284 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



gradation, but in the preface of his last work — 

 Erscheinungen und Gesetze des Organischen 

 Lehens, which was pubhshed in 1830 — Trevira- 

 nus states that he had reached his conclusions in- 

 dependently of and prior to Lamarck. Even in 

 this case we cannot claim for Treviranus great 

 originahty; for in his conception of Evolution he 

 does not advance very far beyond the standpoint 

 reached by Buffon in his middle period, and he 

 appears to us rather as a very careful student 

 and compiler not only of Buffon but of Leib- 

 nitz, Kant, and Schelling, all of whom suggested 

 more or less clearly the transmutation theory, 

 also of Linnaeus, Harvey, and Blumenbach. He 

 had, moreover, the advantage of the new palae- 

 ontology of Cuvier and of the travels of Hum- 

 boldt. 



His point of approach to Nature is that of 

 the German natural philosophers. He places life 

 upon the chemical and mechanical basis, and in 

 his introduction enters upon the one side a vig- 

 orous protest against the purely speculative work 

 — die Trdume und Visionen — probably having in 

 mind his worthy predecessor Bonnet and others 

 whom I have placed in the speculative group. On 

 the other side, he protests^ against the dry sys- 

 tematic work which Linnaeus had left to pos- 



^Biologie, oder Philosophie der lebenden Natur, 1802, vol. I, pp. 



i-xu. 



