6 Darwin's Predecessors 



the mutability of species, and he was far ahead of his age in his 

 suggestion of what we now call a Station of Experimental Evolution. 

 Leibnitz discusses in so many words how the species of animals may 

 be changed and how intermediate species may once have linked those 

 that now seem discontinuous. "All natural orders of beings present 

 but a single chain ". . .."AH advances by degrees in Nature, and nothing 

 by leaps." Similar evolutionist statements are to be found in the 

 works of the other " philosophers," to whom Prof. Osborn refers, who 

 were, indeed, more scientific than the naturalists of their day. It 

 must be borne in mind that the general idea of organic evolution — 

 that the present is the child of the past — is in great part just the 

 idea of human history projected upon the natural world, differentiated 

 by the qualification that the continuous "Becoming" has been 

 wrought out by forces inherent in the organisms themselves and 

 in their environment. 



A reference to Kant 1 should come in historical order after Buffon, 

 with whose writings he was acquainted, but he seems, along with 

 Herder and Schelling, to be best regarded as the culmination of the 

 evolutionist philosophers — of those at least who interested themselves 

 in scientific problems. In a famous passage he speaks of " the agree- 

 ment of so many kinds of animals in a certain common plan of 

 structure "...an "analogy of forms" which "strengthens the sup- 

 position that they have an actual blood-relationship, due to derivation 

 from a common parent." He speaks of "the great Family of creatures, 

 for as a Family we must conceive it, if the above-mentioned con- 

 tinuous and connected relationship has a real foundation." Prof. 

 Osborn alludes to the scientific caution which led Kant, biology being 

 what it was, to refuse to entertain the hope " that a Newton may one 

 day arise even to make the production of a blade of grass comprehen- 

 sible, according to natural laws ordained by no intention." As Prof. 

 Haeckel finely observes, Darwin rose up as Kant's Newton 2 . 



The scientific renaissance brought a wealth of fresh impressions 

 and some freedom from the tyranny of tradition, and the twofold 

 stimulus stirred the speculative activity of a great variety of men 

 from old Claude Duret of Moulins, of whose weird transformism 



1 See Brock, "Die Stellung Kant's zur Deszendenztheorie," Biol. Centralbl. vni. 

 1889, pp. 641—648. Fritz Schultze, Kant und Darwin, Jena, 1875. 



2 Mr Alfred Eussel Wallace writes: "We claim for Darwin that he is the Newton of 

 natural history, and that, just so surely as that the discovery and demonstration by 

 Newton of the law of gravitation established order in place of chaos and laid a sure 

 foundation for all future study of the starry heavens, so surely has Darwin, by his discovery 

 of the law of natural selection and his demonstration of the great principle of the preserva- 

 tion of useful variations in the struggle for life, not only thrown a flood of light on the 

 process of development of the whole organic world, but also established a firm foundation 

 for all future study of nature" (Darwinism, London, 1889, p. 9). See also Prof. Karl 

 Pearson's Grammar of Science (2nd edit. ), London, 1900, p. 32. See Osborn, op. cit. p. 100. 



