140 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



by Charles Darwin. Krause has selected from the 

 Temple of Nature many verses showing Dr. Dar- 

 win's views of Evolution, and opening with his 

 belief in the Greek doctrine of the spontaneous 

 origin of life, which we have seen revived during 

 the eighteenth century in so many extravagant 

 forms, but which Dr. Darwin restricts to the lowest 

 organisms : 



" Hence without parents, by spontaneous birth, 

 Rise the first specks of animated earth. 



Organic life beneath the shoreless waves 

 Was born and nurs'd in ocean's pearly caves ; 

 First, forms minute, unseen by spheric glass, 

 Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass ; 

 These, as successive generations bloom, 

 New powers acquire and larger limbs assume ; 

 Whence countless groups of vegetation spring, 

 And breathing realms of fin and feet and wing." 



Then, in the transition from sea to dry land, 

 came the amphibious, and finally the terrestrial 

 forms of life. Gradually new powers are acquired. 

 In these metamorphoses, Dr. Darwin does not re- 

 vive the fancies of such writers as De Maillet, but 

 illustrates his views by changes such as those seen 

 in the development from the tadpole to the frog. 

 Passing on, he speaks of cross-fertilization, and 

 finally reaches the origin of Man. We here find 

 a very interesting section. Dr. Darwin quotes 

 Buffon and Helvetius to the effect that many fea- 



