BONNET'S THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 22J 



"They [the principles] will always rest on the importance 

 of the preexistence of the germ to fecundation. I admit, then, 

 that if the falsity of this observation should ever be demonstrated, 

 the edifice I have attempted to erect on that basis, would be as 

 ruinous as those I have undertaken to destroy. Such is the natural 

 fate which threatens analytical works ; if we can but destroy 

 the fundamental principle, and detach the main link from the 

 chain, the whole work will be little more than a series of propo- 

 sitions which are more or less erroneous, and it can be looked 

 upon in no other light than as a mere romance. 1 



That " the preexistence of the germ to fecundation" meant to 

 Bonnet the preexistence of a completely formed organism, and 

 hence the denial of generation, is expressly stated in a previous 

 paragraph. " Mais si le germe preexiste a la fecondation, s'il 

 n'est pas engendre' ; si des parties qui ne paraissaient point du 

 tout exister existaient reellement, n'est-il pas fort probable que 

 1'organe de la voix du mulet n'est pas engendre non plus ? " 

 (ffid.,?. 57.) 



Such is the burden of the argument throughout. Indeed, no 

 one doubts that Bonnet began with a preformation so complete 

 as to exclude generation, and that this idea was the center 

 around which the whole of his philosophy at first revolved. 

 Did he ever abandon the idea, or modify it in such a way as to 

 nullify the original distinction between his doctrine and 

 epigenesis ? Did he knowingly, or by any inadvertence, ever 

 once drop the bars to epigenesis ? If he did, then there may 

 be some truth in the current opinion that the new evolution is 

 a revival of the old idea as it was finally left by Bonnet. If he 

 did not, either directly or by implication, then there can be no 

 foundation for such an opinion. I believe this opinion is erro- 

 neous, and that it leads to confusion that is wholly mischievous. 

 I find myself thus in conflict with a number of recent writers, 

 and among them a no less revered authority than Professor 

 Huxley. 



What Professor Huxley has said on this point must be care- 



1 Preface to his Contemplation of Nature (1764); finally published as Tableau 

 des Considerations, as an introduction to the Palingenesie Philosophique, Art. 

 XII, p. 62 (1783). 



