Darwin and the Transmission of Acquired Characters

Abstract

I REGRET that your correspondent should imagine that, in writing the words “poor old Lamarck”, I showed “scant respect” for the great French naturalist. On the contrary, I desired to express the deep sympathy I felt for this grand pioneer in evolution, who, in old age and blindness, found his splendid achievements, for the time being, discredited by the work and arguments of his successful rival, Cuvier. In the little book which has given rise to this correspondence, I have insisted upon the splendid contributions of Lamarck, not only to botany and zoology, but also to geology, and have shown how the hostility towards his work, felt at first by Lyell and Darwin, was in the end modified, and his great merits acknowledged by both of them.