RISE OF EVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT 



413 



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

 The result is that the tentative views of Buffon, which have 

 to be with much research extracted from the fortv-four \oI- 

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

 superficial and valueless. But they appeared thirtv-four 

 years before Lamarck's theory, and though not e])Och-making, 



Fig. 117. — Erasmus Darwin, i 731-1802. 



they are 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 1794 he published the Zoonomia. Li this 

 work he stated ten ])rinciplcs; among them lie vaguely 

 suggested the transmission of acquired characteristics, the 

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



