THE RENASCENCE OF SCIENCE. uj 



like protoplasm, or, as some call it, nuclein or nucleo- 

 plasm. And, on this, Erasmus Darwin further re- 

 marks : " As the earth and ocean were probably 

 peopled with vegetable productions long before the 

 existence of animals, and many families of these 

 animals long before other animals of them, shall we 

 conjecture that one and the same kind of living fila- 

 ment is and has been the cause of all organic life? " 

 Nor does he make any exception to this law of or- 

 ganic development. He quotes Buffon and Hel- 

 vetius to the effect — " that many features in the anat- 

 omy of man point to a former quadrupedal position, 

 and indicate that he is not yet fully adapted to the 

 erect position; that, further, man may have arisen 

 from a single family of monkeys, in which, acciden- 

 tally, the opposing muscle brought the thumb against 

 the tips of the fingers, and that this muscle gradually 

 increased in size by use in successive generations." 

 While we who live in these days of fuller knowledge 

 of agents of variation may detect the minus in all 

 foregoing speculations, our interest is increased in 

 the thought of their near approach to the cardinal 

 discovery. And a rapid run through the later writ- 

 ings of Dr. Darwin shows that there is scarcely a 

 side of the great theory of Evolution which has es- 

 caped his notice or suggestive comment. Grant 

 Allen, in his excellent little monograph on Charles 

 Darwin, says that the theory of " natural selection 

 was the only cardinal one in the evolutionary system 

 on which Erasmus Darwin did not actually forestall 



