LAMARCK

[Illustration: Attempt at a reconstruction of the Profile of Lamarckfrom an unpublished etching by Dr.  Cachet]

 LAMARCK

 THE FOUNDER OF EVOLUTION

 _HIS LIFE AND WORK_

 WITH TRANSLATIONS OF HIS WRITINGS ON ORGANIC EVOLUTION

 By ALPHEUS S. PACKARD, M. D. , LL. D. 

 Professor of Zoölogy and Geology in Brown University; author of "Guide to the Study of Insects, " "Text-book of Entomology, " etc. , etc. 

 "La postérité vous honorera!" --_Mlle. Cornelie de Lamarck_

 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK LONDON AND BOMBAY 1901

 COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

 _All rights reserved_

 Press of J.  J. Little & Co. Astor Place, New York

PREFACE

Although it is now a century since Lamarck published the germs of histheory, it is perhaps only within the past fifty years that thescientific world and the general public have become familiar with thename of Lamarck and of Lamarckism. 

The rise and rehabilitation of the Lamarckian theory of organicevolution, so that it has become a rival of Darwinism; the prevalence ofthese views in the United States, Germany, England, and especially inFrance, where its author is justly regarded as the real founder oforganic evolution, has invested his name with a new interest, and led toa desire to learn some of the details of his life and work, and of histheory as he unfolded it in 1800 and subsequent years, and finallyexpounded it in 1809. The time seems ripe, therefore, for a moreextended sketch of Lamarck and his theory, as well as of his work as aphilosophical biologist, than has yet appeared. 

But the seeker after the details of his life is baffled by the generalignorance about the man--his antecedents, his parentage, the date of hisbirth, his early training and education, his work as a professor in theJardin des Plantes, the house he lived in, the place of his burial, andhis relations to his scientific contemporaries. 

Except the _éloges_ of Geoffroy St.  Hilaire and Cuvier, and the briefnotices of Martins, Duval, Bourguignat, and Bourguin, there is nospecial biography, however brief, except a _brochure_ of thirty-onepages, reprinted from a few scattered articles by the distinguishedanthropologist, M.  Gabriel de Mortillet, in the fourth and last volumeof a little-known journal, _l'Homme_, entitled _Lamarck. Par un Groupede Transformistes, ses Disciples_, Paris, 1887. This exceedingly rarepamphlet was written by the late M.  Gabriel de Mortillet, with theassistance of Philippe Salmon and Dr.  A. Mondière, who with others, under the leadership of Paul Nicole, met in 1884 and formed a _RéunionLamarck_ and a _Dîner Lamarck_, to maintain and perpetuate the memory ofthe great French transformist. Owing to their efforts, the exact date ofLamarck's birth, the house in which he lived during his lifetime atParis, and all that we shall ever know of his place of burial have beenestablished. It is a lasting shame that his remains were not laid in agrave, but were allowed to be put into a trench, with no headstone tomark the site, on one side of a row of graves of others better caredfor, from which trench his bones, with those of others unknown andneglected, were exhumed and thrown into the catacombs of Paris. Lamarckleft behind him no letters or manuscripts; nothing could be ascertainedregarding the dates of his marriages, the names of his wives or of allhis children. Of his descendants but one is known to be living, anofficer in the army. But his aims in life, his undying love of science, his noble character and generous disposition are constantly revealed inhis writings. 

The name of Lamarck has been familiar to me from my youth up. When aboy, I used to arrange my collection of shells by the Lamarckian system, which had replaced the old Linnean classification. For over thirty yearsthe Lamarckian factors of evolution have seemed to me to afford thefoundation on which natural selection rests, to be the primary andefficient causes of organic change, and thus to account for the originof variations, which Darwin himself assumed as the starting point orbasis of his selection theory. It is not lessening the value of Darwin'slabors, to recognize the originality of Lamarck's views, the vigor withwhich he asserted their truth, and the heroic manner in which, againstadverse and contemptuous criticism, to his dying day he clung to them. 

During a residence in Paris in the spring and summer of 1899, I spent myleisure hours in gathering material for this biography. I visited theplace of his birth--the little hamlet of Bazentin, near Amiens--and, thanks to the kindness of the schoolmaster of that village, M.  Duval, was shown the house where Lamarck was born, the records in the oldparish register at the _mairie_ of the birth of the father of Lamarckand of Lamarck himself. The Jesuit Seminary at Amiens was also visited, in order to obtain traces of his student life there, though the searchwas unsuccessful. 

My thanks are due to Professor A. Giard of Paris for kind assistance inthe loan of rare books, for copies of his own essays, especially his_Leçon d'Ouverture des Cours de l'Évolution des Êtres organisés_, 1888, and in facilitating the work of collecting data. Introduced by him toProfessor Hamy, the learned anthropologist and archivist of the Muséumd'Histoire Naturelle, I was given by him the freest access to thearchives in the Maison de Buffon, which, among other papers, containedthe MS. _Archives du Muséum_; _i. E. _, the _Procès verbaux des Séancestenues par les Officiers du Jardin des Plantes_, from 1790 to 1830, bound in vellum, in thirty-four volumes. These were all looked through, though found to contain but little of biographical interest relating toLamarck, beyond proving that he lived in that ancient edifice from 1793until his death in 1829. Dr.  Hamy's elaborate history of the last yearsof the Royal Garden and of the foundation of the Muséum d'HistoireNaturelle, in the volume commemorating the centennial of the foundationof the Museum, has been of essential service. 

My warmest thanks are due to M.  Adrien de Mortillet, formerly secretaryof the Society of Anthropology of Paris, for most essential aid. Hekindly gave me a copy of a very rare pamphlet, entitled _Lamarck. Par unGroupe de Transformistes, ses Disciples_. He also referred me to noticesbearing on the genealogy of Lamarck and his family in the _Revue deGascogne_ for 1876. To him also I am indebted for the privilege ofhaving electrotypes made of the five illustrations in the _Lamarck_, forcopies of the composite portrait of Lamarck by Dr.  Gachet, and also fora photograph of the _Acte de Naissance_ reproduced by the lateM.  Salmon. 

I have also to acknowledge the kindness shown me by Dr.  J. Deniker, thelibrarian of the Bibliothèque du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle. 

I had begun in the museum library, which contains nearly if not everyone of Lamarck's publications, to prepare a bibliography of all ofLamarck's writings, when, to my surprise and pleasure, I was presentedwith a very full and elaborate one by the assistant-librarian, M.  Godefroy Malloisel. 

To Professor Edmond Perrier I am indebted for a copy of his valuable_Lamarck et le Transformisme Actuel_, reprinted from the noble volumecommemorative of the centennial of the foundation of the Muséumd'Histoire Naturelle, which has proved of much use. 

Other sources from which biographical details have been taken areCuvier's _éloge_, and the notice of Lamarck, with a list of many of hiswritings, in the _Revue biographique de la Société malacologique deFrance_, 1886. This notice, which is illustrated by three portraits ofLamarck, one of which has been reproduced, I was informed by M.  PaulKleinsieck was prepared by the late J.  R. Bourguignat, the eminentmalacologist and anthropologist. The notices by Professor Mathias Duvaland by L.  A. Bourguin have been of essential service. 

As regards the account of Lamarck's speculative and theoretical views, Ihave, so far as possible, preferred, by abstracts and translations, tolet him tell his own story, rather than to comment at much length myselfon points about which the ablest thinkers and students differ so much. 

It is hoped that Lamarck's writings referring to the evolution theorymay, at no distant date, be reprinted in the original, as they are notbulky and could be comprised in a single volume. 

This life is offered with much diffidence, though the pleasure ofcollecting the materials and of putting them together has been verygreat. 

 BROWN UNIVERSITY, PROVIDENCE, R.  I. , _October, 1901. _

CONTENTS

 CHAPTER PAGE

 I. BIRTH, FAMILY, YOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER 1

 II. STUDENT LIFE AND BOTANICAL CAREER 15

 III. LAMARCK'S SHARE IN THE REORGANIZATION OF THE JARDIN DES PLANTES AND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY 23

 IV. PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOÖLOGY AT THE MUSEUM 32

 V. LAST DAYS AND DEATH 51

 VI. POSITION IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE; OPINIONS OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES AND SOME LATER BIOLOGISTS 64

 VII. LAMARCK'S WORK IN METEOROLOGY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 79

 VIII. LAMARCK'S WORK IN GEOLOGY 89

 IX. LAMARCK THE FOUNDER OF INVERTEBRATE PALÆONTOLOGY 124

 X. LAMARCK'S OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY AND BIOLOGY 156

 XI. LAMARCK AS A BOTANIST 173

 XII. LAMARCK THE ZOÖLOGIST 180

 XIII. THE EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON AND OF GEOFFROY ST.  HILAIRE 198

 XIV. THE VIEWS OF ERASMUS DARWIN 216

 XV. WHEN DID LAMARCK CHANGE HIS VIEWS REGARDING THE 226 MUTABILITY OF SPECIES?

 XVI. THE STEPS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LAMARCK'S VIEWS ON 232 EVOLUTION BEFORE THE PUBLICATION OF HIS "PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE"

 XVII. THE "PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE" 279

 XVIII. LAMARCK'S THEORY AS TO THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 357

 XIX. LAMARCK'S THOUGHTS ON MORALS, AND ON THE RELATION 372 BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

 XX. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN LAMARCKISM AND DARWINISM; 382 NEOLAMARCKISM

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 425

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

 ATTEMPT AT A RECONSTRUCTION OF THE PROFILE OF LAMARCK BY DR.  GACHET (Photogravure) _Frontispiece_

 FACING PAGE

 BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK, FRONT VIEW } } 4 BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK " " }

 ACT OF BIRTH 6

 AUTOGRAPH OF LAMARCK, JANUARY 25, 1802 10

 LAMARCK AT THE AGE OF 35 YEARS 20

 BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK. REAR VIEW FROM THE WEST } } 42 MAISON DE BUFFON, IN WHICH LAMARCK LIVED IN PARIS, } 1793-1829 }

 PORTRAIT OF LAMARCK, WHEN OLD AND BLIND, IN THE COSTUME OF A MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE. ENGRAVED IN 1824 54

 PORTRAIT OF LAMARCK 180

 MAISON DE BUFFON, IN WHICH LAMARCK LIVED, 1793-1829 198

 É. GEOFFROY ST.  HILAIRE 212

LAMARCK, THE FOUNDER OF EVOLUTION. HIS LIFE AND WORK

CHAPTER I

BIRTH, FAMILY, YOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER

The life of Lamarck is the old, old story of a man of genius who livedfar in advance of his age, and who died comparatively unappreciated andneglected. But his original and philosophic views, based as they were onbroad conceptions of nature, and touching on the burning questions ofour day, have, after the lapse of a hundred years, gained fresh interestand appreciation, and give promise of permanent acceptance. 

