on movement. Some have been
included in the roll of honour on very slender evidence, Robinet for
instance, whose evolutionism seems to us extremely dubious.[9]

The first naturalist to give a broad and concrete expression to the
evolutionist doctrine of descent was Buffon (1707-1788), but it is
interesting to recall the fact that his contemporary Linnaeus
(1707-1778), protagonist of the counter-doctrine of the fixity of
species,[10] went the length of admitting (in 1762) that new species
might arise by inter-crossing. Buffon's position among the pioneers of
the evolution-doctrine is weakened by his habit of vacillating between
his own conclusions and the orthodoxy of the Sorbonne, but there is no
doubt that he had firm grasp of the general idea of "l'enchainment des
etres."

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), probably influenced by Buffon, was another
firm evolutionist, and the outline of his argument in the
_Zoonomia_[11] might serve in part at least to-day. "When we revolve
in our minds the metamorphoses of animals, as from the tadpole to the
frog; secondly, the changes produced by artificial cultivation, as in
the breeds of horses, dogs, and sheep; thirdly, the changes produced
by conditions of climate and of season, as in the sheep of warm
climates being covered with hair instead of wool, and the hares and
partridges of northern climates becoming white in winter: when,
further, we observe the changes of structure produced by habit, as
seen especially in men of different occupations; or the changes
produced by artificial mutilation and prenatal influences, as in the
crossing of species and production of monsters; fourth, when we
observe the essential unity of plan in all warm-blooded animals,--we
are led to conclude that they have been alike produced from a similar
living filament".... "From thus meditating upon the minute portion of
time in which many of the above changes have been produced, would it
be too bold to imagine, in the great length of time since the earth
began to exist, perhaps millions of years before the commencement of
the history of mankind, that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from
one living filament?"... "This idea of the gradual generation of all
things seems to have been as familiar to the ancient philosophers as
to the modern ones, and to have given rise to the beautiful
hieroglyphic figure of the [Greek: proton oon], or first great egg,
produced by night, that is, whose origin is involved in