Erasmus Darwin (Fig. 117) was the greatest of Lamarck's predecessors. In 1794 he published the _Zoönomia_. In this work he stated ten principles; among them he vaguely suggested the transmission of acquired characteristics, the law of sexual selection--or the law of battle, as he called it--protective coloration, etc. His work received some notice from scholars. Paley's _Natural Theology_, for illustration, was written against it, although Paley is careful not to mention Darwin or his work. The success of Paley's book is probably one of the chief causes for the neglect into which the views of Buffon and Erasmus Darwin fell. Inasmuch as Darwin's conclusions were published before Lamarck's book, it would be interesting to determine whether or not Lamarck was influenced by him. The careful consideration of this matter leads to the conclusion that Lamarck drew his inspiration directly from nature, and that points of similarity between his views and those of Erasmus Darwin are to be looked upon as an example of parallelism in thought. It is altogether likely that Lamarck was wholly unacquainted with Darwin's work, which had been published in England. Goethe's connection with the rise of evolutionary thought is in a measure incidental. In 1790 he published his _Metamorphosis of Plants_, showing that flowers are modified leaves. This doctrine of metamorphosis of parts he presently applied to the animal kingdom, and brought forward his famous, but erroneous, vertebrate theory of the skull. As he meditated on the extent of modifications there arose in his mind the conviction that all plants and animals have been evolved from the modification of a few parental types. Accordingly he should be accorded a place in the history of evolutionary thought. Opposition to Lamarck's Views.--Lamarck's doctrine, which was published in definite form in 1809, has been already outlined. We may well inquire, Why did not his views take hold? In the first place, they were not accepted by Cuvier. Cuvier's opposition was strong and vigorous, and succeeded in causing the theory of Lamarck to be completely neglected by the French people. Again, we must recognize that the time was not ripe for the acceptance of such truths; and, finally, that there was no great principle enunciated by Lamarck which could be readily understood as there was in Darwin's book on the doctrine of natural selection.