304 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



had little or no direct connection with the main 

 development of the evolution idea; they were 

 not put forth as part of a general system, and 

 exerted no influence upon either Darwin or Wal- 

 lace, with whom the direct observation of Na- 

 ture was the potent force. In Darwin's own 

 library, now conserved in Cambridge University, 

 the idea of the fixity of species reigned supreme, 

 especially in his personal copy of Cuvier's works, 

 to which Judd^ refers as follows : 



Among the books in Darwin's library ... is a 

 copy of the fifth edition of the translation of Cuvier's 

 "Essay," bearing the date of 1827, and I think there 

 can be no doubt that this book was one of those con- 

 stituting the little library of reference in the chart- 

 room of the Beagle, where Darwin worked and slept. 

 Nor can there be any hesitation in concluding that 

 with the contents of this book he would be thoroughly 

 familiar. 



. . . The views of Cuvier at that date were re- 

 garded as not less authoritative in geology than they 

 were in zoology, and in the introduction to his mag- 

 num opus, the "Ossemens fossiles," the opinions of 

 the great comparative anatomist were pronounced 

 with no uncertain note. He contended that each geo- 

 logical period must have been brought to a close 

 through the sweeping out of existence, by a great 

 cataclysm, of all plant- and animal-life, this being 

 followed by the creation of a perfectly new assem- 



iJohn W. Judd: Charles Darwin's Earliest Doubts Concerning 

 the Immutability of Species. Nature, November 2, 1911. 



