EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 285 



with them by the aid of nutrition ; " so that, if these 

 matters could be extracted from the individual (tout), it 

 would, so to speak, become concentrated in a point, and 

 would thus be restored to its primitive condition of a 

 germ ; " just as by extracting from a bone the calcare- 

 ous substance which is the source of its hardness, it is 

 reduced to its primitive state of gristle or membrane." * 

 "Evolution" and "development" are, for Bonnet, 

 synonymous terms ; and since by " evolution " he means 

 simply the expansion of that which was invisible into 

 visibility, he was naturally led to the conclusion, at 

 which Leibnitz had arrived by a different line of reason- 

 ing, that no such thing as generation, in the proper sense 

 of the word, exists in nature. The growth of an organic 

 being is simply a process of enlargement, as a particle 

 of dry gelatine may be swelled up by the intussusception 

 of water ; its death is a shrinkage, such as the swelled 

 jelly might undergo on desiccation. Nothing really new 

 is produced in the living world, but the germs which de- 

 velop have existed since the beginning of things ; and 

 nothing really dies, but, when what we call death takes 

 place, the living thing shrinks back into its germ state.f 



* " Considerations sur les Corps organises," chap. x. 



t Bonnet had the courage of his opinions, and in the " Paling^ne'sie 

 Philosophique," part vi. chap, iv., he develops a hypothesis which he terms 

 " evolution naturelle ; " and which, making allowance for his peculiar views 

 of the nature of generation, bears no small resemblance to what is under- 

 stood by " evolution " at the present day : 



" Si la volont6 divine a ere" e par un seul Acte 1'Universalite' des etres, 

 d'ou venoient ces plantes et ces animaux dont Moyse nous decrit la Produc- 

 tion au troisieme et au cinquierne jour du renouvcllement de notre monde ? 



" Abuserois-je de la Iibert6 de conjectures si je disois, que les Plantes 



