gly insisted upon by Hutton, and so ably and comprehensively
expounded by Lyell, that we must look to existing causes for the
explanation of past geological events. Indeed, the following passage of
the preface, in which De Maillet is supposed to speak of the Indian
philosopher Telliamed, his _alter ego_, might have been written by the
most philosophical uniformitarian of the present day:--

"Ce qu'il y a d'etonnant, est que pour arriver a ces connoissances
il semble avoir perverti l'ordre naturel, pui-qu'au lieu de
s'attacher d'abord a rechercher l'origine de notre globe il a
commence par travailler a s'instruire de la nature. Mais a
l'entendre, ce renversement de l'ordre a ete pour lui l'effet d'un
genie favorable qui l'a conduit pas a pas et comme par la main aux
decouvertes les plus sublimes. C'est en decomposant la substance de
ce globe par une anatomie exacte de toutes ses parties qu'il a
premierement appris de quelles matieres il etait compose et quels
arrangemens ces memes matieres observaient entre elles. Ces
lumieres jointes a l'esprit de comparaison toujours necessaire a
quiconque entreprend de percer les voiles dont la nature aime a se
cacher, ont servi de guide a notre philosophe pour parvenir a des
connoissances plus interessantes. Par la matiere et l'arrangement
de ces compositions il pretend avoir reconnu quelle est la
veritable origine de ce globe que nous habitons, comment et par qui
il a ete forme."--Pp. xix. xx.

But De Maillet was before his age, and as could hardly fail to happen to
one who speculated on a zoological and botanical question before
Linnaeus, and on a physiological problem before Haller, he fell into
great errors here and there; and hence, perhaps, the general neglect of
his work. Robinet's speculations are rather behind, than in advance of,
those of De Maillet; and though Linnaeus may have played with the
hypothesis of transmutation, it obtained no serious support until
Lamarck adopted it, and advocated it with great ability in his
"Philosophie Zoologique."

Impelled towards the hypothesis of the transmutation of species, partly
by his general cosmological and geological views; partly by the
conception of a graduated, though irregularly branching, scale of being,
which had arisen out of his profound study of plants and of the lower
forms of animal life, Lamarck, whose general line of thought often