The author of the _Flore Française_ will never be forgotten by hiscountrymen, who called him the French Linné; and he who wrote the_Animaux sans Vertèbres_ at once took the highest rank as the leadingzoölogist of his period. But Lamarck was more than a systematicbiologist of the first order. Besides rare experience and judgment inthe classification of plants and of animals, he had an unusually active, inquiring, and philosophical mind, with an originality and boldness inspeculation, and soundness in reasoning and in dealing with suchbiological facts as were known in his time, which have caused his viewsas to the method of organic evolution to again come to the front. 

As a zoölogical philosopher no one of his time approached Lamarck. Theperiod, however, in which he lived was not ripe for the hearty andgeneral adoption of the theory of descent. As in the organic world webehold here and there prophetic types, anticipating, in theirgeneralized synthetic nature, the incoming, ages after, of morespecialized types, so Lamarck anticipated by more than half a centurythe principles underlying the present evolutionary theories. 

So numerous are now the adherents, in some form, of Lamarck's views, that at the present time evolutionists are divided into Darwinians andLamarckians or Neolamarckians. The factors of organic evolution asstated by Lamarck, it is now claimed by many, really comprise theprimary or foundation principles or initiative causes of the origin oflife-forms. Hence not only do many of the leading biologists of hisnative country, but some of those of Germany, of the United States, andof England, justly regard him as the founder of the theory of organicevolution. 

Besides this, Lamarck lived in a transition period. He prepared the wayfor the scientific renascence in France. Moreover, his simple, unselfishcharacter was a rare one. He led a retired life. His youth was tingedwith romance, and during the last decade of his life he was blind. Hemanfully and patiently bore adverse criticisms, ridicule, forgetfulness, and inappreciation, while, so far from renouncing histheoretical views, he tenaciously clung to them to his dying day. 

The biography of such a character is replete with interest, and thememory of his unselfish and fruitful devotion to science should beforever cherished. His life was also notable for the fact that after hisfiftieth year he took up and mastered a new science; and at a periodwhen many students of literature and science cease to be productive andrest from their labors, he accomplished the best work of his life--workwhich has given him lasting fame as a systematist and as a philosophicbiologist. Moreover, Lamarckism comprises the fundamental principles ofevolution, and will always have to be taken into consideration inaccounting for the origin, not only of species, but especially of thehigher groups, such as orders, classes, and phyla. 

This striking personage in the history of biological science, who hasmade such an ineffaceable impression on the philosophy of biology, certainly demands more than a brief _éloge_ to keep alive his memory. 

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jean-Baptiste-Pierre-Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, was bornAugust 1, 1744, at Bazentin-le-Petit. This little village is situated inPicardy, or what is now the Department of the Somme, in theArrondissement de Péronne, Canton d'Albert, a little more than fourmiles from Albert, between this town and Bapaume, and near Longueval, the nearest post-office to Bazentin. The village of Bazentin-le-Grand, composed of a few more houses than its sister hamlet, is seen half amile to the southeast, shaded by the little forest such as bordersnearly every town and village in this region. The two hamlets arepleasantly situated in a richly cultivated country, on the chalk uplandsor downs of Picardy, amid broad acres of wheat and barley variegatedwith poppies and the purple cornflower, and with roadsides shaded bytall poplars. 

The peasants to the number of 251 compose the diminishing population. There were 356 in 1880, or about that date. The silence of the singlelittle street, with its one-storied, thatched or tiled cottages, is atinfrequent intervals broken by an elderly dame in her _sabots_, or by acreaking, rickety village cart driven by a farmer-boy in blouse andhob-nailed shoes. The largest inhabited building is the _mairie_, amodern structure, at one end of which is the village school, wherefifteen or twenty urchins enjoy the instructions of the worthy teacher. A stone church, built in 1774, and somewhat larger than the needs of thehamlet at present require, raises its tower over the quiet scene. 

Our pilgrimage to Bazentin had for its object the discovery of thebirthplace of Lamarck, of which we could obtain no information in Paris. Our guide from Albert took us to the _mairie_, and it was with no littlesatisfaction that we learned from the excellent village teacher, M.  Duval, that the house in which the great naturalist was born wasstill standing, and but a few steps away, in the rear of the church andof the _mairie_. With much kindness he left his duties in theschoolroom, and accompanied us to the ancient structure. 

[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK, FRONT VIEW]

[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK]

The modest _château_ stands a few rods to the westward of the littlevillage, and was evidently the seat of the leading family of the place. It faces east and is a two-storied house of the shape seen everywhere inFrance, with its high, incurved roof; the walls, nearly a foot and ahalf thick, built of brick; the corners and windows of blocks of whitelimestone. It is about fifty feet long and twenty-five feet wide. Abovethe roof formerly rose a small tower. There is no porch over the frontdoor. Within, a rather narrow hall passes through the centre, and opensinto a large room on each side. What was evidently the drawing-room or_salon_ was a spacious apartment with a low white wainscot and a heavycornice. Over the large, roomy fireplace is a painting on the woodpanel, representing a rural scene, in which a shepherdess and her loverare engaged in other occupations than the care of the flock of sheepvisible in the distance. Over the doorway is a smaller but quaintpainting of the same description. The house is uninhabited, and perhapsuninhabitable--indeed almost a ruin--and is used as a storeroom for woodand rubbish by the peasants in the adjoining house to the left, on thesouth. 

The ground in front was cultivated with vegetables, not laid down to alawn, and the land stretched back for perhaps three hundred to fourhundred feet between the old garden walls. 

Here, amid these rural scenes, even now so beautiful and tranquil, thesubject of our sketch was born and lived through his infancy and earlyboyhood. [1]

If his parents did not possess an ample fortune, they were blessed witha numerous progeny, for Lamarck was the eleventh and youngest child, andseems to have survived all the others. Biographers have differed as tothe date of the birth of Lamarck. [2] Happily the exact date had beenascertained through the researches of M.  Philippe Salmon; and M.  Duvalkindly showed us in the thin volume of records, with its tattered andtorn leaves, the register of the _Acte de Naissance_, and made a copy ofit, as follows:

 _Extrait du Registre aux Actes de Baptême de la Commune de Bazentin, pour l'Année 1744. _

 L'an mil sept cent quarante-quatre, le premier août est né en légitime mariage et le lendemain a été baptisé par moy curé soussigné Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine, fils de Messire Jacques Philippe de Monet, chevalier de Lamarck, seigneur des Bazentin grand et petit et de haute et puissante Dame Marie Françoise de Fontaine demeurant en leur château de Bazentin le petit, son parrain a été Messire Jean Baptiste de Fossé, prêtre-chanoine de l'église collégiale de St.  Farcy de Péronne, y demeurant, sa marraine Dame Antoinette Françoise de Bucy, nièce de Messire Louis Joseph Michelet, chevalier, ancien commissaire de l'artillerie de France demeurante au château de Guillemont, qui ont signé avec mon dit sieur de Bazentin et nous. 

 Ont signé: De Fossé, De Bucy Michelet, Bazentin. Cozette, curé. 

[Illustration: ACT OF BIRTH]

Of Lamarck's parentage and ancestry there are fortunately some traces. In the _Registre aux Actes de Baptême pour l'Année 1702_, stillpreserved in the _mairie_ of Bazentin-le-Petit, the record shows thathis father was born in February, 1702, at Bazentin. The infant wasbaptised February 16, 1702, the permission to the _curé_ by Henry, Bishop of Amiens, having been signed February 3, 1702. Lamarck'sgrandparents were, according to this certificate of baptism, MessirePhilippe de Monet de Lamarck, Ecuyer, Seigneur des Bazentin, and DameMagdeleine de Lyonne. 

The family of Lamarck, as stated by H. Masson, [3] notwithstanding hisnorthern and almost Germanic name of Chevalier de Lamarck, originated inthe southwest of France. Though born at Bazentin, in old Picardy, it isnot less true that he descended on the paternal side from an ancienthouse of Béarn, whose patrimony was very modest. This house was that ofMonet. 

Another genealogist, Baron C. De Cauna, [4] tells us that there is nodoubt that the family of Monet in Bigorre[5] was divided. One of itsrepresentatives formed a branch in Picardy in the reign of Louis XIV. Or later. 

Lamarck's grandfather, Philippe de Monet, "seigneur de Bazentin etautres lieux, " was also "chevalier de l'ordre royal et militaire deSaint-Louis, commandant pour le roi en la ville et château de Dinan, pensionnaire de sa majesté. "

The descendants of Philippe de Lamarck were, adds de Cauna, thus throwninto two branches, or at least two offshoots or stems (_brisures_), nearPéronne. But the actual posterity of the Monet of Picardy was reduced toa single family, claiming back, with good reason, to a southern origin. One of its scions in the maternal line was a brilliant officer of themilitary marine and also son-in-law of a very distinguished navalofficer. 

