262 BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



of his Paligenesia exulting in the triumph of his imagination 

 over facts. 



The theory was essentially anthropocentric, holding all things 

 to have been theologically ordained, with the resurrection and 

 the future life as chief consideration. Man's destiny was as- 

 sured by putting his soul into an ethereal corpuscle, and that 

 was the main thing. But animals develop, move, feel, and show 

 some intelligence. Would not Infinite Benevolence include 

 them in its provisions for man ? And if them, then why not 

 plants, since all organisms seem to form one immense scala 

 coeli. If one round of the celestial ladder can be advanced, 

 the others should follow, that no gaps break the harmonious 

 continuity. 



The thought was pleasing, and reason seemed to demand 

 that the theory should be of universal application. It would 

 not do to set up original creation for one organism, and allow 

 the rest to come by epigenesis. As well leave the whole to 

 epigenesis as the formation of the simplest organic element. 



Although insisting from first to last on the universality of 

 the principle, no generation, Bonnet never claimed to be able 

 to apply his theory satisfactorily to all cases. He frankly 

 acknowledges his inability to do this in the case of microscopic 

 organisms ; but, while confessing to ignorance of the laws of 

 their evolution, he does not surrender them to epigenesis. 



On this point, and in connection with difficulties presented 

 in Hydra, Bonnet remarks as follows : 



" I have repeated more than once that we transfer too con- 

 fidently to the lowest species the ideas of animal existence 

 which we derive from the higher ones. If we reflect more 

 deeply on the immense diversity that prevails in the universe, 

 we shall understand how absurd it is thus to confine nature 

 within the narrow circle of our feeble conceptions. / declare, 

 therefore, that all the foregoing exposition of the various kinds of 

 organic preformations relates chiefly to the species which are best 

 known to us, or on which we have been able to make the most 

 exact and continuous observations. I confess to ignorance of 

 the laws which determine the evolution of that multitude of 

 microscopic beings, of which the best lenses hardly teach us 



