PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 



the latter, that the whole of these animals were merely divided into 

 individual races, and that these races were formed under the influence 

 of a great variety of modified forms, in which the primitive species had 

 been successively developed from the beginning of the world to the 

 very time in which we live. But, in speaking of species, it is just 

 possible that I might be guilty of a very unintentional error. I 

 should perhaps tell the exact species, inasmuch as, according to the 

 system which I am explaining, there would have been originally only 

 a single one, which no doubt was represented by some number of 

 individuals, were it not for the living organic molecules, as the theory 

 of Buffon supposed, which individuals becoming developed each ac- 

 cording to conditions peculiar to it, which after the lapse of thousands 

 upon thousands of years are themselves modified into as many myriads 

 of times, have at last been brought to that state in which they were 

 able to produce this world of living animals which now covers the 

 surface of the globe, from the creatures that can only be rendered 

 visible by the interposition of the aid of the microscope, and whose 

 whole life would appear to be of the vegetative kind, up to man the 

 intelligent and free being. 



Previously to becoming familiarized with the profound study of 

 nature, every student is liable to be prejudiced by some system which, 

 being very simple in its principle, leads him to an explanation, not less 

 simple, of all the distinctions between animals. Those who habitually 

 adopt, without further enquiry, ideas of this description, particularly 

 such ideas as flatter their imagination, appear to believe that nothing 

 can be happier than this system, which of course they zealously de- 

 fend ; for how could it be possible for anybody to renounce, without a 

 painful emotion, the power of disposing, according to his pleasure, 

 the whole of the forces of nature, and to generate in some measure, 

 by every touch of his wand, some one or other of those beings on the 

 earth, which are endowed with life and sensibility ? Paganism, in the 

 flower of its youth, and in all its profound ignorance, was never such 

 a daring and such a brilliant piece of poetry as this ! On the contrary, 

 those who have understood, that every system must have its basis 

 resting on facts, will, of necessity, agree with us in the opinion which 

 we have just expressed, because, they will see that such a system could 

 not have been proposed, unless every effort had been previously made 

 for collecting the proofs that would render the facts certain ; but still 

 nothing is less founded than this persuasion. 



When we seek to describe the amount of knowledge required for 

 giving a real basis to this system, and the facts, which must be proved, 

 in order that they should be traced to some better authority than the 