The family of Monet was represented among the French nobility of 1789 byMessires de Monet de Caixon and de Monet de Saint-Martin. By marriagetheir grandson was connected with an honorable family of Montant, nearSaint-Sever-Cap. 

Another authority, the Abbé J. Dulac, has thrown additional light on thegenealogy of the de Lamarck family, which, it may be seen, was for atleast three centuries a military one. [6] The family of Monet, Seigneurde Saint-Martin et de Sombran, was maintained as a noble one by order ofthe Royal Council of State of June 20, 1678. He descended (I) fromBernard de Monet, esquire, captain of the château of Lourdes, who had asa son (II) Étienne de Monet, esquire, who, by contract dated August 15, 1543, married Marguerite de Sacaze. He was the father of (III) Pierrede Monet, esquire, "Seigneur d'Ast, en Béarn, guidon des gendarmes de lacompagnie du roi de Navarre. " From him descended (IV) Étienne de Monet, esquire, second of the name, "Seigneur d'Ast et Lamarque, de Julos. " Hewas a captain by rank, and bought the estate of Saint-Martin in 1592. Hemarried, in 1612, Jeanne de Lamarque, daughter of William de Lamarck, "Seigneur de Lamarque et de Bretaigne. " They had three children, thethird of whom was Philippe, "chevalier de Saint-Louis, commandant duchâteau de Dinan, Seigneur de Bazentin, en Picardy, " who, as we havealready seen, was the father of the naturalist Lamarck, who lived from1744 to 1829. The abbé relates that Philippe, the father of thenaturalist, was born at Saint-Martin, in the midst of Bigorre, "_inpleine Bigorre_, " and he very neatly adds that "the Bigorrais have theright to claim for their land of flowers one of the glories ofbotany. "[7]

The name was at first variously spelled de Lamarque, de la Marck, orde Lamarck. He himself signed his name, when acting as secretary of theAssembly of Professors-administrative of the Museum of Natural Historyduring the years of the First Republic, as plain Lamarck. 

The inquiry arises how, being the eleventh child, he acquired the titleof chevalier, which would naturally have become extinct with the deathof the oldest son. The Abbé Dulac suggests that the ten older of thechildren had died, or that by some family arrangement he was allowed toadd the domanial name to the patronymic one. Certainly he nevertarnished the family name, which, had it not been for him, would haveremained in obscurity. 

As to his father's tastes and disposition, what influence his mother hadin shaping his character, his home environment, as the youngest ofeleven children, the nature of his education in infancy and boyhood, there are no sources of information. But several of his brothers enteredthe army, and the domestic atmosphere was apparently a military one. 

Philippe de Lamarck, with his large family, had endowed his first-bornson so that he could maintain the family name and title, and had foundsituations for several of the others in the army. Jean Lamarck did notmanifest any taste for the clerical profession. He lived in a martialatmosphere. For centuries his ancestors had borne arms. His eldestbrother had been killed in the breach at the siege of Berg-op-Zoom; twoothers were still in the service, and in the troublous times at thebeginning of the war in 1756, a young man of high spirit and couragewould naturally not like to relinquish the prospect of renown andpromotion. But, yielding to the wishes of his father, he entered as astudent at the college of the Jesuits at Amiens. [8]

His father dying in 1760, nothing could induce the incipient abbé, thenseventeen years of age, to longer wear his bands. Immediately onreturning home he bought himself a wretched horse, for want of means tobuy a better one, and, accompanied by a poor lad of his village, herode across the country to join the French army, then campaigning inGermany. 

[Illustration: AUTOGRAPH OF LAMARCK, JANUARY 25, 1802

je prie le Citoyen qui assemble dans le Magazin de l'imprimerie duCitoyen Agasse de remettre à Madame chevalier Cent exemplaires de monhydrogeologie, pour les Brocher. 

Paris le 5 pluviose an dix

Lamarck]

He carried with him a letter of recommendation from one of his neighborson an adjoining estate in the country, Madame de Lameth, to M. De Lastic, colonel of the regiment of Beaujolais. [9]

 "We can imagine [says Cuvier] the feelings of this officer on thus finding himself hampered with a boy whose puny appearance made him seem still younger than he was. However, he sent him to his quarters, and then busied himself with his duties. The period indeed was a critical one. It was the 16th of July, 1761. The Marshal de Broglie had just united his army with that of the Prince de Soubise, and the next day was to attack the allied army commanded by the Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. At the break of day M. De Lastic rode along the front of his corps, and the first man that met his gaze was the new recruit, who, without saying anything to him, had placed himself in the front rank of a company of grenadiers, and nothing could induce him to quit his post. 

 "It is a matter of history that this battle, which bears the name of the little village of Fissingshausen, between Ham and Lippstadt, in Westphalia, was lost by the French, and that the two generals, mutually accusing each other of this defeat, immediately separated, and abandoned the campaign. 

 "During the movement of the battle, de Lamarck's company was stationed in a position exposed to the direct fire of the enemy's artillery. In the confusion of the retreat he was forgotten. Already all the officers and non-commissioned officers had been killed; there remained only fourteen men, when the oldest grenadier, seeing that there were no more of the French troops in sight, proposed to the young volunteer, become so promptly commander, to withdraw his little troop. 'But we are assigned to this post, ' said the boy, 'and we should not withdraw from it until we are relieved. ' And he made them remain there until the colonel, seeing that the squad did not rally, sent him an orderly, who crept by all sorts of covered ways to reach him. This bold stand having been reported to the marshal, he promoted him on the field to the rank of an officer, although his order had prescribed that he should be very chary of these kinds of promotions. "

His physical courage shown at this age was paralleled by his moralcourage in later years. The staying power he showed in immovablyadhering to his views on evolution through many years, and under thedirect and raking fire of harsh and unrelenting criticism and ridiculefrom friend and foe, affords a striking contrast to the moral timidityshown by Buffon when questioned by the Sorbonne. We can see that Lamarckwas the stuff martyrs are made of, and that had he been tried for heresyhe would have been another Tycho Brahe. 

Soon after, de Lamarck was nominated to a lieutenancy; but so glorious abeginning of his military career was most unexpectedly checked. A suddenaccident forced him to leave the service and entirely change his courseof life. His regiment had been, during peace, sent into garrison, firstat Toulon and then at Monaco. While there a comrade in play lifted himby the head; this gave rise to an inflammation of the lymphatic glandsof the neck, which, not receiving the necessary attention on the spot, obliged him to go to Paris for better treatment. 

 "The united efforts [says Cuvier] of several surgeons met with no better success, and danger had become very imminent, when our _confrère_, the late M.  Tenon, with his usual sagacity, recognized the trouble, and put an end to it by a complicated operation, of which M. De Lamarck preserved deep scars. This treatment lasted for a year, and, during this time, the extreme scantiness of his resources confined him to a solitary life, when he had the leisure to devote himself to meditations. "

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In the little chapel next the church lies buried, we were told byM.  Duval, a Protestant of the family of de Guillebon, the purchaser(_acquéreur_) of the _château_. Whether the estate is now in the handsof his heirs we did not ascertain. 

[2] As stated by G. De Mortillet, the date of his birth is variouslygiven. Michaud's _Dictionnaire Biographique_ gives the date April 1;other authors, April 11; others, the correct one, August 1, 1744. (_Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Transformistes, ses Disciples. _ _L'Homme_, iv. P.  289, 1887. )

[3] "Sur la maison de Viella--les Mortiers-brévise et les Montalemberten Gascogne--et sur le naturaliste Lamarck. " Par Hippolyte Masson. (_Revue de Gascogne_, xvii. , pp.  141-143, 1876. )

[4] _Ibid. _, p.  194. 

[5] A small town in southwestern France, near Lourdes and Pau; it isabout eight miles north of Tarbes, in Gascony. 

[6] _Revue de Gascogne_, pp.  264-269, 1876. 

[7] The abbé attempts to answer the question as to what place gaveorigin to the name of Lamarck, and says:

"The author of the history of Béarn considered the cradle of the race tohave been the freehold of Marca, parish of Gou (Basses-Pyrénées). Abranch of the family established in le Magnoac changed its name of Marcato that of La Marque. " It was M. D'Ossat who gave rise to this change byaddressing his letters to M. De Marca (at the time when he was preceptorof his nephew), sometimes under the name of M.  Marca, sometimes_M.  la Marqua_, or of _M. De la Marca_, but more often still under thatof _M. De la Marque_, "with the object, no doubt, of making him aFrenchman" ("_dans la vue sans doute de le franciser_"). (_Vie duCardinal d'Ossat_, tome i. , p.  319. )

"To recall their origin, the branch of Magnoac to-day write their name_Marque-Marca_. If the Marca of the historian belongs to Béarn, theLamarque of the naturalist, an orthographic name in principle, proceedsfrom Bigorre, actually chosen (_désignée_) by _Lamarcq, Pontacq, orLamarque près Béarn_. That the _Lamarque_ of the botanist of the royalcabinet distinguished himself from all the _Lamarques_ of Béarn or ofBigorre, which it bears (_qu'il gise_) to this day in theHautes-Pyrénées, Canton d'Ossun, we have many proofs: Aast at somedistance, Bourcat and Couet all near l'Abbaye Laïque, etc. The villageso determined is called in turn _Marca_, _La Marque_, _Lamarque_; namespredestined to several destinations; judge then to the mercy of abotanist, _Lamarck_, _La Marck_, _Delamarque_, _De Lamarck_, who shalldetermine their number? As to the last, I only explain it by a fantasyof the man who would de-Bigorrize himself in order to Germanize himselfin the hope, apparently, that at the first utterance of the name peoplewould believe that he was from the _outre Rhin_ rather than from theborders of Gave or of Adour. Consequently a hundred times more learnedand a hundred times more worthy of a professorship in the Museum, whereMonet would seem (_entrevait_) much less than Lamarque. "

It may be added that Béarn was an ancient province of southern Francenearly corresponding to the present Department of Basses-Pyrénées. Itscapital was Pau. 

