98 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS. 



generated into opinions and theories. They are 

 the minor features of the environment of the Evolu- 

 tion idea. The final and the fullest expression of 

 Evolution in philosophical literature is found in 

 Kant. 



Emmanuel Kant (i 724-1804) was born sixteen 

 years after Buffon and Linn^us, and therefore 

 thought and wrote after natural history had made 

 very great advances. The ideas of Selection, Adap- 

 tation, Environment, and Inheritance, which are 

 attributed to him as original by Haeckel, are also 

 found in the works of Buffon. Buffon's most ex- 

 treme views were expressed between 1 760-70, while 

 Kant's extreme views were expressed between 1757 

 and 1771. 



We owe to Schultze a very full exposition of all 

 the passages in the writings of the great Konigsberg 

 philosopher which bear upon tlie Evolution theory. 

 In his earlier years (1755), Kant published a work 

 entitled The General History of Nature and Theory 

 of the Heavens, embracing an attempt to reconcile 

 Newton and Leibnitz, or Nature from the mechan- 

 ical and teleological standpoints. At this time he 

 was attracted by the mechanism of Lucretius. 

 Haeckel points out, that in this work Kant took a 

 very advanced position as to the domain of natural 

 causation, or, as Haeckel terms it, 'mechanism in 

 the domain of life,' while in his later work (1790), 

 his criticism of The Teleological Faculty of Jtidg- 

 inent^ he took a much more conservative position. 



