98 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS. 



generated into opinions and theories. They are 

 the minor features of the environment of the Evolu- 

 tion idea. The final and the fullest expression of 

 Evolution in philosophical literature is found in 

 Kant. 



EMMANUEL KANT (1724-1804) was born sixteen 

 years after Buffon and Linnaeus, and therefore 

 thought and wrote after natural history had made 

 very great advances. The ideas of Selection, Adap- 

 tation, Environment, and Inheritance, which are 

 attributed to him as original by Haeckel, are also 

 found in the works of Buffon. Buffon's most ex- 

 treme views were expressed between 1 760-70, while 

 Kant's extreme views were expressed between 1757 

 and 1771. 



We owe to Schultze a very full exposition of all 

 the passages in the writings of the great Konigsberg 

 philosopher which bear upon the Evolution theory. 

 In his earlier years (1755), Kant published a work 

 entitled The General History of Nature and Theory 

 of the Heavens, embracing an attempt to reconcile 

 Newton and Leibnitz, or Nature from the mechan- 

 ical and teleological standpoints. At this time he 

 was attracted by the mechanism of Lucretius. 

 Haeckel points out, that in this work Kant took a 

 very advanced position as to the domain of natural 

 causation, or, as Haeckel terms it, ' mechanism in 

 the domain of life,' while in his later work (1790), 

 his criticism of The Teleological Faculty of Judg- 

 ment, he took a much more conservative position. 



