CHAPTER XIV 



THE VIEWS OF ERASMUS DARWIN 



Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles 

 Darwin, was born in 1731, or twenty-four years after 

 Buffon. He was an English country physician with 

 a large practice, and not only interested in philosophy, 

 mechanics, and natural science, but given to didactic 

 rhyming, as evinced by The Botanical Garden and 

 The Loves of the Plants, the latter of which was 

 translated into French in 1800, and into Italian in 

 1805. His "shrewd and homely mind," his powers 

 of keen observation and strong common sense were 

 revealed in his celebrated work Zoonomia, which was 

 published in two volumes in 1794, and translated 

 into German in 1795-99. He was not a zoologist, 

 published no separate scientific articles, and his strik- 

 ing and original views on evolution, which were so 

 far in advance of his time, appear mostly in the sec- 

 tion on " Generation,"' comprising 173 pages of his 

 Zoonomia, * which was mainly a medical work. The 

 book was widely read, excited much discussion, and 

 his views decided opposition. Samuel Butler in his 

 Evolution, Old and New (1879) remarks: " Paley's 

 Natural Theology is written throughout at the Zoo- 



* Vol. ii., 3d edition. Our references are to this edition. 



