or less broadly in the direction of evolution, some of which
Professor Huxley has quoted, he has adduced nothing approaching to
the passage from Buffon given above, either in respect of the
clearness with which the conclusion intended to be arrived at is
pointed out, or the breadth of view with which the whole ground of
animal and vegetable nature is covered. The passage referred to is
only one of many to the same effect, and must be connected with one
quoted in "Evolution, Old and New," {28b} from p. 13 of Buffon's
first volume, which appeared in 1749, and than which nothing can well
point more plainly in the direction of evolution. It is not easy,
therefore, to understand why Professor Huxley should give 1753-78 as
the date of Buffon's work, nor yet why he should say that Buffon was
"at first a partisan of the absolute immutability of species," {29a}
unless, indeed, we suppose he has been content to follow that very
unsatisfactory writer, Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire (who falls into
this error, and says that Buffon's first volume on animals appeared
1753), without verifying him, and without making any reference to
him.

Professor Huxley quotes a passage from the "Palingenesie
Philosophique" of Bonnet, of which he says that, making allowance for
his peculiar views on the subject of generation, they bear no small
resemblance to what is understood by "evolution" at the present day.
The most important parts of the passage quoted are as follows:-


"Should I be going too far if I were to conjecture that the plants
and animals of the present day have arisen by a sort of natural
evolution from the organised beings which peopled the world in its
original state as it left the hands of the Creator? . . . In the