[8] We have been unable to ascertain the date when young Lamarck enteredthe seminary. On making inquiries in June, 1899, at the Jesuits'Seminary in Amiens, one of the faculty, after consultation with theFather Superior, kindly gave us in writing the following information asto the exact date: "The registers of the great seminary were carriedaway during the French Revolution, and we do not know whither they havebeen transported, and whether they still exist to-day. Besides, it isvery doubtful whether Lamarck resided here, because only ecclesiasticspreparing for receiving orders were received in the seminary. Do you notconfound the seminary with the ancient college of Rue Poste de Paris, college now destroyed?"

[9] We are following the _Éloge_ of Cuvier almost verbatim, alsoreproduced in the biographical notice in the _Revue biographique de laSociété Malacologique de France_, said to have been prepared by J.  R. Bourguignat. 

CHAPTER II

STUDENT LIFE AND BOTANICAL CAREER

The profession of arms had not led Lamarck to forget the principles ofphysical science which he had received at college. During his sojourn atMonaco the singular vegetation of that rocky country had attracted hisattention, and Chomel's _Traité des Plantes usuelles_ accidentallyfalling into his hands had given him some smattering of botany. 

Lodged at Paris, as he has himself said, in a room much higher up thanhe could have wished, the clouds, almost the only objects to be seenfrom his windows, interested him by their ever-changing shapes, andinspired in him his first ideas of meteorology. There were not wantingother objects to excite interest in a mind which had always beenremarkably active and original. He then realized, to quote from hisbiographer, Cuvier, what Voltaire said of Condorcet, that solid enduringdiscoveries can shed a lustre quite different from that of a commanderof a company of infantry. He resolved to study some profession. Thislast resolution was but little less courageous than the first. Reducedto a pension (_pension alimentaire_) of only 400 francs a year, heattempted to study medicine, and while waiting until he had the time togive to the necessary studies, he worked in the dreary office of abank. 

The meditations, the thoughts and aspirations of a contemplative naturelike his, in his hours of work or leisure, in some degree consoled thebudding philosopher during this period of uncongenial labor, and when hedid have an opportunity of communicating his ideas to his friends, ofdiscussing them, of defending them against objection, the hardships ofhis workaday life were for the time forgotten. In his ardor for scienceall the uncongenial experiences of his life as a bank clerk vanished. Like many another rising genius in art, literature, or science, his zealfor knowledge and investigation in those days of grinding poverty fedthe fires of his genius, and this was the light which throughout hislong poverty-stricken life shed a golden lustre on his toilsomeexistence. He did not then know that the great Linné, the father of thescience he was to illuminate and so greatly to expand, also began lifein extreme poverty, and eked out his scanty livelihood by mending overagain for his own use the cast-off shoes of his fellow-students. (Cuvier. )

Bourguin[10] tells us that Lamarck's medical course lasted four years, and this period of severe study--for he must have made itsuch--evidently laid the best possible foundation that Paris could thenafford for his after studies. He seems, however, to have wavered in hisintentions of making medicine his life work, for he possessed a decidedtaste for music. His eldest brother, the Chevalier de Bazentin, stronglyopposed, and induced him to abandon this project, though not withoutdifficulty. 

At about this time the two brothers lived in a quiet village[11] nearParis, and there for a year they studied together science and history. And now happened an event which proved to be the turning point, orrather gave a new and lasting impetus to Lamarck's career and decidedhis vocation in life. In one of their walks they met the philosopher andsentimentalist, Jean Jacques Rousseau. We know little about Lamarck'sacquaintance with this genius, for all the details of his life, both inhis early and later years, are pitifully scanty. Lamarck, however, hadattended at the Jardin du Roi a botanical course, and now, having bygood fortune met Rousseau, he probably improved the acquaintance, and, found by Rousseau to be a congenial spirit, he was soon invited toaccompany him in his herborizations. 

Still more recently Professor Giard[12] has unearthed from the works ofRousseau the following statement by him regarding species: "Est-ce qu'àproprement parler il n'existerait point d'espèces dans la nature, maisseulement des individus?"[13] In his _Discours sur l'Inégalité parmi lesHommes_ is the following passage, which shows, as Giard says, thatRousseau perfectly understood the influence of the _milieu_ and of wantson the organism; and this brilliant writer seems to have been the firstto suggest natural selection, though only in the case of man, when hesays that the weaker in Sparta were eliminated in order that thesuperior and stronger of the race might survive and be maintained. 

 "Accustomed from infancy to the severity of the weather and the rigors of the seasons, trained to undergo fatigue, and obliged to defend naked and without arms their life and their prey against ferocious beasts, or to escape them by flight, the men acquired an almost invariably robust temperament; the infants, bringing into the world the strong constitution of their fathers, and strengthening themselves by the same kind of exercise as produced it, have thus acquired all the vigor of which the human species is capable. Nature uses them precisely as did the law of Sparta the children of her citizens. She rendered strong and robust those with a good constitution, and destroyed all the others. Our societies differ in this respect, where the state, in rendering the children burdensome to the father, indirectly kills them before birth. "[14]

Soon Lamarck abandoned not only a military career, but also music, medicine, and the bank, and devoted himself exclusively to science. Hewas now twenty-four years old, and, becoming a student of botany underBernard de Jussieu, for ten years gave unremitting attention to thisscience, and especially to a study of the French flora. 

Cuvier states that the _Flore Française_ appeared after "six months ofunremitting labor. " However this may be, the results of over ninepreceding years of study, gathered together, written, and printed withinthe brief period of half a year, was no hasty _tour de force_, but awell-matured, solid work which for many years remained a standard one. 

It brought him immediate fame. It appeared at a fortunate epoch. Theexample of Rousseau and the general enthusiasm he inspired had made thestudy of flowers very popular--"_une science à la mode_, " as Cuviersays--even among many ladies and in the world of fashion, so that thenew work of Lamarck, though published in three octavo volumes, had arapid success. 

The preface was written by Daubenton. [15] Buffon also took much interestin the work, opposing as it did the artificial system of Linné, for whomhe had, for other reasons, no great degree of affection. He obtained theprivilege of having the work published at the royal printing office atthe expense of the government, and the total proceeds of the sale of thevolumes were given to the author. This elaborate work at once placedyoung Lamarck in the front rank of botanists, and now the first andgreatest honor of his life came to him. The young lieutenant, disappointed in a military advancement, won his spurs in the field ofscience. A place in botany had become vacant at the Academy of Sciences, and M. De Lamarck having been presented in the second rank (_en secondeligne_), the ministry, a thing almost unexampled, caused him to be givenby the king, in 1779, the preference over M.  Descemet, whose name waspresented before his, in the first rank, and who since then, and duringa long life, never could recover the place which he unjustly lost. [16]"In a word, the poor officer, so neglected since the peace, obtained atone stroke the good fortune, always very rare, and especially so at thattime, of being both the recipient of the favor of the Court and of thepublic. "[17]

[Illustration: LAMARCK AT THE AGE OF 35 YEARS]

The interest and affection felt for him by Buffon were of advantage tohim in another way. Desiring to have his son, whom he had planned to behis successor as Intendant of the Royal Garden, and who had justfinished his studies, enjoy the advantage of travel in foreign lands, Buffon proposed to Lamarck to go with him as a guide and friend; and, not wishing him to appear as a mere teacher, he procured for him, in1781, a commission as Royal Botanist, charged with visiting the foreignbotanical gardens and museums, and of placing them in communication withthose of Paris. His travels extended through portions of the years 1781and 1782. 

According to his own statement, [18] in pursuit of this object hecollected not only rare and interesting plants which were wanting in theRoyal Garden, but also minerals and other objects of natural history newto the Museum. He went to Holland, Germany, Hungary, etc. , visitinguniversities, botanical gardens, and museums of natural history. Heexamined the mines of the Hartz in Hanover, of Freyburg in Saxony, ofChemnitz and of Cremnitz in Hungary, making there numerous observationswhich he incorporated in his work on physics, and sent collections ofores, minerals, and seeds to Paris. He also made the acquaintance of thebotanists Gleditsch at Berlin, Jacquin at Vienna, and Murray atGöttingen. He obtained some idea of the magnificent establishments inthese countries devoted to botany, "and which, " he says, "ours do notyet approach, in spite of all that had been done for them during thelast thirty years. "[19]

On his return, as he writes, he devoted all his energies and time toresearch and to carrying out his great enterprises in botany; as hestated: "Indeed, for the last ten years my works have obliged me to keepin constant activity a great number of artists, such as draughtsmen, engravers, and printers. "[20]

But the favor of Buffon, powerful as his influence was, [21] togetherwith the aid of the minister, did not avail to give Lamarck a permanentsalaried position. Soon after his return from his travels, however, M. D'Angiviller, the successor of Buffon as Intendant of the Royal Garden, who was related to Lamarck's family, created for him the position ofkeeper of the herbarium of the Royal Garden, with the paltry salary of1, 000 francs. 

According to the same _État_, Lamarck had now been attached to the RoyalGarden five years. In 1789 he received as salary only 1, 000 livres orfrancs; in 1792 it was raised to the sum of 1, 800 livres. 

