208 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY vi 



" Protogsea," xxvi., Leibnitz distinctly suggests the 

 mutability of species 



* ' Alii mirantur in saxis passim species videri quas vel in orbe 

 cognito, vel saltern in vicinis locis frustra quseras. ' Ita Cornua 

 Ammonis/ quae ex nautilorum numero habeantur, passim et 

 forma et magnitudine (nam et pedali diametro aliquando reperiun- 

 tur) ab omnibus illis naturis discrepare dicunt, quas prsebet mare. 

 Sed quis absconditos ejus recessus aut subterraneas abyssos per- 

 vestigavit ? quam multa nobis animalia antea ignota offert novus 

 orbis? Et credibile est per magnas illas conversiones etiam 

 animalium species plurimum immutatas." 



Thus, in the end of the seventeenth century, 

 the seed was sown which has, at intervals, brought 

 forth recurrent crops of evolutional hypotheses, 

 based, more or less completely, on general 

 reasonings. 



Among the earliest of these speculations is 

 that put forward by Benoit de Maillet in his 

 " Telliamed," which, though printed in 1735, was 

 not published until twenty-three years later. 

 Considering that this book was written before the 

 time of Haller, or Bonnet, or Linnaeus, or Hutton, 

 it surely deserves more respectful consideration 

 than it usually receives. For De Maillet not only 

 has a definite conception of the plasticity of living 

 things, and of the production of existing species 

 by the modification of their predecessors ; but he 

 clearly apprehends the cardinal maxim of modern 

 geological science, that the explanation of the 

 structure of the globe is to be sought in the 



