account of the
metamorphoses of plants. He declared, also, that the human skull is a
continuation of the backbones of the neck, and that these bones have
been transformed into the present skull. But his great genius as a
poet drew his attention into other fields. Haeckel points out that if
Goethe had known Lamarck's work his genius would have gained for the
"Philosophie Zooelogique" the interest and respect of the reading
world. But Cuvier laughed it out of court, and only in comparatively
modern times, since Darwin's work has set the world thinking anew, is
Lamarck's career recognized at its true value. Lamarck should have
been the founder of the evolution theory. But the time was not quite
ripe, and it remained for Charles Darwin to announce his idea,
sustained and fortified by years of careful observation and thoughtful
reflection.

CHAPTER II

DARWIN AND WALLACE

We have seen in the last chapter that whenever men have actively
thought they have attempted to explain the origin of plants and
animals as well as of themselves. No one who wrote previous to the
time of Charles Darwin had expressed any idea concerning this matter
with force enough to convince any large portion of the thinking world.
If Lamarck had fallen on better times, if the great Cuvier had not
laughed him to scorn, if Goethe had found him out and made him known
to the world, evolution might have come into its own sooner. None of
these conditions arose, and it remained for Charles Darwin to give to
the world in clear and cogent form the thought of evolution. He
gathered so much material before he expressed his opinions, and looked
at the matter from so many sides that, when he published his results,
he had foreseen most of the objections which were subsequently to
arise in opposition to his announcement. Charles Darwin is recognized
to-day as the father of the evolutionary movement.

It has been sometimes said in recent years that Darwinism is dead, and
there is a sense in which this is true. Unm