EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EVOLUTIONISTS 175 



We become more charitable in judging Bonnet 

 as a man of science when we learn that, begin- 

 ning in 1740, while associated with Reaumur in 

 the University of Geneva, he made a series of 

 admirable observations and original discoveries, 

 such as those upon 'parthenogenesis' in the 

 aphides or tree lice, the mode of reproduction in 

 the bryozoa, the respiration of insects, and that 

 it was the unfortunate failure of his eyesight in 

 1754 which turned him from observation to spec- 

 ulation. His speculations were as unsound as his 

 observations had been sound and valuable. 



Bonnet, in 1764, published his Contemplations 

 de la Nature, and in 1770 his Paling enesie Phi- 

 losophique, ou idees sur Vet at passe et sur Vet at 

 futur des etres vivans. The latter work is dedi- 

 cated "to the friends of Truth and of Virtue, 

 who are mine." 



Bonnet found his inspiration in the law of Con- 

 tinuity of Leibnitz,^ and along different lines of 

 reasoning he reached the same conclusion as that 

 of the great German philosopher, that no such 

 thing as generation, in the strict sense of the 

 term, occurs in Nature. Leibnitz' principle of 



1 Bonnet's metaphysical theory is based on two principles bor- 

 rowed from Leibnitz — first, that there are not successive acts of 

 creation, but that the universe is completed by the single original 

 act of the divine will, and thereafter moves on by its own in- 

 herent force; and secondly, that there is no break in the continu- 

 ity of existence. The divine Being originally created a multitude 

 of germs in a graduated scale, each with an inherent power of 

 self-development. — Enc. Brit., vol. 4, p. 211. 



