300 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 



" Naturae leges et regulse, secundura quas omnia fiunt et ex urns 

 formis in alias mutantur, sunt ubique et semper eadem." * 



Leibnitz's doctrine of continuity necessarily led him 

 in the same direction ; and, of the infinite multitude of 

 monads with which he peopled the world, each is sup- 

 posed to be the focus of an endless process of evolution 

 and involution. In the " Protogaea," xxvi., Leibnitz 

 distinctly suggests the mutability of species 



" Alii mirantur in saxis passim species videri quas vel in orbe 

 cognito, vel saltern in vicinis locis frustra quaeras. Ita * Cornua 

 Ammonis,' quse ex nautilorum numero habeantur, passim et forma 

 et magnitudine (nam et pedali diametro aliquando reperiuntur) ab 

 omnibus illis naturis discrepare dicunt, quas prsebet mare. Sed quis 

 absconditos ejus recessus aut subterraneas abyssos pervestigavit ? 

 quam multa nobis animalia antea ignota offert novns orbis? Et 

 credibile est per magnas illas conversiones etiam aniinalium species 

 plurimum immutatas." 



Thus, in the end of the seventeenth century, the seed 

 was sown which has, at intervals, brought forth recur- 

 rent crops of evolutional hypotheses, based, more or less 

 completely, on general reasonings. 



Among the earliest of these speculations is that put 

 forward by Benoit de Maillet in his " Telliamed," which, 

 though printed in 1735, was not published until twenty- 

 three years later. Considering that this book was writ- 

 ten before the time of Haller, or Bonnet, or Linnaeus, 

 or Hutton, it surely deserves more respectful considera- 

 tion that it usually receives. For De Maillet not only 

 has a definite conception of the plasticity of living 

 things, and of the production of existing species by the 



* " Ethics," Pars tertia, Trgefatio. 



