Page:The Last link.djvu/95

Rh many of his examples lacked the exact basis of experiment and observation necessary for their acceptance. Witness that of the neck of the giraffe,—a never-failing source of ridicule to men who cannot see the deeper purpose underlying the well-meant attempt at an explanation, which failed from want of complete knowledge of the intricate circumstances.

However, the theory of transformism was, so to speak, in the air; and various authors have written on the subject, filling the gap between Lamarck and Darwin, especially Goethe, Treviranus, Leopold von Buch, and Herbert Spencer. But it is Darwin's immortal merit to have opened our eyes by his theory of natural selection, which is, at least, the first attempt to explain some of the causes and incidents of organic Evolution in a natural mechanical way. Moreover, he was the first clearly to express the fundamental principles of the theory of descent, to elaborate what had been at best a general sketch of an ill-defined problem, and to enter