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He developed a system to classify and name living things based on similarities. -
Published "Histoire Naturelle" and it proposed the idea that animals shared ancestors, instead of arising seperately. -
Published "Theory of the Earth", and proposed that changes to the Earth happen gradually, and not by a single large event (Gradualism). -
Published "Zoonomia" which proposed the idea that all living things are descended from a common ancestor. Also Charles Darwin's grandfather. -
Published "Philosophie Zoologique" which proposed that living things evolved towards complexity and perfection. It proposed that the changes in environment would lead to changes in an organism which would be passed down to the offspring. -
Developed the idea for Catastrophism in his essay about the theory of the Earth. -
Published "Principles of Geology" in it, he proposed the ideas of Uniformitarianism, which means that changes occur at a constant rate and are a key to the past.