How I wrote " Evolution," etc. 29 



absolute immutability of species," ^ unless, indeed, we 

 suppose he has been content to follow that very unsatis- 

 factory writer, Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire (who falls into 

 this error, and says that Buffon's first volume on animals 

 appeared 1753), without verifying him, and without 

 making any reference to him. 



Professor Huxley quotes a passage from the " Palin- 

 genesie Philosophique " of Bonnet, of which he says that, 

 making allowance for his peculiar views on the subject of 

 generation, they bear no small resemblance to what is 

 understood by " evolution " at the present day. The most 

 important parts of the passage quoted are as follows : — 



" Should I be going too far if I were to conjecture that 

 the plants and animals of the present day have arisen by a 

 sort of natural evolution from the organised beings which 

 peopled the world in its original state as it left the hands of 

 the Creator ? ... In the outset organised beings were 

 probably very different from what they are now — as different 

 as the original world is from our present one. We have no 

 means of estimating the amount of these differences, but it 

 is possible that even our ablest naturalist, if transplanted to 

 the original world, would entirely fail to recognise our plants 

 and animals therein."^ 



But this is feeble in comparison with Buffon, and did 

 not appear till 1769, when Buffon had been writing on 

 evolution for fully twenty 3'ears with the ej^es of scientific 

 Europe upon him. Whatever concession to the opinion of 

 Buffon Bonnet may have been inclined to make in 1769, in 

 1764, when he published his " Contemplation de la Nature," 

 and in 1762 when his " Considerations sur les Corps 

 Organises " appeared, he cannot be considered to have 

 been a supporter of evolution. I went through these works 

 in 1878 when I was writing " Evolution, Old and New," 

 to see whether I could claim him as on my side ; but 



1 Encycl. Brit., 9th cd., art. " Evolution," p. 748. 



^ Palingenesie Philosophique, part x. chap. ii. (quoted from 

 Professor Huxley's article on " Evolution," Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., 

 P-745)- 



