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208 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY VI 
“ Protogea,’ xxvi., Leibnitz distinctly suggests the 
mutability of species— | 
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‘* Alii mirantur in saxis passim species videri quas vel in orbe | 
cognito, vel saltem in vicinis locis frustra queras. ‘Ita Cornua — 
Ammonis,’ que ex nautilorum numero habeantur, passim et 
forma et magnitudine (nam et pedali diametro aliquando reperiun- — 
tur) ab omnibus illis naturis discrepare dicunt, quas prebet mare. — 
Sed quis absconditos ejus recessus aut subterraneas abyssos per- 
vestigavit ? quam multa nobis animalia antea ignota offert novus © 
orbis? Et credibile est per magnas illas conversiones etiam 
animalium species plurimum immutatas.” ; 
Thus, in the end of the seventeenth century, 
the seed was sown which has, at intervals, brought 
forth recurrent crops of evolutional hypotheses, 
based, more or less completely, on general 
reasonings. | 
Among the earliest of these speculations is 
that put forward by Benoit de Maillet in his 
“Telliamed,” which, though printed in 1735, was 
not published until twenty-three years later. 
Considering that this book was written before the — 
time of Haller, or Bonnet, or Linnzus, or Hutton, 
it surely deserves more respectful consideration — 
than it usually receives. For De Maillet not only — 
has a definite conception of the plasticity of living — 
things, and of the production of. existing species — 
by the modification of their predecessors; but he 
clearly apprehends the cardinal maxim of modern 
geological science, that the explanation of the 
structure of the globe is to be sought in the 
