In his second book on evolution Butler surveyed the contributions of the early theorists Buffon, Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck alongside the more recent theories of Herbert Spencer, St George Mivart and Charles Darwin, attempting to present his own ideas as a continuation of the scientific history. The book dramatically concluded that Charles Darwins work was little more than a rehashing of Erasmus Darwins and Lamarcks, combined with a denial of the purposiveness or teleology inherent in evolution as first propounded.
