152 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



part of the human race in its entirety. He was the first 

 to receive from his fathers the knowledge which their 

 own ancestors had handed down to them. These, having 

 discovered the divine art of fixing their thoughts so 

 that they can transmit them to their posterity, become, 

 as it were, one and the same people with their de- 

 scendants (se sont, pour ainsi dire, identifies avec leur 

 neveux) ; while our descendants will in their turn be one 

 and the same people with ourselves (s identifier out avec 

 nous). This reunion in a single person of the expe- 

 rience of many ages, throws back the boundaries of 

 man's existence to the utmost limits of the past ; he is 

 no longer a single individual, limited as other beings 

 ^are to the sensations and experiences of to-day. In 

 place of the individual we have to deal, as it were, with 

 the whole species." * 



" Differences in exterior are nothing in comparison 

 with those in interior parts. These last must be regarded 

 as the causes, while the others are but the effects. The 

 interior parts of living beings are the foundation of the 

 plan of their design ; this is their essential form, their 

 real shape, their exterior is only the surface, or rather 

 the drapery in which their true figure is enveloped. 

 How often does not the study of comparative anatomy 

 show us that two exteriors which differ widely conceal 

 interiors absolutely like each other, and, on the contrary, 

 that the smallest internal difference is accompanied by 

 the most marked differences of outward appearance, 

 changing as it does even the natural habits, faculties 

 and attributes of the animal ? " t 



* Tom, xiii., preface, iv, 1765. t Ibid. xiii. p. 37. 



