174 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



early part of the nineteenth centuries between 

 the ^evolutionist' and 'epigenetic' school of em- 

 bryonic development, as absorbing an immense 

 amount of time and energy and diverting the at- 

 tention of naturalists from the greater problem 

 of the genesis of species. 



When we examine Bonnet's 'evolution or ex- 

 pansion of the invisible into visibility' and ab- 

 sence of hereditary generation in the strict sense 

 of the term, we find it difficult to believe that 

 Cuvier, and many other eminent naturalists, 

 were among Bonnet's supporters. Erasmus Dar- 

 win, on the other hand, was among his opponents, 

 and we see in his Zoonomia} the following quaint 

 criticism of Bonnet's extravagant hypothesis: 



Many ingenious philosophers have found so great 

 difficulty in conceiving the manner of the reproduc- 

 tion of animals, that they have supposed all the 

 numerous progeny to have existed in miniature in 

 the animal originally created. . . . This idea, be- 

 sides its being unsupported by any analogy we are 

 acquainted with, ascribes a greater tenuity to or- 

 ganized matter, than we can readily admit; . . . 

 these included embryons . . . must possess a much 

 greater degree of minuteness, than that which was 

 ascribed to the devils that tempted St. Anthony; of 

 whom ^0,000 were said to have been able to dance a 

 saraband on the point of the finest needle without 

 incommoding each other. 



^Zoonomia, vol. 1, xxxix, iii, 1. 



