Again in 1882 Haeckel writes:[55]
“We regard it as a truly tragic fact that the Philosophie Zoologique of Lamarck, one of the greatest productions of the great literary period of the beginning of our century, received at first only the slightest notice, and within a few years became wholly forgotten.... Not until fully fifty years later, when Darwin breathed new life into the transformation views founded therein, was the buried treasure again recovered, and we cannot refrain from regarding it as the most complete presentation of the development theory before Darwin.
“While Lamarck clearly expressed all the essential fundamental ideas of our present doctrine of descent; and excites our admiration at the depth of his morphological knowledge, he none the less surprises us by the prophetic (vorausschauende) clearness of his physiological conceptions.”
In his views on life, the nature of the will and reason, and other subjects, Haeckel declares that Lamarck was far above most of his contemporaries, and that he sketched out a programme of the biology of the future which was not carried out until our day.
J. Victor Carus[56] also claims for Lamarck “the lasting merit of having been the first to have placed the theory (of descent) on a scientific foundation.”
The best, most catholic, and just exposition of Lamarck’s views, and which is still worth reading, is that by Lyell Chapters XXXIV.–XXXVI. of his Principles of Geology, 1830, and though at that time one would not look for an acceptance of views which then seemed extraordinary and, indeed, far-fetched, Lyell had no words of satire and ridicule, only a calm, able statement and discussion of his principles. Indeed, it is well known that when, in after years, his friend Charles Darwin published his views, Lyell expressed some leaning towards the older speculations of Lamarck.
Lyell’s opinions as to the interest and value of Lamarck’s ideas may be found in his Life and Letters, and also in the Life and Letters of Charles Darwin. In the chapter, On the Reception of the Origin of Species, by Huxley, are the following extracts from Lyell’s Letters (ii., pp. 179–204). In a letter addressed to Mantell (dated March 2, 1827), Lyell speaks of having just read Lamarck; he expresses his delight at Lamarck’s theories, and his personal freedom from any objections based on theological grounds. And though he is evidently alarmed at the pithecoid origin of man involved in Lamarck’s doctrine, he observes: “But, after all, what changes species may really undergo! How impossible will it be to distinguish and lay down a line beyond which some of the so-called extinct species have never passed into recent ones?”
He also quotes a remarkable passage in the postscript to a letter written to Sir John Herschel in 1836: “In regard to the origination of new species, I am very glad to find that you think it probable it may be carried on through the intervention of intermediate causes.”
How nearly Lyell was made a convert to evolution by reading Lamarck’s works may be seen by the following extracts from his letters, quoted by Huxley:
“I think the old ‘creation’ is almost as much required as ever, but of course it takes a new form if Lamarck’s views, improved by yours, are adopted.” (To Darwin, March 11, 1863, p. 363.)
“As to Lamarck, I find that Grove, who has been reading him, is wonderfully struck with his book. I remember that it was the conclusion he (Lamarck) came to about man, that fortified me thirty years ago against the great impression which his argument at first made on my mind—all the greater because Constant Prevost, a pupil of Cuvier forty years ago, told me his conviction ‘that Cuvier thought species not real, but that science could not advance without assuming that they were so.’”