RISE OF EVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT 413 
formal, forcible, and scientific way that Erasmus Darwin did. 
The result is that the tentative views of Buffon, which have 
to be with much research extracted from the forty-four vol- 
umes of his works, would now be regarded as in a degree 
superficial and valueless. But they appeared thirty-four 
years before Lamarck’s theory, and though not epoch-making, 
Fic. 117.—Erasmus Darwin, 1731-1802. 
they are such as will render the name of Buffon memorable 
for all time.” (Packard.) 
Erasmus Darwin (Fig. 117) was the greatest of Lamarck’s 
predecessors. In 1794 he published the Zodnomia. In this 
work he stated ten principles; among them he vaguely 
suggested the transmission of acquired characteristics, the 
law of sexual selection—or the law of battle, as he called it— 
