DUBLIN NiTtJRAX HlSiTOET SOCIETT. 133 



The moderns have resolved, by their speculations on the past, to 

 show that in ingenuity and oddness of conceit, and, probably, also in 

 wideness from the truth, they are in no respect inferior to the ancients. 

 The future being shut out from us, we are resolved to try what we can 

 effect, in proof of our versatility of imagination, by guessing at the his- 

 tory of the past. 



To establish a character for subtlety and skill, in dravring large 

 conclusions on this subject from slender premises, the first requisite is, 

 ignorance of what other speculators have attempted before us in the 

 same field; and the second is, a firm confidence in our own special 

 theory. Neither of these requisites can be considered wanting in those 

 who are engaged in the task of reproducing Lamarck's theory of orga- 

 nic life, either as altogether new, or with but a tattered and threadbare 

 cloak, thrown over its original nakedness. 



The sciences of geology and political economy are mainly answer- 

 able for the revival of these exploded and forgotten fancies : — geology, 

 in supplying the lost historj'- of organic life, which could never be stu- 

 died profoundly from the creatures living at any given time ; and poli- 

 tical economy, in fm-nishing, from its mean and sordid motives, a 

 Malthusian force, supposed to be sufficient to supply the wants of pre- 

 vious theories. 



One of the earliest speculators on the origin of the diversified forms 

 of life we see around us, and class as varieties, species, and genera, was 

 Buffon, who published in 1766* his theory of the derivation of all 

 mammal forms by degradation, from fifteen primary and perfect types, 

 and nine special or isolated species. 



This theory of jSi'o^/eveai^ by degradation, although now superseded 

 by the theory of progression, has much to be said in its favour, and 

 derives additional importance from the facts of the history of life made 

 known since Buffon' s time, by the science of geology ; the principal of 

 these ^additional facts are, the degradation of fishes from their first in- 

 troduction in the Old Red Sandstone period to the present day ; the cor- 

 responding degradation of the Cephalopods, and, though in a somewhat 

 less degree, of the Reptiles. 



Some of the classes given by Buffon are as old as the time of Moses, 

 who defines with accuracy the class Ruminantia, distinguishing it from 

 the Pachydermata and Rodentia, in his classification of "clean" and 

 " unclean" beasts.f 



Whatever may be thought by the more enlightened moderns of the 

 merits of this classification of mammals, Buffon certainly agrees with 

 them in one respect : he takes the non-reality of species as the starting- 

 point of his theory, and, by a continued degradation downwards, deve- 

 lops all the varieties of life we see on the surface of the globe. 



To those who love to dwell upon the past, this theory of degradation 

 will afford solace and consolation in the troubles of the present, as they 



* " Histoire Naturelle," torn. xiv. f Leviticus, xi. 2-8. 



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