presidext's address. 823 



thought of the Maker of the universe. It was not regarded by 

 Linnaeus as an expression of morphological identity of origin by 

 the genuine and natural blood-relationship of descent. 



For a considerable period, indeed, Linnaeus maintained the 

 doctrine of the absolute fixity of species. Each species was a 

 final form, a finished product, direct from the hands of the Creator.. 

 Yet in later life his views on this question underwent a slight 

 modification. He seems to have held that it was in the genus of 

 to-day that we have to recognise primitive species, and that the 

 differentiation which subsequently ensued was due to hybridisation 

 with other species, thus generating new, but in a sense degenerate, 

 specific forms. 



On the whole the views of Linnaeus represent the conservative 

 and non-speculative tendencies of his age. On the other hand, 

 his enormous industry served to accumulate vast stores of those 

 materials which were the essential condition of subsequent progress 

 in scientific hypothesis. 



If we wish to gain an insight into the more speculative 

 tendencies of the time of Linnaeus we must turn to his great 

 French contemporary Buffbn. The history of the growth and 

 development of the evolution doctrine well illustrates the play of 

 the conflicting tendencies represented by these two distinguished 

 Naturalists. Starting from a similar point of view to that of 

 Linnaeus, Buflbn's brilliant imagination enabled him far to 

 transcend the current modes of thought, and in a sense to 

 anticipate several of the future determining ideas of biological 

 science. Not only did he come to doubt the fixity of organic 

 groups, but he anticipated the theory of the action of environment 

 and even dimly the Darwinian doctrine of natural selection itself. 

 Fertile and suggestive of future advance as his imagination 

 was, Buffbn cannot be said to have himself effected any substantial 

 or immediate change in the scientific opinion of his own day. 

 Still the inspiration of his novel and suggestive ideas for some 

 of his successors was a great and lasting one, more particularly 

 and directly upon his younger friend, Lamarck, and also upon 

 Geoffi'oy St. Hilaire. 



