218 The Science of Life. 



the history of the race, but to individual development. 

 Influenced by Leibnitz's law of continuity he held the 

 conception of an "^chelle des etres ", unbroken even 

 by death, and linking all forms of life from the lowest 

 to the highest, a conception in which Prof. Geddes sees 

 a reflection of ecclesiastical hierarchy, and Prof. Osborn 

 an adumbration of the immortality or continuity of the 

 germ-plasm. As to the unrolling of the chain throughout 

 the ages, Bonnet believed, like Aristotle, in an internal 

 perfecting principle, and saw in adaptation simply the 

 realization of a predetermined harmony. 



J. B. Ren Robinet (1735-1820) was also under the 

 influence of Leibnitz, and supposed a continuous chain 

 of being from stone to man. But he had not even the 

 root-idea of evolution, for the various links of the chain 

 were regarded not as a genetic series, but as the direct 

 products of germs with which nature was supposed to 

 experiment in her continual efforts after greater per- 

 fection. 



Lorenz Oken (1776-1851) was a follower of Schelling, 

 and therefore careless as to the inductive method on 

 which the substantiation of science must always rest. 

 If we collect his best passages a case may with some 

 difficulty be made out for regarding him as a pioneer of 

 modern biology ; if we attend to his absurdities we are 

 forced to regard him as a fatuous follower of intellectual 

 will-o'-the-wisps. He found the hypothetical origin of 

 organisms in a primitive slime (Ur-Schleim] which had 

 its cradle on the shores, where water, air, and earth are 

 joined, but we can hardly see in this a prevision of the 

 theory that the littoral fauna is the most primitive. The 

 Ur-Schleim took the form of microscopic vesicles, or 

 Infusoria, each a spherical aggregate of an almost 

 infinite number of mucous points, and from agglomera- 

 tions of these vesicles the bodies of plants and animals 

 were formed a view in which Prof. Hyatt, for instance, 

 sees a prevision of the cell-doctrine. Another doctrine 

 which may be traced back to Oken is that of Recapitu- 

 lation, a fact which modern critics of the theory -would 

 probably note as establishing a further prejudice 

 against it. 



