ERASMUS DARWIN. 



139 



idea of Evolution. He expressly says that the re- 

 lations of species furnish a problem beyond our 

 reach : — 



" Nous ne pourrions nous prononcer plus affirmativement si les 

 limites qui s^parent les especes, ou la chaine qui les unit, nous 

 ^taient mieux connues ; mais qui peut avoir suivi la grande filia- 

 tion de toutes les genealogies dans la nature ? II faut etre ne avec 

 elle et avoir pour ainsi dire, des observations contemporaines." 



Buffon thus left untouched many problems for 

 his successors, Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and 

 Goethe. 



Erasmus Darwin (i 731-1802), grandfather of 

 the orreat naturalist, is one of the most interestinsf 

 figures in our present history. In his volumes of 

 verse we find that he is one of the poets of the Evo- 

 lution idea, following Empedocles and Lucretius, 

 and followed by the greater poet Goethe. In the 

 Temple of Nahire, published after his death, in the 

 year 1S02 memorable for coincidences, he gives in 

 poetical form the ideas which had matured during 

 the last ten years of his life. His earlier writings 

 were the Botanic Garden and Loves of the Plants, 

 two volumes of verse completed and published 

 about 17S8, and his Zoonomia, a large medico- 

 philosophical work published in 1794. 



We owe to Dr. Ernst Krause a careful study of 

 the works of Erasmus Darwin, originally published 

 in Kosmos, and subsequently republished in Eng- 

 lish, with a biography of Erasmus Darwin written 



