DIVERGENCE 257 



of the whole by the almighty fire. What a magnificent 

 idea of the infinite power of The Great Architect! The 

 Cause of causes. Parent of parents. Ens entium!" 



"De Maillet, writing in 1753, appears to have been 

 convinced that existing species of animals arose through 

 modification of their predecessors. At the beginning of 

 the nineteenth century similar speculations were pub- 

 lished by Goethe and by Treviranus, the latter having 

 been the first to apply the term ' Biology ' to the science 

 of the phenomena of life." 



Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), an English physician 

 and naturalist, wrote upon evolution, embodying his 

 ideas in two chief works, "The Botanic Garden" (1789), 

 and "Zoonomia" (1794-6). He believed that "all 

 animals have originated from a single 'living filament'; 

 that changes are produced by differences of climate; 

 that all animals undergo constant changes, and that 

 many of their acquirements are transmitted to their 

 posterity; that the contests of the males for the possession 

 of the females lead to such results as have since been 

 stated under the name of ' sexual selection' ; that many 

 structures have been acquired as a means of security in 

 a struggle for existence; and that a vast length of time 

 has elapsed since these modifications began." 



Following Buff on, who was his personal friend and 

 greatly influenced him, came the first of the modern 

 evolutionists, Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet 

 de Lamarck (1744-1829), well-educated, a capable and 

 versatile naturalist, well versed in botany and zoology. 

 He greatly improved the classification of animals, being 

 the first to separate vertebrates and invertebrates and 

 introduced many new orders into the classification. He 

 was the first important invertebrate paleontologist, and 

 may be credited with having founded that department 

 of science. It was as a paleontologist that he was brought 

 into opposition with Cuvier (1769-1832) who believed 

 in the sudden creation and extinction of species. La- 

 marck believed that the fossil forms of life were the 



