ioo PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION PART 



Four men form the chief vanguard of the biological 

 movement. ' Modern classificatory method and 

 nomenclature have largely grown out of the work 

 of Linnaeus ; the modern conception of biology, as a 

 science, and of its relation to climatology, geography, 

 and geology, are as largely rooted in the labours of 

 Bufifon ; comparative anatomy and palaeontology owe 

 a vast debt to Cuvier's results ; while invertebrate 

 zoology and the revival of the idea of Evolution are 

 intimately dependent on the results of the work of 

 Lamarck. In other words, the main results of 

 biology up to the early years of this century are to 

 be found in, or spring out of, the works of these 

 men.' 



Linnaeus, son of a Lutheran pastor, born at 

 Roeshult, in Sweden, in 1707, had barely passed his 

 twenty-fifth year before laying the ground-plan of 

 the system of classification which bears his name, a 

 system which advance in knowledge has since modified. 

 Based on external resemblances, its formulation was 

 possible only to a mind intent on minute and accurate 

 detail, and less observant of general principles. In 

 brief, the work of Linnaeus was constructive, not 

 interpretative. Hence, perhaps, conjoined to the theo- 

 logical ideas then current, the reason why the larger 

 question of the fixity or of the mutability of species 

 entered not into his purview. To him each plant and 

 animal retained the impress of the Creative hand that 

 had shaped it ' in the beginning,' and, throughout his 

 working life, he departed but slightly from the plan 

 with which he started, namely, ' reckoning as many 

 species as issued in pairs ' from the Almighty fiat. 



Not so Buffon, born on his father's estate in 



