EPOCHS IN BIOLOGICAL HISTORY 407 



accepted the idea of the survival of the fittest to account for 

 adaptations in organisms, he would have been "the literal 

 prophet of Darwinism." 



The thread of continuity in evolutionary thought is not 

 broken from Aristotle to the present, but from the strictly 

 biological viewpoint two Frenchmen, Buffon and Lamarck, 



Fia. 209. Comte de Buffon. 



and two Englishmen, Erasmus Darwin and his grandson, 

 Charles Darwin, stand preeminent. 



BUFFON (1707-1788) was a peculiarly happy combination 

 of entertainer and scientist who found expression in each 

 new volume of his great Natural History. And it was largely, 

 so to speak, between the lines of this work that Buffon's 

 evolutionary ideas were displayed; beyond the reach, he 

 hoped, of the censor and dilettante. It is not strange, there- 

 fore, that it is often difficult to decide just how much weight 

 is to be placed on some of his statements; though certainly 

 it is not exaggerating to ascribe to him not only the recogni- 



