grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, anticipated the views and erroneous
grounds of opinion of Lamarck in his 'Zoonomia' (vol. i. pp. 500-
510), published in 1794"; this was all he had to say about the
founder of "Darwinism," until I myself unearthed Dr. Erasmus Darwin,
and put his work fairly before the present generation in "Evolution,
Old and New." Six months after I had done this, I had the
satisfaction of seeing that Mr. Darwin had woke up to the propriety
of doing much the same thing, and that he had published an
interesting and charmingly written memoir of his grandfather, of
which more anon.

Not that Dr. Darwin was the first to catch sight of a complete theory
of evolution. Buffon was the first to point out that, in view of the
known modifications which had been effected among our domesticated
animals and cultivated plants, the ass and the horse should be
considered as, in all probability, descended from a common ancestor;
yet, if this is so, he writes--if the point "were once gained that
among animals and vegetables there had been, I do not say several
species, but even a single one, which had been produced in the course
of direct descent from another species; if, for example, it could be
once shown that the ass was but a degeneration from the horse, then
there is no further limit to be set to the power of Nature, and we
should not be wrong in supposing that, with sufficient time, she has
evolved all other organised forms from one primordial type" {28a} (et
l'on n'auroit pas tort de supposer, que d'un seul etre elle a su
tirer avec le temps tous les autres etres organises).

This, I imagine, in spite of Professor Huxley's dictum, is
contributing a good deal to the general doctrine of evolution; for
though Descartes and Leibnitz may have thrown out hints pointing more