HO PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



seen in his submission to the Sorbonne, he was not 

 of the stuff of which martyrs are made. Perhaps he 

 felt that the ultimate victory of his opinions was suf- 

 ficiently assured to make self-sacrifice needless. But, 

 under cover of pretence at inquiry, his convictions 

 are clear enough. He was no believer in the perma- 

 nent stability of species, and noted, as warrant of 

 this, the otherwise unexplained presence of aborted 

 or rudimentary structures. For example, he says, 

 " the pig does not appear to have been formed upon 

 an original, special, and perfect plan, since it is a 

 compound of other animals; it has evidently useless 

 parts, or rather, parts of which it cannot make any 

 use, toes, all the bones of which are perfectly formed, 

 and which, nevertheless, are of no service to it. Na- 

 ture is far from subjecting herself to final causes in 

 the formation of her creatures." Then, further, as 

 showing his convictions on the non-fixity of species, 

 he says, how many of them, " being perfected or de- 

 generated by the great changes in land and sea, by 

 the favours or disfavours of Nature, by food, by the 

 prolonged influences of climate, contrary or favour- 

 able, are no longer what they formerly were." But 

 he writes with an eye on the Sorbonne when, hinting 

 at a possible common ancestor of horse and ass, and 

 of ape and man, he slyly adds that since the Bible 

 teaches the contrary, the thing cannot be. Thus he 

 attacked covertly; by adit, not by direct assault; 

 and to those who read between the lines there was 

 given a key wherewith to unlock the door to the 



