38 INTRODUCTION 



he says, ' that I have good reasons for believing that all 

 the different classes of beings, the totality of which forms 

 the universe, are, in the ideas of God, who knows 

 distinctly their essential gradations, merely like so many 

 ordinates of one and the same curve, the relations of 

 which do not allow of others being put between any two 

 of them, because that would indicate disorder and imper- 

 fection. Accordingly men are linked with animals, these 

 with plants, and these again with fossils, which in their 

 turn are connected with those bodies which sense and 

 imagination represent to us as completely dead and inor- 

 ganic [informes]. But the law of continuity requires that, 

 when the essential determinations of any being approximate to 

 those of another, all the properties of the former must gradually 

 approximate to those of the latter. Therefore all the orders 

 of natural beings must necessarily form only one chain, 

 in which the different classes, like so many links, are so 

 closely connected with one -another that it is impossible 

 for sense or imagination to determine exactly the point 

 where any one of -them begins or ends ; all the species 

 which border upon or which occupy, so to speak, dis- 

 putable territory [regions d" inflexion et de rebroussement '] 

 being necessarily ambiguous and endowed with charac- 

 teristics which may equally be ascribed to neighbouring 

 species. Thus, for instance, the existence of zoophytes, 

 or, as Buddeus 2 calls them, Plant- animals, does not imply 

 monstrosity, but it is indeed agreeable to the order of 

 nature that they should exist. And so strongly do I hold 



The Academy of Berlin declared this letter to be spurious ; but 

 there seems no good reason to doubt its genuineness. All they 

 proved was that the letter had not been addressed to the person to 

 whom it was said to have been addressed. See also Introduction, 

 Part iii, p. 83 note, and New Essays, Introduction, p. 376. Cf. Locke, 

 Essay, bk. iiL ch. 6, 12, Eraser's ed., vol. i. p. 67 ; cf. note on 

 p. 380. 



1 Literally, places where the curve or chain turns back upon 

 itself. 



2 Probably Johannes Franciscus Buddaeus (1667-1729), Professor 

 of Philosophy at Halle, and afterwards of Theology at Jena. Ho 

 published many books, mostly on moral philosophy. 



