TWELFTH LECTURE. 



THE PALINGENESIAi AND THE GERM DOCTRINE 



OF BONNET. 



C. O. WHITMAN. 



"Toutes les pieces de Tunivers sont done contemporaines. La Volenti Efficace a realise par un 

 seul acte tout ce qui pouvait I'etre. EUe ne cr^e plus ; mais Elle conserve, et cette conservation 

 sera, si Ton veut, une Creation continude." — Palinghiisie, Part VI, Chap. II, p. i8i. 



If our examination of the principles and general bearings of 

 the doctrine of preformation has been successful, we have the 

 key to Bonnet's whole philosophy, and are so far prepared to 

 deal intelligently with his definitions of germs and his ideas of 

 "natural evolution," or ^^ Palingenesie,'' as he called it. We 

 have fulfilled just that condition upon which Bonnet himself 

 insisted, when he requested the reader of his Palingenhie 

 Philosophiqiie'^ to accord him the favor of reserving judg- 

 ment until after having read the work and " reflected a little 

 upon the nature of the principles, their logical dependence, the 

 consequences of those principles, and the harmony of the whole." 



It might look like a waste of time to examine further a sys- 

 tem of ideas dominated throughout by the dogma of creation, 

 or preformation ; but we are not dealing with the system as an 

 isolated thing, for its own sake alone. It appeals to our in- 



1 ndXti'^ again, repeated, and v^vetrt; =; birth, generation. As defined by 

 Haeckel, palingenesis signifies original development in distinction from cenogenesis, 

 modified development. Palingenesia, as used by Bonnet, does not mean actual 

 re-creatioji, but re7iaissance, resurrection, or " statural evolutio7i " of organisms pre- 

 existing in the germ state. • 



2 Bonnet speaks of this work as " a sort of supplement " to three earlier works: 

 (i) " L'Essai Analytique sur les Facultes de I'Ame " (1760), (2) "Les Conside- 

 rations sur les Corps Organises " (1762), and (3) " La Contemplation de la Nature " 

 (1764-65). 



