118 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 
occasion. Cuvier remained the acknowledged victor, and 
since that time very little, or rather nothing, more has been 
done in France to further the development of the Doctrine 
of Filiation, and complete the monistic theory of development. 
This is evidently to be ascribed principally to the repressive 
influence exercised by Cuvier’s great authority. Even at 
the present day the majority of the French naturalists are 
the disciples and blind followers of Cuvier. In no civilized 
country of Europe has Darwin’s doctrine had so little effect 
and been so little understood as in France, so that in the 
further course of our examination we need not take the 
French naturalists into consideration. At most, there are 
two distinguished botanists, among the recent French 
naturalists, whom we may mention as having ventured 
to express themselves in favour of the mutability and 
transformation of species. These two men are Naudin 
(1852) and Lecoq (1854). 
Having discussed the early services of German and 
French nature-philosophy in establishing the doctrine of 
descent, we turn to the third great country of Europe, to 
free England, which during the last ten years has become 
the chief seat and starting-point for the further working out 
and definite establishment of the theory of development. 
Englishmen, who now take such an active part in every 
great scientific progress of humanity, and are the first to 
promote the eternal truths of natural science, at the 
beginning of the century took but little part in the conti-_ 
nental nature-philosophy and its most important progress, 
the Theory of Descent. Almost the only earlier English 
naturalist whom we have here to mention is Erasmus 
Darwin, the grandfather of the reformer of the Theory of 
