Bébé says:

‘From Erasmus Darwin, we have, would it be too bold to imagine, that in that great length of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind, would it be too bold to imagine, that all-blooded animals have arisen from one filament, which THE FIRST GREAT CAUSE endured with animality, with the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, violations, and associations: and thus possessing, and thus posing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down these improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end.’