Treviranus (1776-1837), whom Professor Haeckel places second to Goethe, is clearly a disciple of Buffon, and uses the word "degeneration" in the same sense as Buffon used it many years earlier, that is to say, as "descent with modification," without any reference to whether the offspring was, as Buffon says, "perfectionné ou dégradé." He cannot claim, any more than Goethe, to rank as a principal figure in the history of evolution.
Of Oken, Professor Haeckel says that his 'Naturphilosophie,' which appeared in 1809--in the same year, that is to say, as the 'Philosophie Zoologique' of Lamarck--was "the nearest approach to the natural theory of descent, newly established by Mr. Charles Darwin," of any work that appeared in the first decade of our century. But I do not detect any important difference of principle between his system and that of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, among whose disciples he should be reckoned.
"We now turn," says Professor Haeckel after referring to a few more German writers who adopted a belief in evolution, "from the German to the French nature-philosophers who have likewise held the theory of descent, since the beginning of this century. At their head stands Jean Lamarck, who occupies the first place next to Darwin and Goethe in the history of the doctrine of Filiation."[36] This is rather a surprising assertion, but I will leave the reader of the present volume to assign the value which should be attached to it.
Professor Haeckel devotes ten lines to Dr. Erasmus Darwin, who he declares "expresses views very similar to those of Goethe and Lamarck, without, however, _then_ knowing anything about these two men;" which is all the more strange inasmuch as Dr. Darwin preceded them, and was a good deal better known to them, probably, than they to him; but it is plain Professor Haeckel has no acquaintance with the 'Zoonomia' of Dr. Erasmus Darwin. From all, then, that I am able to collect, I conclude that I shall best convey to the reader an idea of the different phases which the theory of descent with modification has gone through, by confining his attention almost entirely to Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and Mr. Charles Darwin.
[33] 'Hist. Nat. Gen.,' vol. ii. p. 385, 1859.