EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EVOLUTIONISTS 177 



forms is simply the unfolding of pre-existing 

 germs, and not due to evolution by modification, 

 nor to the appearance of new lower forms by 

 abiogenesis. 



Why does not Evolution produce animals 

 wholly unfit for their environment? This diffi- 

 culty is met by Bonnet's assumption that as the 

 whole future life was predetermined, so is the 

 whole order of the inorganic universe. There can, 

 therefore, be no possibility of an animal or plant 

 appearing out of its proper environment. 



Bonnet belonged to the cataclysmic school, be- 

 lieving that the globe had been the scene of great 

 revolutions, and that the chaos described by 

 Moses was the closing chapter of one of these; 

 thus, the creation described in Genesis may be 

 only a resurrection of animals previously exist- 

 ing. Bonnet formulated his echelle des etres or 

 scale of ascending life in a manner which sug- 

 gests, not the branching system of Lamarck, but 

 the continuous links of a chain in which the 

 higher types are simply connected with the lower 

 in direct continuity. It is the old scale of Aris- 

 totle enlarged and defined by more modern ter- 

 minology. 



Robinet (1735-1820) 



J. B. Rene Bobinet was another of the specu- 

 lative group. In liis two works — De la Nature, 



