x, as for Lamarck, the function creates the organ, and
it is only after long generations that the organ appears before the
function.

It so happened that just about the time when Roux's papers were
beginning to appear a brilliant attempt was made by Samuel Butler to
revive and complete the Lamarckian doctrine.

A man of singular freshness and openness of mind, combining in an
extraordinary degree extreme intellectual subtlety with a childlike
simplicity of outlook, Butler was one of the most fascinating figures of
the 19th century. He was not a professional biologist, and much of his
biological work is, for that reason, imperfect. But he brought to bear
upon the central problems of biology an unbiassed and powerful
intelligence, and his attitude to these problems, just because it is
that of a cultivated layman, is singularly illuminating.

He was not well acquainted with biological literature; he seems to have
hit upon the main ideas of his theory of life and habit in complete
independence of Lamarck, and only later to have become aware that
Lamarck had in a measure forestalled him. He puts this very beautifully
in the following passage from his chief biological work _Life and Habit_
(1877[508]):--"I admit that when I began to write upon my subject I did
not seriously believe in it. I saw, as it were, a pebble upon the
ground, with a sheen that pleased me; taking it up, I turned it over and
over for my amusement, and found it always grow brighter and brighter
the more I examined it. At length I became fascinated, and gave loose
rein to self-illusion. The aspect of the world changed; the trifle which
I had picked up idly had proved to be a talisman of inestimable value,
and had opened a door through which I caught glimpses of a strange and
interesting transformation. Then came one who told me that the stone was
not mine, but that it had been dropped by Lamarck, to whom it belonged
rightfully, but who had lost it; whereon I said I cared not who was the
owner, if only I might use it and enjoy it. Now, therefore, having
polished it with what art and care one who is no jeweller could bestow
upon it, I return it, as best I may, to its possessor" (p. 306). In one
of his later works, however, Butler made up for his first neglect of his
predecessors by giving what is undeniably the best account in English
literature of the work of Buffon, Lamarck, and Erasmus Darwin--in his
_Evolution, Old and New_ (1879). Many of his facts he