BONNET'S THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 239 



monsters. Although finally forced to admit that sex-digitism 

 could be transmitted by either sex (p. 536), Bonnet maintained 

 his position as firmly as ever, only hesitating to pronounce de- 

 cisively between the hypothesis of originally monstrous germs 

 and that of accidental causes. On this point he could close his 

 volume with, "fiat lux "; but on the main thesis, all preforma- 

 tion, no generation, he had chained himself irrevocably, and 

 left no possible escape. 



The same incorrigible negation meets us in Haller's dictum : 

 "Nulla adeo est epigenesis" To Bonnet it remained to the 

 end the alpha and omega of philosophy and the sheet-anchor of 

 religious faith. Let one example suffice : 



"A true philosopher," says Bonnet, "would not undertake 

 to explain mechanically the formation of a head, an arm, how- 

 ever simple might be the structure of this head or this arm. 

 In the most simple organic structure there are still so many 

 relations ; these relations are so varied, so direct ; all the parts 

 are so intimately connected, so dependent on one another, so 

 cooperative to the same end, that they could not be conceived 

 of as having been formed one after the other and arranged 

 successively, like the molecules of a salt or a crystal. A sound 

 philosophy has eyes that discover in every organized body the 

 ineffaceable imprint of a work done at a single stroke, and 

 which is the expression of that Adorable Will that said, ' Let 

 organic bodies be, and they were' They were from the be- 

 ginning, and their first appearance is what we very improperly 

 call generation, birth." (Contemplation, Part IX, Chap. I, p. 2.) 



After wrestling with all the perplexing questions presented 

 in Hydra ; after accounting for sex as a means of diversifying 

 the unity of the beau physique, and sexual reproduction as a 

 device for expanding the germ and preserving regularity of 

 specific form ; after reconciling the existence of varieties with 

 the permanence of species ; after contending that a mule is a 

 disguised horse and a hinny a disguised ass, and that the 

 sterility of hybrids is to be regarded as fertility kept dormant 

 by lack of adequate means to unfold ; after reducing all hered- 

 ity to likeness of original, contemporaneous, and independent 

 creations, unfolding under similar conditions ; after elaborating 



