Page:Carroll Lane Fenton - A History of Evolution (1922).djvu/39

 36 ing thing on the earth is related to every other living thing. The second is that the process of evolution is almost inconceivably slow, and that millions upon millions of years have been necessary for it. The first idea, while quite conceivably true, can never be proved definitely, but the second has been demonstrated over and over again. Just how many millions we shall allow is, of course, undetermined; some authorities demand sixty; others say that eight hundred is a figure none too large. In this series of books the larger figure is adopted, not because we are certain that it is right, but because it seems to fit more closely with the facts of evolution than do the smaller ones. How fully Dr. Darwin was a prophet of modern scientific chronology we are just beginning to recognize.

The leadership in evolution, which for a time had gone to England, was soon given back to France. The new champion of the theory was Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829), one of the most pathetic figures in the entire history of zoology. He was a brilliant man, and a skilled zoologist, but because he was courageous, blind, and desperately poor, he suffered little less than martyrdom throughout much of his life, and was given, but scant attention by his contemporaries. Baron Cuvier, rich, talented, and a member of the elite of the nation, dominated French zoology. He was a desperate reactionary, holding out for a literal acceptance of the Bible account of special creation, and ridiculed not only the theories of Lamarck, but the whole conception