298 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



natural species is a product, then, of atavism 

 and of finality. By finality, Naudin evidently 

 does not imply an internal perfecting tendency 

 in Nature, but rather a continuous controlling 

 principle above the reign of secondary causes. 

 Naudin evidently felt the need of something be- 

 hind natural law in the production of the adap- 

 tations of Nature. 



The following most interesting passage in 

 Naudin's paper, quoted below, is that in which 

 Quatref ages and Varigny believe that this author 

 anticipated the theory of natural selection : 



We do not think that Nature has made her species 

 in a different fashion from that in which we proceed 

 ourselves in order to make our variations. To tell the 

 truth, we have practised her very method. When we 

 wish, out of some zoological or botanical species, to 

 obtain a variety which answers to such or such of our 

 needs, we select (choisissons) out of the large num- 

 ber of the individuals of this species, so as to make 

 them the starting-point of a new stirp, those which 

 seem already to depart from the specific type in the 

 direction which suits us ; and by a rational and con- 

 tinuous sorting of the descendants, after an unde- 

 termined number of generations, we create types or 

 artificial species, which correspond more or less with 

 the ideal type we had imagined, and which transmit 

 the acquired characters to their descendants in pro- 

 portion to the number of generations upon which our 

 efforts have been bearing. Such is, in our opinion, 



