176 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



Continuity he expands into th^ idea that all crea- 

 tion forms a continuous chain, echelle des etres, 

 from the mineral up to the top of the animal 

 world. In the present order of life there are no 

 successive acts of creation, as is generally be- 

 lieved by those who attempt to adapt the dis- 

 coveries of palaeontology to the Mosaic account. 

 The universe moves on by its own internal forces, 

 and the whole of organic life was contained pre- 

 formed in the germs of the first beings. Life 

 thus forms a scale of absolutely unbroken indi- 

 viduals; the varieties form links from species to 

 species; the first term of this chain is the atom, 

 the last is the most elevated of cherubim; the 

 chain is not broken by death, for the individual 

 is the bearer of all future germs. Here we find an 

 adumbration of the 'immortality or continuity of 

 the germ-plasm' in relation to the death of the 

 individual. 



Added to this principle of Continuity is an 

 Aristotelian 'internal perfecting principle,' which 

 causes these germs to pass from the mineral to 

 the plant, from the plant to the animal, from the 

 animal to man. In these transformations Bonnet 

 does not seem to have been deterred by his ana- 

 tomical knowledge, nor to have in the least de- 

 gree embodied the ideas of transformism which 

 were at the same period being advanced by Buf- 

 fon; he believes that the appearance of higher 



