ch, xvin The Evolution of Evolution Theories 285 



ing up into the air with full unbridled powers. . . . With good 

 reason the earth has gotten the name of mother, since all things 

 have been produced out of the earth. . . . 



" We see that many conditions must meet together in things in 

 order that they may beget and continue their kinds ; first a supply 

 of food, then a way in which the birth-producing seeds throughout 

 the frame may stream from the relaxed limbs. . . . And many 

 races of living things must then have died out and been unable to 

 beget and continue their breed. For in the case of all things which 

 you see breathing the breath of life, either craft or courage or else 

 speed has from the beginning of its existence protected and pre- 

 served each particular race. And there are many things which, 

 recommended to us by their useful services, continue to exist con- 

 signed to our protection. 



"In the first place, the first breed of lions and the savage races 

 their courage has protected, foxes their craft, and stags their prone- 

 ness to flight. But light-sleeping dogs with faithful heart in breast, 

 and every kind which is born of the seed of beasts of burden, and at 

 the same time the woolly flocks and the horned herds, are all con- 

 signed to the protection of man. For they have ever fled with 

 eagerness from wild beasts,' and have ensued peace, and plenty of 

 food obtained without their own labour, as we give it in requital of 

 their useful services. But those to whom nature has granted none 

 of these qualities, so that they could neither live by their own 

 means nor perform for us any useful service, in return for which 

 we should suffer their kind to feed and be safe under our protection, 

 those, you are to know, would lie exposed as a prey and booty 

 of others, hampered all in their own death-bringing shackles, until 

 nature brought that kind to utter destruction." 



4. Evolutionists before Darwin.— From Lucretius I 

 shall pass to Buffon, for the intervening centuries were un- 

 eventful as regards zoology. Hugo Spitzer, one of the histo- 

 rians of evolution, finds analogies between certain mediaeval 

 scholastics and the Darwinians of the nineteenth century, 

 but these are subtle comparisons. Yet long before Darwin's 

 day there were evolutionists, and the first of these who can 

 be called great was Buffon. 



We must guard against supposing that the works of 

 Buffon, or Lamarck, or Darwin were inexplicable creations 

 of genius, or that they came like cataclysms, without warning, 

 to shatter the conventional traditions of their time. For all 

 great workers have their forerunners, who prepare their 



