[04 THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT. 



VI. 



Natural Philosophy — Goethe — Predestined Transformation according to 

 Richard Owen— Lamark. 



We have hitherto confined ourselves essentially to the 

 contemplation of the phenomena of the animal world as 

 facts, avoiding as far as possible any examination of the 

 correlation of these facts, or any criticism of the attempts 

 to explain them. It was nevertheless necessary to single 

 out from the history of our science some few impulses of 

 which the after-effects extend to the present time, and 

 of which a knowledge is conducive to the comprehension 

 of prevailing views, tendencies, and prejudices. For this 

 reason we again revert to the evolutionary history of 

 Biology and Comparative Anatomy, that we may trace 

 the present currents to their sources. Since the middle 

 of last century, there has been no lack of leading ideas 

 in the organic natural sciences, such, for instance, as are 

 contained in BufTon's magnificent project of a picture of 

 the world. But if it is a question of a single compre- 

 hensive solution of the organic world, we are at once 

 reminded of the claims preferred by Natural Philo- 

 sophy in the first decades of this century, to explain the 

 universe ; to derive from the whole, not only matter 

 in the abstract, but the being and origin of organic 

 bodies. When the Philosophy of Identity began to 



