io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



at work on natural history who might have contributed much to- 

 ward an answer to this question ; this man was Buffon. His pow- 

 ers of research and thought were remarkable and his gift in pre- 

 senting results of research and thought showed genius. He had 

 caught the idea of an evolution in Nature and was likely to make 

 a great advance with it ; but he, too, was made to feel the power 

 of theology. 



While he gave pleasing descriptions of animals the Church pet- 

 ted him, but when he began to deduce truths of philosophical im- 

 port the batteries of the Sorbonne were opened upon him ; he was 

 made to know that " the sacred deposit of truth committed to the 

 Church " was, that " in the beginning God made the heavens and 

 the earth " ; and that " all things were made at the beginning of 

 the world." For his simple statement of truths in natural science 

 which are to-day truisms, he was dragged forth by the theological 

 faculty, forced to recant publicly, and to print his recantation. In 

 this he announced, " I abandon everything in my book respecting 

 the formation of the earth, and generally all which may be con- 

 trary to the narrative of Moses." * 



But all this triumph of the Chaldaeo-Babylonian creation 

 legends which the Church had inherited availed but little. 



About the end of the eighteenth century fruitful suggestions 

 and even clear presentations of this or that part of a large evolu- 

 tionary doctrine came thick and fast, and from the most divergent 

 quarters. Especially remarkable were those which came from 

 Erasmus Darwin in England, from Maupertuis in France, from 

 Oken in Switzerland, and, most brilliantly of all, from Goethe in 

 Germany. 



Two men among these thinkers must be especially mentioned 

 Treviranus in Germany and Lamarck in France; each independ- 

 ently of the other drew the world more completely than ever be- 

 fore in this direction. 



From Treviranus came, in 1802, his work on biology, and in 

 this he gave forth the idea that from forms of life originally sim- 

 ple had arisen all higher organizations by gradual development ; 



* For Descartes in his relation to the Copernican theory, see Saisset, Descartes et ses 

 Precurseurs; also Fouillee, Descartes, Paris, 1893, chaps, ii and iii ; also other authorities 

 cited in my chapter on Astronomy ; for his relation to the theory of evolution, see the Prin- 

 cipes de Philosophic, 3eme partie, 45. For De Maillet, see Quatrefages, Darwin et ses 

 Precurseurs fran9ais, chap, i, citing D'Archiac, Paleontologie, Stratigraphie, vol. i ; also, 

 Perrier, La Philosophic zoologique avant Darwin, chap, vi ; also the admirable article, Evo- 

 lution, by Huxley, in Encyc. Britan. The title of De Maillet's book is, Telliamed, ou Entre- 

 tiens d'un Philosophe indien avec un Missionnaire fran9ais sur la Diminution de la Mer, 1748 

 and 1756. For Buffon, see the authorities previously given, also the chapter on Geology in 

 this work. For the resistance of both Catholic and Protestant authorities to the Linnaean 

 system and ideas, see Alberg, Life of Linnaeus, London, 1888, pp. 143-147, and 237. 



