ANTICIPATION AND INTERPRETATION 21 



both poetry and prose, beginning with the poems 

 of H. More in 1647. This of course was not in 

 its modern scientific sense, although in many 

 instances its use closely approaches its mod- 

 ern significance; for example, in 1677 Hale 

 wrote :^ 



It must have potentially at least the whole Sys- 

 teme of Humane Nature, or at least that Ideal Prin- 

 ciple . . . thereof, in the evolution whereof the com- 

 plement and formation of the Humane Nature must 

 consist. 



In 1791 Erasmus Darwin used^ the word in 

 Bonnet's (1762) embryological sense in speak- 

 ing of "the gradual evolution of the young ani- 

 mal or plant from its egg or seed." He also 

 thought it possible^ that the world may have been 

 evolved, not created. 



An early use of the word in its application to 

 the origination of animals and plants by a process 

 of development from earlier forms rather than 

 by a process of 'special creation* was made by 

 Charles Lyell in 1832, paraphrasing Lamarck:* 



The testacea of the ocean existed first, until some 

 of them by gradual evolution were improved into 

 those inhabiting the land. 



^Prim. Oriff. Man, iii. ii. 259. Loc. cit. 

 ^Botanic Garden^ ii. 8 note. Loc. cit. 

 3See p. 218. 

 ^Principles of Geology, 1830, vol. II, p. 11. 



