xii.] THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 287 



of theology, as to tempt any man to follow his example. 

 Probably not uninfluenced by these considerations, his 

 Catholic majesty's Consul-Gcncral for Egypt kept his 

 theories to himself throughout a long life, for "Telli- 

 amed," the only scientific work which is known to have 

 proceeded from his pen, was not printed till 1735, when 

 its author had reached the ripe age of seventy-nine ; and 

 though Dc Maillct lived three years longer, his book was 

 not given to the world before 1748. Even then it was 

 anonymous to those who were not in the secret of the 

 anagram atic character of its title ; and the preface and 

 dedication are so worded as, m case of necessity, to give 

 the printer a fair chance of falling back on the excuse 

 that the work was intended for a mere jeu d' esprit. 



The speculations of the supposititious Indian sage, 

 though quite as sound as those of many a " Mosaic 

 Geology/' which sells exceedingly well, have no great 

 value if we consider them by the light of modern 

 science. The waters are supposed to have originally 

 covered the whole globe ; to have deposited the rocky 

 masses which compose its mountains by processes com- 

 parable to those which are now forming mud, sand, and 

 shingle ; and then to have gradually lowered their level, 

 leaving the spoils of their animal and vegetable inhabi- 

 tants embedded in the strata. As the dry land appeared, 

 certain of the aquatic animals are supposed to have 

 taken to it, and to have become gradually adapted to 

 terrestrial and aerial modes of existence. But if we 

 regard the general tenor and style of the reasoning in 

 relation to the state of knowledge of the day, two 

 circumstances appear very well worthy of remark. The 

 first, that De Maillet had a notion of the modifiability of 

 living forms (though without any precise information on 

 the subject), and how such modifiability might account 

 for the origin of species ; the second, that he verj 