FOOTNOTES:

[10] _Les Grand Naturalists Français au Commencement du XIX Siècle. _

[11] Was this quiet place in the region just out of Paris possibly nearMont Valérien? He must have been about twenty-two years old when he metRousseau and began to study botany seriously. His _Flore Française_appeared in 1778, when he was thirty-four years old. Rousseau, at theend of his checkered life, from 1770 to 1778, lived in Paris. He oftenbotanized in the suburbs; and Mr.  Morley, in his _Rousseau_, says that"one of his greatest delights was to watch Mont Valérien in the sunset"(p.  436). Rousseau died in Paris in 1778. That Rousseau expressedhimself vaguely in favor of evolution is stated by Isidore GeoffroySt.  Hilaire, who quotes a "_Phrase, malheureusement un peu ambiguë, quisemble montrer, dans se grand écrivain, un partisan de plus de lavariabilité du type_. " (_Résumé des Vues sur l'espèce organique_, p.  18, Paris, 1889. ) The passage is quoted in Geoffroy's _Histoire NaturelleGénérale des Règnes organiques_, ii. , ch.  I. , p.  271. I have been unableto verify this quotation. 

[12] _Leçon d'Ouverture du Cours de l'Évolution des Êtres organisés. _Paris, 1888. 

[13] _Dictionnaire des Termes de la Botanique. _ Art. APHRODITE. 

[14] _Discours sur l'Origine et les Fondements de l'Inégalité parmi lesHommes. _ 1754. 

[15] Since 1742, the keeper and demonstrator of the Cabinet, who sharedwith Thouin, the chief gardener, the care of the Royal Gardens. Daubenton was at that time the leading anatomist of France, and afterBuffon's death he gathered around him all the scientific men whodemanded the transformation of the superannuated and incomplete Jardindu Roi, and perhaps initiated the movement which resulted five yearslater in the creation of the present Museum of Natural History. (Hamy, _l.  c. _, p.  12. )

[16] De Mortillet (_Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Transformistes_, p.  11)states that Lamarck was elected to the Academy at the age of thirty; butas he was born in 1744, and the election took place in 1779, he musthave been thirty-five years of age. 

[17] Cuvier's _Éloge_, p.  viii. ; also _Revue biographique de la SociétéMalacologique_, p.  67. 

[18] See letters to the Committee of Public Instruction. 

[19] Cuvier's _Éloge_, p.  viii; also Bourguignat in _Revue biog. Soc. Malacologique_, p.  67. 

[20] He received no remuneration for this service. As was afterwardsstated in the National Archives, _État des personnes attachées au MuséumNational d'Histoire Naturelle a l'époque du messidor an II de laRépublique_, he "sent to this establishment seeds of rare plants, interesting minerals, and observations made during his travels inHolland, Germany, and in France. He did not receive any compensation forthis service. "

[21] "The illustrious Intendant of the Royal Garden and Cabinet hadconcentrated in his hands the most varied and extensive powers. Not onlydid he hold, like his predecessors, the _personnel_ of the establishmententirely at his discretion, but he used the appropriations which werevoted to him with a very great independence. Thanks to the universalrenown which he had acquired both in science and in literature, Buffonmaintained with the men who succeeded one another in office relationswhich enabled him to do almost anything he liked at the Royal Garden. "His manner to public men, as Condorcet said, was conciliatory andtactful, and to his subordinates he was modest and unpretending. (Professor G.  T. Hamy, _Les Derniers Jours du Jardin du Roi_, etc. , p.  3. ) Buffon, after nearly fifty years of service as Intendant, diedApril 16, 1788. 

CHAPTER III

LAMARCK'S SHARE IN THE REORGANIZATION OF THE JARDIN DES PLANTES ANDMUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Even in his humble position as keeper of the herbarium, with itspitiable compensation, Lamarck, now an eminent botanist, with a Europeanreputation, was by no means appreciated or secure in his position. Hewas subjected to many worries, and, already married and with severalchildren, suffered from a grinding poverty. His friend and supporter, La Billarderie, was a courtier, with much influence at the Tuileries, but as Intendant of the Royal Garden without the least claim toscientific fitness for the position; and in 1790 he was on the point ofdischarging Lamarck. [22] On the 20th of August the Finance Committeereduced the expenses of the Royal Garden and Cabinet, and, while raisingthe salary of the professor of botany, to make good the deficiency thusensuing suppressed the position of keeper of the herbarium, filled byLamarck. Lamarck, on learning of this, acted promptly, and though inthis cavalier way stricken off from the rolls of the Royal Garden, heat once prepared, printed, and distributed among the members of theNational Assembly an energetic claim for restoration to his office. [23]His defence formed two brochures; in one he gave an account of his life, travels, and works, and in the other he showed that the place which hefilled was a pressing necessity, and could not be conveniently orusefully added to that of the professor of botany, who was alreadyoverworked. 

This manly and able plea in his own defence also comprised a broad, comprehensive plan for the organization and development of a greatnational museum, combining both vast collections and adequate means ofpublic instruction. The paper briefly stated, in courteous language, what he wished to say to public men, in general animated with goodintentions, but little versed in the study of the sciences and theknowledge of their application. It praised, in fit terms, the work ofthe National Assembly, and gave, without too much emphasis, theassurance of an entire devotion to the public business. Then in a veryclear and comprehensive way were given all the kinds of service which anestablishment like the Royal Garden should render to the sciences andarts, and especially to agriculture, medicine, commerce, etc. Museums, galleries, and botanical gardens; public lectures and demonstrations inthe museum and school of botany; an office for giving information, thedistribution of seeds, etc. --all the resources already so varied, aswell as the facilities for work at the Jardin, passed successively inreview before the representatives of the country, and the address endedin a modest request to the Assembly that its author be allowed a fewdays to offer some observations regarding the future organization ofthis great institution. 

The Assembly, adopting the wise views announced in the manifest whichhad been presented by the officers of the Jardin and Cabinet, sent theaddress to the Committee, and gave a month's time to the petitioners toprepare and present a plan and regulations which should establish theorganization of their establishment. [24]

It was in 1790 that the decisive step was taken by the officers of theRoyal Garden[25] and Cabinet of Natural History which led to theorganization of the present Museum of Natural History as it is to-day. Throughout the proceedings, Lamarck, as at the outset, took a prominentpart, his address having led the Assembly to invite the officers of thedouble establishment to draw up rules for its government. 

The officers met together August 23d, and their distrust and hostilityagainst the Intendant were shown by their nomination of Daubenton, theNestor of the French savants, to the presidency, althoughLa Billarderie, as representing the royal authority, was present at themeeting. At the second meeting (August 24th) he took no part in theproceedings, and absented himself from the third, held on August 27, 1790. It will be seen that even while the office of Intendant lasted, that official took no active part in the meetings or in the work of theinstitution, and from that day to this it has been solely under themanagement of a director and scientific corps of professors, all of themoriginal investigators as well as teachers. Certainly the most practicaland efficient sort of organization for such an establishment. [26]

Lamarck, though holding a place subordinate to the other officers, waspresent, as the records of the proceedings of the officers of the Jardindes Plantes at this meeting show. 

During the middle of 1791, the Intendant, La Billarderie, after "fouryears of incapacity, " placed his resignation in the hands of the king. The Minister of the Interior, instead of nominating Daubenton asIntendant, reserved the place for a _protégé_, and, July 1, 1791, sentin the name of Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, thedistinguished author of _Paul et Virginie_ and of _Études sur laNature_. The new Intendant was literary in his tastes, fond of nature, but not a practical naturalist. M.  Hamy wittily states that "BernardinSaint-Pierre contemplated and dreamed, and in his solitary meditationshad imagined a system of the world which had nothing in common with thatwhich was to be seen in the Faubourg Saint Victor, and one can readilyimagine the welcome that the officers of the Jardin gave to the singularnaturalist the Tuileries had sent them. "[27]

Lamarck suffered an indignity from the intermeddling of this secondIntendant of the Jardin. In his budget of expenses[28] sent to theMinister of the Interior, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre took occasion torefer to Lamarck in a disingenuous and blundering way, which may haveboth amused and disgusted him. 

But the last days of the Jardin du Roi were drawing to a close, and anew era in French natural science, signalized by the reorganization ofthe Jardin and Cabinet under the name of the _Muséum d'HistoireNaturelle_, was dawning. On the 6th of February, 1793, the NationalConvention, at the request of Lakanal, [29] ordered the Committees ofPublic Instruction and of Finances to at once make a report on the neworganization of the administration of the Jardin des Plantes. 

Lakanal consulted with Daubenton, and inquired into the condition andneeds of the establishment; Daubenton placed in his hands the brochureof 1790, written by Lamarck. The next day Lakanal, after a shortconference with his colleagues of the Committee of Public Instruction, read in the tribune a short report and a decree which the Committeeadopted without discussion. 

Their minds were elsewhere, for grave news had come in from allquarters. The Austrians were bombarding Valenciennes, the Prussians hadinvested Mayence, the Spanish were menacing Perpignan, and bands ofVendeans had seized Saumur after a bloody battle; while at Caen, atEvreux, at Bordeaux, at Marseilles, and elsewhere, muttered the thundersof the outbreaks provoked by the proscription of the Girondins. So thatunder these alarming conditions the decree of the 10th of June, inspite of its importance to science and higher learning in France, waspassed without discussion. 

In his _Lamarck_ De Mortillet states explicitly that Lamarck, in hisaddress of 1790, changed the name of the Jardin du Roi to Jardin desPlantes. [30] As the article states, "Entirely devoted to his studies, Lamarck entered into no intrigue under the falling monarchy, so healways remained in a position straitened and inferior to his merits. " Itwas owing to this and his retired mode of life that the single-mindedstudent of nature was not disturbed in his studies and meditations bythe Revolution. And when the name of the Jardin du Roi threatened to befatal to this establishment, it was he who presented a memoir totransform it, under the name of Jardin des Plantes, into an institutionof higher instruction, with six professors. In 1793, Lakanal adoptedLamarck's plan, and, enlarging upon it, created twelve chairs for theteaching of the natural sciences. 

