"Le cours ordinaire de la nature vivante, est en general toujours constant,
toujours le meme; son mouvement, toujours regulier, roule sur deux points
inebranlables: l'un, la fecondite sans bornes donnee a toutes les especes;
l'autre, les obstacles sans nombre qui reduisent cette fecondite a une
mesure determinee et ne laissent en tout temps qu'a peu pres la meme
quantite d'individus de chaque espece"..."Les especes les moins parfaites,
les plus delicates, les plus pesantes, les moins agissantes, les moins
armees, etc., ont deja disparu ou disparaitront."

Erasmus Darwin (See Ernst Krause and Charles Darwin, "Erasmus Darwin",
London, 1879.) had a firm grip of the "idea of the gradual formation and
improvement of the Animal world," and he had his theory of the process. No
sentence is more characteristic than this: "All animals undergo
transformations which are in part produced by their own exertions, in
response to pleasures and pains, and many of these acquired forms or
propensities are transmitted to their posterity." This is Lamarckism
before Lamarck, as his grandson pointed out. His central idea is that
wants stimulate efforts and that these result in improvements, which
subsequent generations make better still. He realised something of the
struggle for existence and even pointed out that this advantageously checks
the rapid multiplication. "As Dr Krause points out, Darwin just misses the
connection between this struggle and the Survival of the Fittest." (Osborn
op. cit. page 142.)

Lamarck (1744-1829) (See E. Perrier "La Philosophie Zoologique avant
Darwin", Paris, 1884; A. de Quatrefages, "Darwin et ses Precurseurs
Francais", Paris, 1870; Packard op. cit.; also Claus, "Lamarck als
Begrunder der Descendenzlehre", Wien, 1888; Haeckel, "Natural History of
Creation", English translation London, 1879; Lang "Zur Charakteristik der
Forschungswege von Lamarck und Darwin", Jena, 1889.) seems to have thought