LORD BACON TO CHARLES DARWIN. 61 



Buffon, also, was the first to formulate the law of 

 uniformitarianism which was subsequently devel- 

 oped with such care by Lyell and his school. In 

 his " Theorie da la Terre" he tells us that " in order to 

 understand what had taken place in the past, or 

 what will happen in the future, we have but to ob- 

 serve what is going on at present. 1 



Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck. 



Erasmus Darwin, a contemporary of Buffon's and 

 the grandfather of the famous naturalist, did much 

 to popularize the idea of Evolution. In his " Zoono- 

 mia," " Botanic Garden," and above all in his post- 

 humous " Temple of Nature," he embodies not 

 only the leading evolutionary views of the old Greek 

 philosophers, as well as those of Leibnitz and Buf- 

 fon, but he likewise introduces and developes new 

 ideas of his own. He is truly a poet of Evolution 

 and in his " Temple of Nature "we find selections of 

 verse that for beauty and force of expression compare 

 favorably with the finest lines of the " De Rerum 

 Natura" of the old Roman evolutionist, Lucretius. 



As the founder of the complete modern theory 

 of descent, " Lamarck," justly observes Osgood, " is 

 the most prominent figure between Aristotle and 

 Darwin." He was an accomplished biologist, and a 

 prolific writer on botanical and zoological subjects. 

 He laid special stress on the effects of environment, 

 and of use and disuse in the modification of species. 

 He assumed that acquired characters are inherited, 



1 " Pour juger de ce qui est arrive et meme de ce qui arrivera, 

 nous n'avons qu'a examiner ce qui arrive." 



