THE FURTHER GROWTH OF SCIENCE 99 



though he is not known to have favored the evolutionary 

 theories promulgated during his lifetime, he made an im- 

 portant contribution in this direction by so classifying 

 plants and animals that men could visualize the resemblances 

 and differences now explained in terms of evolution. 



The discussion of a generalization so important as the 

 theory of organic evolution must be deferred. For the 

 purpose here, it is only necessary to state that the doctrine 

 of descent with modification was first promulgated in 

 scientific terms by Buffon (1707-1788) and his contempo- 

 raries. It is important, in considering the eighteenth century 

 as a period during which the larger generalizations of modern 

 science were being formed, that the theory of evolution was 

 then proposed upon a scientific basis. Many significant 

 facts in anatomy, embryology, heredity, and variation, had 

 been established. Attention was directed to the close 

 anatomical resemblance between man and the apes. More- 

 over, evolution or the Theory of Transmutation, as it was 

 then called, was openly and widely discussed in intellectual 

 circles. 6 This early attempt to formulate organic evolution 

 in terms of science culminated in the Lamarckian theories 

 during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The 

 temporary failure of the evolutionary hypothesis was due to 

 insufficient knowledge and to prejudice in favor of an ex- 

 planation of organic nature in terms of the Biblical account 

 of creation. The Transmutationists of the later eighteenth 

 century were expressing the spirit of their day when they 

 attempted to organize the facts of biological science into a 

 fundamental theory of the origin and development of all 

 living things. 



The phrase origin of life may be used in a twofold sense. 

 It may refer either to the origin of the species (evolution) or 

 to the origin of the individual. The latter problem appears 

 in the eighteenth century controversies over the theory of 



6 Lovejoy, A. O., "Some Eighteenth Century Evolutionists," Popular 

 Science Monthly, July, 1904. 



