proved that these natural causes are quite adequate to explain every
feature in the build and formation of the crust. Hence Cuvier's theory
of cataclysms was very soon driven out of the province of geology,
though it remained for another thirty years in undisputed authority in
biology. All the zoologists and botanists who gave any thought to the
question of the origin of organisms adhered to Cuvier's erroneous idea
of revolutions and new creations.

In order to illustrate the complete stagnancy of biology from 1830 to
1859 on the question of the origin of the various species of animals
and plants, I may say, from my own experience, that during the whole
of my university studies I never heard a single word said about this
most important problem of the science. I was fortunate enough at that
time (1852 to 1857) to have the most distinguished masters for every
branch of biological science. Not one of them ever mentioned this
question of the origin of species. Not a word was ever said about the
earlier efforts to understand the formation of living things, nor
about Lamarck's Philosophie Zoologique which had made a fresh attack
on the problem in 1809. Hence it is easy to understand the enormous
opposition that Darwin encountered when he took up the question for
the first time. His views seemed to float in the air, without a single
previous effort to support them. The whole question of the formation
of living things was considered by biologists, until 1859, as
pertaining to the province of religion and transcendentalism; even in
speculative philosophy, in which the question had been approached from
various sides, no one had ventured to give it serious treatment. This
was due to the dualistic system of Immanuel Kant, who taught a natural
system of evolution as far as the inorganic world was concerned; but,
on the whole, adopted a supernaturalist system as regards the origin
of living things. He even went so far as to say: "It is quite certain