winism.

Profs. E. Perrier and H. F. Osborn have called attention to a
remarkable anticipation of the selection-idea which is to be found in
the speculations of Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1825-1828) on the
evolution of modern Crocodilians from the ancient Teleosaurs. Changing
environment induced changes in the respiratory system and far-reaching
consequences followed. The atmosphere, acting upon the pulmonary
cells, brings about "modifications which are favourable or destructive
('funestes'); these are inherited, and they influence all the rest of
the organisation of the animal because if these modifications lead to
injurious effects the animals which exhibit them perish and are
replaced by others of a somewhat different form, a form changed so as
to be adapted to (a la convenance) the new environment."

Prof. E. B. Poulton[31] has shown that the anthropologist James Cowles
Prichard (1786-1848) must be included even in spite of himself among
the precursors of Darwin. In some passages of the second edition of
his _Researches into the Physical History of Mankind_ (1826), he
certainly talks evolution and anticipates Prof. Weismann in denying
the transmission of acquired characters. He is, however, sadly
self-contradictory and his evolutionism weakens in subsequent
editions--the only ones that Darwin saw. Prof. Poulton finds in
Prichard's work a recognition of the operation of Natural Selection.
"After inquiring how it is that 'these varieties are developed and
preserved in connexion with particular climates and differences of
local situation,' he gives the following very significant answer: 'One
cause which tends to maintain this relation is obvious. Individuals
and families, and even whole colonies perish and disappear in climates
for which they are, by peculiarity of constitution, not adapted. Of
this fact proofs have been already mentioned.'" Mr. Francis Darwin and
Prof. A. C. Seward discuss Prichard's "anticipations" in _More Letters
of Charles Darwin_, Vol. _I._ p. 43, and come to the conclusion that
the evolutionary passages are entirely neutralised by others of an
opposite trend. There is the same difficulty with Buffon.

Hints of the idea of Natural Selection have been detected elsewhere.
James Watt,[32] for instance, has been reported as one of the
anticipators (1851). But we need not prolong the inquiry further,
since Darwin did not know of any anticipations until after he had
published the immortal work