HISTORY OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION 7 



over, the natural history of the various races of man 

 was for the first time treated scientifically. Buffon, 

 while at first a believer in the absolute fixity of 

 species, later on was led to suggest that plants and 

 animals may not be bound by fixed and immovable 

 limits of species, but may vary freely, so that one 

 kind may gradually and slowly be evolved by natural 

 causes from the type of another. He points out the 

 fundamental likenesses of type in many animals, 

 underlying the external diversities of character and 

 shape, which strongly suggest the notion of descent 

 from some common ancestor. He goes further than 

 this, and, granting the possibility of modification, sees 

 no reason to fix its limits. He even suggests that 

 from a single primordial being Nature has been able 

 in the course of time to develop the whole con- 

 tinuous series of existing animal and vegetable life. 

 This view is often expressed in a studiously guarded 

 manner, and denied in half-ironical terms a few pages 

 further on. This was the starting-point of the great 

 idea of Evolution, and Buffon's name well deserves a 

 place in its history. Before pursuing the progress of 

 the theory of Evolution we must consider the work 

 and personality of one of the greatest of all zoologists, 

 Cuvier, and of his contemporaries. 



Cuvier, 1 769-1 832, was a man of extraordinary 

 industry and ability, and of commanding power — one 

 of the giants of biological science. He was born in 

 France, of Swiss parentage, and originally intended 

 for the Church. From 1788 to 1794 he was engaged 

 as private tutor to a French family near Caen. At 

 this time he commenced to study the fossil bra- 



