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 that we cannot even satisfactorily understand, much less explain, the nature of an organism and its internal forces on purely mechanical principles; it is so certain, indeed, that we may confidently say: 'It is absurd for a man to imagine even that some day a Newton will arise who will explain the origin of a single blade of grass by natural laws not controlled by design'--such a hope is entirely forbidden us." In these words Kant definitely adopts the dualistic and teleological point of view for biological science.