THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 167 



the gradual production of the present physical state of our 

 globe, by natural causes operating through long ages of time, 

 it will be little disposed to allow that living beings have 

 made their appearance in another way, and the speculations 

 of De Maillet and his successors are the natural complement 

 of Scilla's demonstration of the true nature of fossils. 



A contemporary of Newton and of Leibnitz, sharing 

 therefore in the intellectual activity of the remarkable 

 age which witnessed the birth of modern physical science, 

 Benoit de Maillet spent a long life as a consular agent of 

 the French Government in various Mediterranean ports. 

 For sixteen years, in fact, he held the office of Consul- 

 General in Egypt, and the wonderful phenomena offered 

 by the valley of the Nile appear to have strongly impressed 

 his mind, to have directed his attention to all facts of a 

 similar order which came within his observation, and to 

 have led him to speculate on the origin of the present 

 condition of our globe and of its inhabitants. But, with all 

 his ardour for science, De Maillet seems to have hesitated 

 to publish views which, notwithstanding the ingenious 

 attempts to reconcile them with the Hebrew hypothesis 

 contained in the preface to Telliamed, were hardly likely 

 to be received with favour by his contemporaries. 



But a short time had elapsed since more than one of the 

 great anatomists and physicists of the Italian school had 

 paid dearly for their endeavours to dissipate some of the 

 prevalent errors ; and their illustrious pupil, Harvey, the 

 founder of modern physiology, had not fared so well, in 

 a country less oppressed by the benumbing influences of theo- 

 logy, as to tempt any man to follow his example. Probably 

 not uninfluenced by these considerations, his Catholic 

 majesty's Consul-General for Egypt kept his theories to him- 

 self throughout a long life, for Telliamed, the only scientific 

 work which is known to have proceeded from his pen, 

 was not printed till 1735, when its author had reached the 

 ripe age of seventy-nine ; and though De Maillet lived 

 three years longer, his book was not given to the world 

 before 1748. Even then it was anonymous to those who 

 were not in the secret of the anagrammatic character of its 

 title ; and the preface and dedication are so worded as, 

 in case of necessity, to give the printer a f air chance of falling 

 back on the excuse that the work was intended for a mere 

 jeu d'esprit. 



The speculations of the supposititious Indian sage, 



