The Transmutation Theory Before Darwin. 17 



views on the origin of species attracted general attention. 

 The chief of those who joined him in championing the 

 common origin of all living form was Geoffroy Saint- 

 HiLAiRE. Their point of view was a purely philosoph- 

 ical one and rested on the principles of natural science 

 current at that time, which sought to account for all 

 natural phenomena without the aid of supernatural causes. 



Their followers however entered an entirely different 

 field. They abandoned for the time the investigation 

 of the phylogenetic relationship of all living forms and 

 sought to discover the causes of the relationships of 

 smaller groups. 



They adhered almost always to the Biblical concep- 

 tion of creation, and sought to determine which units 

 were created in the beginning. Some investigators re- 

 garded the genera as creations, others the species of 

 Linnaeus, and a third group the so-called ''subspecies" 

 which would be much better termed elementary species. 



There can be distinguished among Darwin's prede- 

 cessors and contemporaries four different lines of thought 

 characterized by their different attitudes to Darwin's 

 theory of descent. 



1. The philosophical contemplation of nature by La- 

 marck and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. 



2. The rest of the Transmutationists who regarded 

 the genera as created and the species and subspecies 

 as derived from these. 



3. The adherents of the Linnean species, who held 

 that these were created. 



4. The so-called school of Jordan who declared that 



rne. The plant is not on the market. It is not unreasonable to be- 

 lieve that the appearance of the first ancestor of the whole systematic 

 division of the Sympetalae occurred in geological time in the same 

 way as sympetaly has arisen here as a variety. 



