In fact, if we look at Alberuni's supposed prototype of some still poorly embryonic notion of natural selection in the light of all the further development of this doctrine, we find that his position differs from all those who come after him in that it was completely bereft of any connection with the idea of evolution. In chapters II to XII of the first volume of the India no trace of the idea in the purely biological sense of the word (even as concerned with the possibility of some phylogenetical implications) can be found. In his work Chronology¹⁵ we even find a decisive statement, which Carra de Vaux quotes in French: "La nature conserve les genres et les espèces tels qu'ils sont… fondés sur les lois géométriques."¹⁶

Nor can we find any trace of an idea of natural evolution in his firm belief in...