Die Idee der Metamorphose ist eine hochst ehrwiirdige, 

 aber zugleich hochst gefahrliche Gabe von oben. Die fiihrt 

 ins Formlose, zerstort das Wissen, lost es auf. — Goethe. 



These speculative views [Lamarck's] had already been, 

 in a great degree, anticipated by Delametherie [de Maillet] 

 in his Telliamedf and by several modern writers, so that 

 the tables were completely turned on the philosophers of 

 antiquity, with whom it was a received maxim, that created 

 things were always most perfect when they came first from 

 the hands of their Maker, and that there was a tendency to 

 progressive deterioration in sublunary things when left to 

 themselves — 



omnia fatis 



In pejus ruere, ac retro sublapsa referri. 



So deeply was the faith of the ancient schools of phi- 

 losophy imbued with this doctrine, that to check this uni- 

 versal proneness to degeneracy, nothing less than the re- 

 intervention of the Deity was thought adequate ; and it was 

 held, that thereby the order, excellence, and pristine energy 

 of the moral and physical world had been repeatedly re- 

 stored. — Lyell. 