Bourguin thus puts the matter:

 "In June, 1793, Lakanal, having learned that 'the Vandals' (that is his expression) had demanded of the tribune of the Convention the suppression of the Royal Garden, as being an annex of the king's palace, recurred to the memoirs of Lamarck presented in 1790 and gave his plan of organization. He inspired himself with Lamarck's ideas, but enlarged upon them. Instead of six positions of professors-administrative, which Lamarck asked for, Lakanal established twelve chairs for the teaching of different branches of natural science. "[31]

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Another intended victim of La Billarderie, whose own salary hadbeen at the same time reduced, was Faujas de Saint-Fond, one of thefounders of geology. But his useful discoveries in economic geologyhaving brought him distinction, the king had generously pensioned him, and he was retained in office on the printed _État_ distributed by theCommittee of Finance. (Hamy, _l.  c. _, p.  29. )

[23] Hamy, _l.  c. _, p.  29. This brochure, of which I possess a copy, isa small quarto pamphlet of fifteen pages, signed, on the last page, "_J.  B. Lamarck, ancien Officier au Régiment de Beaujolais, del'Académie des Sciences de Paris, Botaniste attaché au Cabinetd'Histoire Naturelle du Jardin des Plantes_. "

[24] Hamy, _l.  c. _, p.  31; also _Pièces Justificatives_, Nos.  11 _et_12, pp.  97-101. The Intendant of the Garden was completely ignored, andhis unpopularity and inefficiency led to his resignation. But meanwhile, in his letter to Condorcet, the perpetual Secretary of the Institute ofFrance, remonstrating against the proposed suppression by the Assemblyof the place of Intendant, he partially retracted his action againstLamarck, saying that Lamarck's work, "_peut être utile, mais n'est pasabsolutement nécessaire_. " The Intendant, as Hamy adds, knew well thevalue of the services rendered by Lamarck at the Royal Garden, and that, as a partial recompense, he had been appointed botanist to the museum. He also equally well knew that the author of the _Flore Française_ wasin a most precarious situation and supported on his paltry salary afamily of seven persons, as he was already at this time married and hadfive children. "But his own place was in peril, and he did not hesitateto sacrifice the poor savant whom he had himself installed as keeper ofthe herbarium. " (Hamy, _l.  c. _, pp.  34, 35. )

[25] The first idea of the foundation of the Jardin dates from 1626, butthe actual carrying out of the conception was in 1635. The first act ofinstallation took place in 1640. Gui de la Brosse, in order to pleasehis high protectors, the first physicians of the king, named hisestablishment _Jardin des Plantes Medicinales_. It was renovated byFagon, who was born in the Jardin, and whose mother was the niece of Guide la Brosse. By his disinterestedness, activity, and great scientificcapacity, he regenerated the garden, and under his administrationflourished the great professors, Duverney, Tournefort, Geoffroy thechemist, and others (Perrier, _l.  c. _, p.  59). Fagon wassucceeded by Buffon, "the new legislator and second founder. "His Intendancy lasted from 1739 to 1788. 

[26] Three days after, August 30th, the report was ready, the discussionbegan, and the foundations of the new organization were definitely laid. "No longer any Jardin or Cabinets, but a Museum of Natural History, whose aim was clearly defined. No officers with unequal functions; allare professors and all will give instruction. They elect themselves andpresent to the king _a candidate for each vacant place_. _Finally, thegeneral administration of the Museum will be confided to the officers ofthe establishment_, this implying the suppression of the Intendancy. "(Hamy, _l.  c. _, p.  37. )

[27] Hamy, _l.  c. _, p.  37. The Faubourg Saint Victor was a part of theQuartier Latin, and included the Jardin des Plantes. 

[28] _Devis de la Dépense du Jardin National des Plantes et du Cabinetd'Histoire Naturelle pour l'Année 1793_, presented to the NationalConvention by Citoyen Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. In it appeared a noterelative to Lamarck, which, after stating that, though full of zeal andof knowledge of botany, his time was not entirely occupied; that for twomonths he had written him in regard to the duties of his position;referred to the statements of two of his seniors, who repeated the oldgossip as to the claim of La Billarderie that his place was useless, andalso found fault with him for not recognizing the artificial system ofLinné in the arrangement of the herbarium, added: "However, desirous ofretaining M.  La Marck, father of six children, in the position which heneeds, and not wishing to let his talents be useless, after severalconversations with the older officers of the Jardin, I have believedthat, M.  Desfontaines being charged with the botanical lectures in theschool, and M.  Jussieu in the neighborhood of Paris, it would be well tosend M.  La Marck to herborize in some parts of the kingdom, in order tocomplete the French flora, as this will be to his taste, and at the sametime very useful to the progress of botany; thus everybody will beemployed and satisfied. "--Perrier, _Lamarck et le Transformisme Actuel_, pp.  13, 14. (Copied from the National Archives. ) "The life of Bernardinde St.  Pierre (1737-1814) was nearly as irregular as that of his friendand master [Rousseau]. But his character was essentially crafty andselfish, like that of many other sentimentalists of the first order. "(Morley's _Rousseau_, p.  437, footnote. )

[29] Joseph Lakanal was born in 1762, and died in 1845. He was aprofessor of philosophy in a college of the Oratory, and doctor of thefaculty at Angers, when in 1792 he was sent as a representative(_député_) to the National Convention, and being versed in educationalquestions he was placed on the Committee of Public Instruction andelected its president. He was the means, as Hamy states, of saving froma lamentable destruction, by rejuvenizing them, the scientificinstitutions of ancient France. During the Revolution he voted for thedeath of Louis XVI. 

Lakanal also presented a plan of organization of a National Institute, what is now the Institut de France, and was charged with designating thefirst forty-eight members, who should elect all the others. He was bythe first forty-eight thus elected. Proscribed as a regicide at thesecond restoration, he sailed for the United States, where he was warmlywelcomed by Jefferson. The United States Congress voted him five hundredacres of land. The government of Louisiana offered him the presidency ofits university, which, however, he did not accept. In 1825 he went tolive on the shores of Mobile Bay on land which he purchased from theproceeds of the sale of the land given him by Congress. Here he became apioneer and planter. 

In 1830 he manifested a desire to return to his native country, andoffered his services to the new government, but received no answer andwas completely ignored. But two years later, thanks to the initiative ofGeoffroy St.  Hilaire, who was the means of his reëlection to the FrenchAcademy, he decided to return, and did so in 1837. He lived inretirement in Paris, where he occupied himself until his death in 1845in writing a book entitled _Séjour d'un Membre de l'Institut de Franceaux États-Unis pendant vingt-deux ans_. The manuscript mysteriouslydisappeared, no trace of it ever having been found. (Larousse, _GrandDictionnaire Universel_, Art. LAKANAL. ) His bust now occupies aprominent place among those of other great men in the French Academy ofSciences. 

[30] This is seen to be the case by the title of the pamphlet: _Mémoiresur les Cabinets d'Histoire Naturelle, et particulièrement sur celui duJardin des Plantes_. 

[31] Bourguin also adds that "on one point Lamarck, with more foresight, went farther than Lakanal. He had insisted on the necessity of theappointment of four demonstrators for zoölogy. In the decree of June 10, 1793, they were even reduced to two. Afterwards they saw that thisnumber was insufficient, and to-day (1863) the department of zoölogy isadministered at the museum by four professors, in conformity with thedivision indicated by Lamarck. "

CHAPTER IV

PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOÖLOGY AT THE MUSEUM

Lamarck's career as a botanist comprised about twenty-five years. We nowcome to the third stage of his life--Lamarck the zoölogist andevolutionist. He was in his fiftieth year when he assumed the duties ofhis professorship of the zoölogy of the invertebrate animals; and at aperiod when many men desire rest and freedom from responsibility, withthe vigor of an intellectual giant Lamarck took upon his shoulders newlabors in an untrodden field both in pure science and philosophicthought. 

It was now the summer of 1793, and on the eve of the Reign of Terror, when Paris, from early in October until the end of the year, was in thedeadliest throes of revolution. The dull thud of the guillotine, placedin front of the Tuileries, in the Place de la Revolution, which is nowthe Place de la Concorde, a little to the east of where the obelisk ofLuxor now stands, could almost be heard by the quiet workers in theMuseum, for sansculottism in its most aggressive and hideous forms ragednot far from the Jardin des Plantes, then just on the border of thedensest part of the Paris of the first Revolution. Lavoisier, thefounder of modern chemistry, was guillotined some months later. The AbbéHaüy, the founder of crystallography, had been, the year previous, rescued from prison by young Geoffroy St.  Hilaire, his neck being barelysaved from the gleaming axe. Roland, the friend of science and letters, had been so hunted down that at Rouen, in a moment of despair, onhearing of his wife's death, he thrust his sword-cane through his heart. Madame Roland had been beheaded, as also a cousin of her husband, and wecan well imagine that these fateful summer and autumn days were scarcelyfavorable to scientific enterprises. [32] Still, however, amid the loudalarums of this social tempest, the Museum underwent a new birth whichproved not to be untimely. The Minister of the Interior (Garat) invitedthe professors of the Museum to constitute an assembly to nominate adirector and a treasurer, and he begged them to present extracts oftheir deliberations for him to send to the executive council, "under thesupervision of which the National Museum is for the future placed;"though in general the assembly only reported to the Minister mattersrelating to the expenses, the first annual grant of the Museum being100, 000 livres. 

