EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EVOLUTIONISTS 187 



to arrange all animals and plants in a natural 

 system according to their greater or lesser like- 

 ness to each other. 



Linnaeus took a broad view of the true basis 

 of classification upon general structure and kin- 

 ship, a view which was expanded and developed 

 by Cuvier. As Perrier^ observes in his admirable 

 critique of Linnseus, he adopted the aphorism of 

 Leibnitz, Natura non facit saltum; to him every 

 species was exactly intermediate between two 

 others: "We reckon as many species as issued in 

 pairs from the hands of the Creator." These were 

 his earlier views in all his writings between 1735 

 and 1751, in which the sentence 7iullce specice 

 novce often recurs, expressing his idea of the ab- 

 solute fixity of species from the period of their 

 creation as described in Genesis, the only change 

 being that of the extension in numbers, not of 

 variation in kind. 



Linnseus, however, enriched by collections of 

 animals and plants from many parts of the 

 world, was too close an observer to continue to 

 hold this idea of the absolute fixity of species, 

 and in 1762 we find his interpretation of Nature 

 somewhat altered; this is of particular interest 

 because of the hypothesis which he advanced in 

 somewhat the following terms to explain the 

 origin of new species : 



iLa Philosophie Zoologique avant Darwin, 1886, pp. 34, 35. 



