Note 3
AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE PROGRESS OF OPINION ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, PREVIOUSLY TO THE PUBLICATION OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS WORK.
From references in Bronn’s “Untersuchungen über die Entwickelungs-Gesetze”, it appears that the celebrated botanist and palæontologist Unger published, in 1852, his belief that species undergo development and modification. Dalton, likewise, in Pander and Dalton’s work on Fossil Sloths, expressed, in 1821, a similar belief. Similar views have, as is well known, been maintained by Oken in his mystical “Natur-Philosophie”. From other references in Godron’s work “Sur l’Espèce”, it seems that Bory St. Vincent, Burdach, Poiret and Fries, have all admitted that new species are continually being produced. I may add, that of the thirty-four authors named in this Historical Sketch, who believe in the modification of species, or at least disbelieve in separate acts of creation, twenty-seven have written on special branches of natural history or geology.
…armonise chaque membre à l’ensemble, en l’appropriant à la fonction qu’il doit remplir dans l’organisme général de la nature, fonction qui est pour lui sa raison d’être.”[3]
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