RISE OF EVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT 



421 



formal, forcible, and scientific way that Erasmus Darwin did. 

 The result is that the tentative views of Buffon, whi< h have 

 to be with much research extracted from the fort) four vol 

 umes of his works, would now be regarded as in a degra 

 superficial and valueless. Hut they appeared thirty-four 

 years before Lamarck's theory, and though not epoch-making, 



Fig. 117. — Erasmus Darwin, [731 [802, 



they arc such as will render the name of Buffon memorable 

 for all time." (Packard.) 



Erasmus Darwin (Fig. 117) was the greatest of Lamarck's 

 predecessors. In [794 he published the Zoonomia. In this 

 work he staled ten principles; among them he vaguely 

 suggested the transmission of acquired characteristics, the 

 law of sexual selection — or the law of battle, as he called it — 