Four days after, June 14th, the assembly met and adopted the name of theestablishment in the following terms: _Muséum d'Histoire Naturelledécrété par la Convention Nationale le 10 Juin, 1793_; and at a meetingheld on the 9th of July the assembly definitely organized the firstbureau, with Daubenton as director, Thouin treasurer, and Desfontainessecretary. Lamarck, as the records show, was present at all thesemeetings, and at the first one, June 14th, Lamarck and Fourcroy weredesignated as commissioners for the formation of the Museum library. 

All this was done without the aid or presence of Bernardinde Saint-Pierre, the Intendant. The Minister of the Interior, meanwhile, had communicated to him the decision of the National Convention, andinvited him to continue his duties up to the moment when the neworganization should be established. After remaining in his office untilJuly 9th, he retired from the Museum August 7th following, and finallywithdrew to the country at Essones. 

The organization of the Museum is the same now as in 1793, having forover a century been the chief biological centre of France, and with itsmagnificent collections was never more useful in the advancement ofscience than at this moment. 

Let us now look at the composition of the assembly of professors, whichformed the Board of Administration of the Museum at the time of hisappointment. 

The associates of Lamarck and Geoffroy St.  Hilaire, who had already beenconnected with the Royal Garden and Cabinet, were Daubenton, Thouin, Desfontaines, Portal, and Mertrude. The Nestor of the faculty wasDaubenton, who was born in 1716. He was the collaborator of Buffon inthe first part of his _Histoire Naturelle_, and the author of treatiseson the mammals and of papers on the bats and other mammals, also onreptiles, together with embryological and anatomical essays. Thouin, theprofessor of horticulture, was the veteran gardener and architect of theJardin des Plantes, and withal a most useful man. He was affable, modest, genial, greatly beloved by his students, a man of highcharacter, and possessing much executive ability. A street near theJardin was named after him. He was succeeded by Bosc. Desfontaineshad the chair of botany, but his attainments as a botanist weremediocre, and his lectures were said to have been tame anduninteresting. Portal taught human anatomy, while Mertrude lectured onvertebrate anatomy; his chair was filled by Cuvier in 1795. 

Of this group Lamarck was _facile princeps_, as he combined greatsagacity and experience as a systematist with rare intellectual andphilosophic traits. For this reason his fame has perhaps outlasted thatof his young contemporary, Geoffroy St.  Hilaire. 

The necessities of the Museum led to the division of the chair ofzoölogy, botany being taught by Desfontaines. And now began a newera in the life of Lamarck. After twenty-five years spent in botanicalresearch he was compelled, as there seemed nothing else for him toundertake, to assume charge of the collection of invertebrate animals, and to him was assigned that enormous, chaotic mass of forms then knownas molluscs, insects, worms, and microscopic animals. Had he continuedto teach botany, we might never have had the Lamarck of biology andbiological philosophy. But turned adrift in a world almost unexplored, he faced the task with his old-time bravery and dogged persistence, andat once showed the skill of a master mind in systematic work. 

The two new professorships in zoölogy were filled, one by Lamarck, previously known as a botanist, and the other by the young ÉtienneGeoffroy St.  Hilaire, then twenty-two years old, who was at that time astudent of Haüy, and in charge of the minerals, besides teachingmineralogy with especial reference to crystallography. 

To Geoffroy was assigned the four classes of vertebrates, but in realityhe only occupied himself with the mammals and birds. AfterwardsLacépède[33] took charge of the reptiles and fishes. On the other hand, Lamarck's field comprised more than nine-tenths of the animal kingdom. Already the collections of insects, crustacea, worms, molluscs, echinoderms, corals, etc. , at the Museum were enormous. At this timeFrance began to send out those exploring expeditions to all parts of theglobe which were so numerous and fruitful during the first third of thenineteenth century. The task of arranging and classifying single-handedthis enormous mass of material was enough to make a young man quail, andit is a proof of the vigor, innate ability, and breadth of view of theman that in this pioneer work he not only reduced to some order thisvast horde of forms, but showed such insight and brought about suchradical reforms in zoölogical classification, especially in thefoundation and limitation of certain classes, an insight no one beforehim had evinced. To him and to Latreille much of the value of the _RègneAnimal_ of Cuvier, as regards invertebrate classes, is due. 

The exact title of the chair held by Lamarck is given in the _État_ ofpersons attached to the National Museum of Natural History at the dateof the 1er messidor, an II. Of the Republic (1794), where he ismentioned as follows: "LAMARCK--fifty years old; married for the secondtime; wife _enceinte_; six children; professor of zoölogy, of insects, of worms, and microscopic animals. " His salary, like that of the otherprofessors, was put at 2, 868 livres, 6 sous, 8 deniers. [34]

Étienne Geoffroy St.  Hilaire[35] has related how the professorship wasgiven to Lamarck. 

 "The law of 1793 had prescribed that all parts of the natural sciences should be equally taught. The insects, shells, and an infinity of organisms--a portion of creation still almost unknown--remained to be treated in such a course. A desire to comply with the wishes of his colleagues, members of the administration, and without doubt, also, the consciousness of his powers as an investigator, determined M. De Lamarck: this task, so great, and which would tend to lead him into numberless researches; this friendless, unthankful task he accepted--courageous resolution, which has resulted in giving us immense undertakings and great and important works, among which posterity will distinguish and honor forever the work which, entirely finished and collected into seven volumes, is known under the name of _Animaux sans Vertèbres_. "

Before his appointment to this chair Lamarck had devoted considerableattention to the study of conchology, and already possessed a ratherlarge collection of shells. His last botanical paper appeared in 1800, but practically his botanical studies were over by 1793. 

During the early years of the Revolution, namely, from 1789 to andincluding 1791, Lamarck published nothing. Whether this was naturallydue to the social convulsions and turmoil which raged around the Jardindes Plantes, or to other causes, is not known. In 1792, however, Lamarckand his friends and colleagues, Bruguière, Olivier, and the Abbé Haüy, founded the _Journal d'Histoire Naturelle_, which contains nineteenbotanical articles, two on shells, besides one on physics, by Lamarck. These, with many articles by other men of science, illustrated byplates, indicate that during the years of social unrest and upheaval inParis, and though France was also engaged in foreign wars, thephilosophers preserved in some degree, at least, the traditional calm oftheir profession, and passed their days and nights in absorption inmatters biological and physical. In 1801 appeared his _Système desAnimaux sans Vertèbres_, preceded by the opening discourse of hislectures on the lower animals, in which his views on the origin ofspecies were first propounded. During the years 1793-1798, or for aperiod of six years, he published nothing on zoölogy, and during thistime only one paper appeared, in 1798, on the influence of the moon onthe earth's atmosphere. But as his memoirs on fire and on sound werepublished in 1798, it is evident that his leisure hours during thisperiod, when not engaged in museum work and the preparation of hislectures, were devoted to meditations on physical and meteorologicalsubjects, and most probably it was towards the end of this period thathe brooded over and conceived his views on organic evolution. 

It appears that he was led, in the first place, to conchological studiesthrough his warm friendship for a fellow naturalist, and this is one ofmany proofs of his affectionate, generous nature. The touching story istold by Étienne Geoffroy St.  Hilaire. [36]

 "It was impossible to assign him a professorship of botany. M. De Lamarck, then forty-nine years old, accepted this change in his scientific studies to take charge of that which everybody had neglected; because it was, indeed, a heavy load, this branch of natural history, where, with so varied relations, everything was to be created. On one group he was a little prepared, but it was by accident; a self-sacrifice to friendship was the cause. For it was both to please his friend Bruguière as well as to penetrate more deeply into the affections of this very reserved naturalist, and also to converse with him in the only language which he wished to hear, which was restricted to conversations on shells, that M. De Lamarck had made some conchological studies. Oh, how, in 1793, did he regret that his friend had gone to Persia! He had wished, he had planned, that he should take the professorship which it was proposed to create. He would at least supply his place; it was in answer to the yearnings of his soul, and this affectionate impulse became a fundamental element in the nature of one of the greatest of zoölogical geniuses of our epoch. "

Once settled in his new line of work, Lamarck, the incipient zoölogist, at a period in life when many students of less flexible and energeticnatures become either hide-bound and conservative, averse to taking up adifferent course of study, or actually cease all work and rustout--after a half century of his life had passed, this rare spirit, burning with enthusiasm, charged like some old-time knight or explorerinto a new realm and into "fresh fields and pastures new. " His spirit, still young and fresh after nearly thirty years of mental toil, sounrequited in material things, felt a new stimulus as he began toinvestigate the lower animals, so promising a field for discovery. 

He said himself:

 "That which is the more singular is that the most important phenomena to be considered have been offered to our meditations only since the time when attention has been paid to the animals least perfect, and when researches on the different complications of the organization of these animals have become the principal foundation of their study. It is not less singular to realize that it was almost always from the examination of the smallest objects which nature presents to us, and that of considerations which seem to us the most minute, that we have obtained the most important knowledge to enable us to arrive at the discovery of her laws, and to determine her course. "

After a year of preparation he opened his course at the Museum in thespring of 1794. In his introductory lecture, given in 1803, after tenyears of work on the lower animals, he addressed his class in thesewords:

 "Indeed it is among those animals which are the most multiplied and numerous in nature, and the most ready to regenerate themselves, that we should seek the most instructive facts bearing on the course of nature, and on the means she has employed in the creation of her innumerable productions. In this case we perceive that, relatively to the animal kingdom, we should chiefly devote our attention to the invertebrate animals, because their enormous multiplicity in nature, the singular diversity of their systems of organization and of their means of multiplication, their increasing simplification, and the extreme fugacity of those which compose the lowest orders of these animals, show us, much better than the higher animals, the true course of nature, and the means which she has used and which she still unceasingly employs to give existence to all the living bodies of which we have knowledge. "

During this decade (1793-1803) and the one succeeding, Lamarck's mindgrew and expanded. Before 1801, however much he may have brooded overthe matter, we have no utterances in print on the transformation theory. His studies on the lower animals, and his general knowledge of thevertebrates derived from the work of his contemporaries and hisobservations in the Museum and menagerie, gave him a broad grasp of theentire animal kingdom, such as no one before him had. As the result, hiscomprehensive mind, with its powers of rapid generalization, enabled himto appreciate the series from monad (his _ébauche_) to man, the range offorms from the simple to the complex. Even though not a comparativeanatomist like Cuvier, he made use of the latter's discoveries, andcould understand and appreciate the gradually increasing complexity offorms; and, unlike Cuvier, realize that they were blood relations, andnot separate, piece-meal creations. Animal life, so immeasurably higherthan vegetable forms, with its highly complex physiological functionsand varied means of reproduction, and the relations of its forms to eachother and to the world around, affords facts for evolution which werenovel to Lamarck, the descriptive botanist. 

