come until Lamarck's Philosophie Zoologique of 1809." Charles Dickens knew of Monboddo and wrote in his novel, Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit about "(...) the Manboddo doctrine touching the probability of the human race having once been monkeys". This is significant because Martin Chuzzlewit was published decades before Darwin wrote his theory of evolution. The history of the theory of evolution is a relatively modern field of scholarship. Metaphysics In Antient Metaphysics, Burnett claimed that man is gradually elevating himself from the animal condition to a state in which mind acts independently of the body. He was a strong supporter of Aristotle in his concepts of Prime Mover. Much effort was devoted to crediting Isaac Newton with brilliant discoveries in the Laws of Motion, while defending the power of the mind as outlined by Aristotle. His analysis was further complicated by his recurring need to assure that Newton did not obviate the presence of God. Nudism Monboddo was a pioneer in regard to many modern ideas and had already in the eighteenth century realized the value of "air-baths" (the familiar term which he invented) to mental and physical health. In his writings Monboddo argued against clothes as unnatural and undesirable from every point of view for both mind and body. Monboddo "awaked every morning at four, and then for his health got up and walked in his room naked, with the window open, which he called taking an air bath." When nudism was first brought into fashion with much enthusiasm in Germany as Freikörperkultur early in the twentieth century Monboddo was regarded as a pioneer, and in 1913 a Monboddo Bund was established in Berlin, for the harmonious culture of body and mind. Eccentricity Burnett was widely known to be an eccentric. Habitually he rode on horseback between Edinburgh and London instead of journeying by carriage. Another time after a decision went against him regarding the value of a horse, he refused to sit with the other judges and assumed a seat below the bench with the court clerks. When Burnett was visiting the Court of King's Bench in London in 1787, part of the floor of the courtroom started to collapse. People rushed out of the building but Burnett who, at the age of 71, was partially deaf and shortsighted, was the only one not to move. When he was later asked for a reason, he stated that