Erasmus Darwin 7 
(1609) Dr Henry de Varigny! gives us a glimpse, to Lorenz Oken 
(1779—1851) whose writings are such mixtures of sense and nonsense 
that some regard him as a far-seeing prophet and others as a fatuous 
follower of intellectual will-o’-the-wisps. Similarly, for De Maillet, 
Maupertuis, Diderot, Bonnet, and others, we must agree with Pro- 
fessor Osborn that they were not actually in the main Evolution 
movement. Some have been included in the roll of honour on very 
slender evidence, Robinet for instance, whose evolutionism seems to us 
extremely dubious’. 
The first naturalist to give a broad and concrete expression to 
the evolutionist doctrine of descent was Buffon (1707—1788), but it is 
interesting to recall the fact that his contemporary Linnzus (1707— 
1778), protagonist of the counter-doctrine of the fixity of species’, 
went the length of admitting (in 1762) that new species might 
arise by intercrossing. Buffon’s position among the pioneers of the 
evolution-doctrine is weakened by his habit of vacillating between 
his own conclusions and the orthodoxy of the Sorbonne, but there is 
no doubt that he had a firm grasp of the general idea of “1’enchaine- 
ment des étres.” 
Erasmus Darwin (1731—1802), probably influenced by Buffon, 
was another firm evolutionist, and the outline of his argument in the 
Zoonomia* might serve in part at least to-day. “When we revolve in 
our minds the metamorphoses of animals, as from the tadpole to the 
frog ; secondly, the changes produced by artificial cultivation, as in 
the breeds of horses, dogs, and sheep ; thirdly, the changes produced 
by conditions of climate and of season, as in the sheep of warm 
climates being covered with hair instead of wool, and the hares and 
partridges of northern climates becoming white in winter: when, 
further, we observe the changes of structure produced by habit, as 
seen especially in men of different occupations ; or the changes pro- 
duced by artificial mutilation and prenatal influences, as in the 
crossing of species and production of monsters; fourth, when we 
observe the essential unity of plan in all warm-blooded animals,—we 
are led to conclude that they have been alike produced from a similar 
living filament”’....“From thus meditating upon the minute portion 
of time in which many of the above changes have been produced, 
would it be too bold to imagine, in the great length of time since the 
earth began to exist, perhaps millions of years before the commence- 
1 Experimental Evolution. London,j1892. Chap. 1. p. 14. 
2 See J. Arthur Thomson, The Science of Life. London, 1899. Chap. xvi. ‘‘Evolution 
of Evolution Theory.” 
3 See Carus Sterne (Ernst Krause), Die allgemeine Weltanschauung in ihrer historischen 
Entwickelung. Stuttgart, 1889. Chapter entitled “ Bestindigkeit oder Verinderlichkeit 
der Naturwesen.” 
4 Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life, 2 vols. London, 1794; Osborn, op. cit. p. 145. 
