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 (See Carus Sterne (Ernest Krause), "Die allgemeine
Weltanschauung in ihrer historischen Entwickelung". Stuttgart, 1889.
Chapter entitled "Bestandigkeit oder Veranderlichkeit der Naturwesen".),
went the length of admitting (in 1762) that new species might arise
by intercrossing. 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 a firm grasp of the general idea of "l'enchainement des
etres."

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), probably influenced by Buffon, was another
firm evolutionist, and the outline of his argument in the "Zoonomia"
("Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life", 2 vols. London, 1794; Osborn
op. cit. page 145.) 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
proton oon, or first great egg, produced by night, that is, whose origin
is involved