286 The Study of Animal Life part iv 



paths. Therefore in thinking out the history of evolutionist 

 theories before that of Buffon, we must take account of 

 many forces which began to be influential from the twelfth 

 century onwards. " Evolution in social affairs has not 

 only suggested our ideas of evolution in the other sciences, 

 but has deeply coloured them in accordance with the 

 particular phase of social evolution current at the time." x 

 In other words, we must abandon the idea that we can 

 understand the history of any science as such, without 

 reference to contemporary evolution in other departments 

 of activity. The evolution of theories of evolution is bound 

 up with the whole progress of the world. 



In trying to determine those social and intellectual forces 

 of which the modern conception of organic evolution has 

 been a resultant, we should take account of social changes, 

 such as the collapse of the feudal system, the crusades, the 

 invention of printing, the discovery of America, the French 

 Revolution, the beginning of the steam age ; of theological 

 and religious movements, such as the Protestant Reforma- 

 tion and the spread of Deism ; of a long series of evolu- 

 tionist philosophers, some of whom were at the same time 

 students of the physical sciences, — notably Descartes, 

 Spinoza, Leibnitz, Herder, Kant, and Schelling ; of the 

 acceptance of evolutionary conceptions in regard to other 

 orders of facts, especially in regard to the earth and the 

 solar system ; and, finally, of those few naturalists, like De 

 Maillet and Robinet, who, before Buffon's day, whispered 

 evolutionist heresies. The history of an idea is like that 

 of an organism in which cross-fertilisation and composite 

 inheritance complicate the pedigree. 



5. Three old Masters. — Among the evolutionists before 

 Darwin I shall speak of only three — Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, 

 and Lamarck. 



Buffon ( 1 707- 1788) was born to wealth and was wedded 

 to Fortune. He sat in kings' houses, his statue adorned their 

 gardens. As Director of the Jardin du Rot he had oppor- 

 tunity to acquire a wide knowledge of animals. He com- 

 manded the assistance of able collaborateurs, and his own 

 1 Article "Evolution" (P. Geddes) in Chambers's Encyclopaedia, 



