CHAPTER IV. 



EARLIER THEORIES CONNECTED WITH EVOLUTION. 



' : Some say he Lid his angels turn askance 

 The poles of earth, twice ten degrees and more 

 From the sun's axle." 



MILTON, Par. Lost, x. 668-670. 



" He also deprived the serpent of speech, .... and when he had 

 deprived him of the use of his feet, he made him to go rolling all 

 along, and dragging himself upon the ground." 



WHISTON'S Joscphus, Jewish Antiquities, ch. i. 



FOR many centuries the science of Natural 

 History made very little progress, and consisted 

 of an assemblage of unconnected facts and de- 

 scriptions, mixed with fables. At length in the 

 middle of the last century, Linne laid the 

 foundation of systematic Natural History, and 

 thus rendered possible its study as a progressive 

 branch of science. The great object which the 

 earlier naturalists proposed to themselves, was 

 the discovery of the true System of Nature. It 

 was thought that organic life formed an un- 

 broken chain, and that the ignorance of even 

 one link would prevent our being able to form 