[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK. REAR VIEW, FROM THE WEST]

[Illustration: MAISON DE BUFFON, IN WHICH LAMARCK LIVED IN PARIS. 1793-1829]

In accordance with the rules of the Museum, which required that all theprofessors should be lodged within the limits of the Jardin, the choiceof lodgings being given to the oldest professors, Lamarck, at the timeof his appointment, took up his abode in the house now known as theMaison de Buffon, situated on the opposite side of the Jardin desPlantes from the house afterwards inhabited by Cuvier, and in the anglebetween the Galerie de Zoologie and the Museum library. [37] With littledoubt the windows of his study, where his earlier addresses, the_Recherches sur l'Organisation des Corps Vivans_, and the _PhilosophieZoologique_, were probably written, looked out upon what is now thecourt on the westerly side of the house, that facing the Rue GeoffroySt.  Hilaire. 

At the time of his entering on his duties as professor of zoölogy, Lamarck was in his fiftieth year. He had married twice and was thefather of six children, and without fortune. He married for a third, andafterwards for a fourth time, and in all, seven children were born tohim, as in the year (1794) the minute referring to his request for anindemnity states: "Il est chargé de sept enfans dont un est sur lesvaisseaux de la République. " Another son was an artist, as shown by therecords of the Assembly of the Museum for September 23, 1814, when heasked for a chamber in the lodgings of Thouin, for the use of his son, "_peintre_. "

Geoffroy St.  Hilaire, in 1829, spoke of one of his sons, M.  Auguste deLamarck, as a skilful and highly esteemed engineer of Ponts-et-Chaussées, then advantageously situated. 

But man cannot live by scientific researches and philosophic meditationsalone. The history of Lamarck's life is painful from beginning to end. With his large family and slender salary he was never free from carkingcares and want. On the 30 fructidor, an II. Of the Republic, theNational Convention voted the sum of 300, 000 livres, with which anindemnity was to be paid to citizens eminent in literature and art. Lamarck had sacrificed much time and doubtless some money in thepreparation and publication of his works, and he felt that he had a justclaim to be placed on the list of those who had been useful to theRepublic, and at the same time could give proof of their goodcitizenship, and of their right to receive such indemnity orappropriation. 

Accordingly, in 1795 he sent in a letter, which possesses muchautobiographical interest, to the Committee of Public Instruction, inwhich he says:

 "During the twenty-six years that he has lived in Paris the citizen Lamarck has unceasingly devoted himself to the study of natural history, and particularly botany. He has done it successfully, for it is fifteen years since he published under the title of _Flore Française_ the history and description of the plants of France, with the mention of their properties and of their usefulness in the arts; a work printed at the expense of the government, well received by the public, and which now is much sought after and very rare. " He then describes his second great botanical undertaking, the _Encyclopædia and Illustration of Genera_, with nine hundred plates. He states that for ten years past he has kept busy "a great number of Parisian artists, three printing presses for different works, besides delivering a course of lectures. "

The petition was granted. At about this period a pension of twelvehundred francs from the Academy of Sciences, and which had increased tothree thousand francs, had ceased eighteen months previously to be paidto him. But at the time (an II. ) Lamarck was "chargé de sept enfans, "and this appropriation was a most welcome addition to his small salary. 

The next year (an III. ) he again applied for a similar allowance fromthe funds providing an indemnity for men of letters and artists "whosetalents are useful to the Republic. " Again referring to the _FloreFrançaise_, and his desire to prepare a second edition of it, and hisother works and travels in the interest of botanical science, he says:

 "If I had been less overburdened by needs of all kinds for some years, and especially since the suppression of my pension from the aforesaid Academy of Sciences, I should prepare the second edition of this useful work; and this would be, without doubt, indeed, the opportunity of making a new present to my country. 

 "Since my return to France I have worked on the completion of my great botanical enterprises, and indeed for about ten years past my works have obliged me to keep in constant activity a great number of artists, such as draughtsmen, engravers, and printers. But these important works that I have begun, and have in a well-advanced state, have been in spite of all my efforts suspended and practically abandoned for the last ten years. The loss of my pension from the Academy of Sciences and the enormous increase in the price of articles of subsistence have placed me, with my numerous family, in a state of distress which leaves me neither the time nor the freedom from care to cultivate science in a fruitful way. "

Lamarck's collection of shells, the accumulation of nearly thirtyyears, [38] was purchased by the government at the price of five thousandlivres. This sum was used by him to balance the price of a nationalestate for which he had contracted by virtue of the law of 28 ventôse del'an IV. [39] This little estate, which was the old domain of Beauregard, was a modest farm-house or country-house at Héricourt-Saint-Samson, inthe Department of Seine-et-Oise, not far to the northward of Beauvais, and about fifty miles from Paris. It is probable that as a proprietor ofa landed property he passed the summer season, or a part of it, on thisestate. 

This request was, we may believe, made from no unworthy or mercenarymotive, but because he thought that such an indemnity was his due. Someyears after (in 1809) the chair of zoölogy, newly formed by the Facultédes Sciences in Paris, was offered to him. Desirable as the salary wouldhave been in his straitened circumstances, he modestly refused theoffer, because he felt unable at that time of life (he was, however, butsixty-five years of age) to make the studies required worthily to occupythe position. 

One of Lamarck's projects, which he was never able to carry out, for itwas even then quite beyond the powers of any man single-handed toundertake, was his _Système de la Nature_. We will let him describe itin his own words, especially since the account is somewhatautobiographical. It is the second memoir he addressed to the Committeeof Public Instruction of the National Convention, dated 4 vendémiaire, l'an III. (1795):

 "In my first memoir I have given you an account of the works which I have published and of those which I have undertaken to contribute to the progress of natural history; also of the travels and researches which I have made. 

 "But for a long time I have had in view a very important work--perhaps better adapted for education in France than those I have already composed or undertaken--a work, in short, which the National Convention should without doubt order, and of which no part could be written so advantageously as in Paris, where are to be found abundant means for carrying it to completion. 

 "This is a _Système de la Nature_, a work analogous to the _Systema naturæ_ of Linnæus, but written in French, and presenting the picture complete, concise, and methodical, of all the natural productions observed up to this day. This important work (of Linnæus), which the young Frenchmen who intend to devote themselves to the study of natural history always require, is the object of speculations by foreign authors, and has already passed through thirteen different editions. Moreover, their works, which, to our shame, we have to use, because we have none written expressly for us, are filled (especially the last edition edited by Gmelin) with gross mistakes, omissions of double and triple occurrence, and errors in synonymy, and present many generic characters which are inexact or imperceptible and many series badly divided, or genera too numerous in species, and difficulties insurmountable to students. 

 "If the Committee of Public Instruction had the time to devote any attention to the importance of my project, to the utility of publishing such a work, and perhaps to the duty prescribed by the national honor, I would say to it that, after having for a long time reflected and meditated and determined upon the most feasible plan, finally after having seen amassed and prepared the most essential materials, I offer to put this beautiful project into execution. I have not lost sight of the difficulties of this great enterprise. I am, I believe, as well aware of them, and better, than any one else; but I feel that I can overcome them without descending to a simple and dishonorable compilation of what foreigners have written on the subject. I have some strength left to sacrifice for the common advantage; I have had some experience and practice in writing works of this kind; my herbarium is one of the richest in existence; my numerous collection of shells is almost the only one in France the specimens of which are determined and named according to the method adopted by modern naturalists--finally, I am in a position to profit by all the aid which is to be found in the National Museum of Natural History. With these means brought together, I can then hope to prepare in a suitable manner this interesting work. 

 "I had at first thought that the work should be executed by a society of naturalists; but after having given this idea much thought, and having already the example of the new encyclopædia, I am convinced that in such a case the work would be very defective in arrangement, without unity or plan, without any harmony of principles, and that its composition might be interminable. 

 "Written with the greatest possible conciseness, this work could not be comprised in less than eight volumes in 8vo, namely: One volume for the quadrupeds and birds; one volume for the reptiles and fishes; two volumes for the insects; one volume for the worms (the molluscs, madrepores, lithophytes, and naked worms); two volumes for the plants; one volume for the minerals: eight volumes in all. 

 "It is impossible to prepare in France a work of this nature without having special aid from the nation, because the expense of printing (on account of the enormous quantity of citations and figures which it would contain) would be such that any arrangement with the printer or the manager of the edition could not remunerate the author for writing such an immense work. 

 "If the nation should wish to print the work at its own expense, and then give to the author the profits of the sale of this edition, the author would be very much pleased, and would doubtless not expect any further aid. But it would cost the nation a great deal, and I believe that this useful project could be carried through with greater economy. 

 "Indeed, if the nation will give me twenty thousand francs, in a single payment, I will take the whole responsibility, and I agree, if I live, that before the expiration of seven years the _Système de la Nature_ in French, with the complemental addition, the corrections, and the convenient explanations, shall be at the disposition of all those who love or study natural history. "

FOOTNOTES:

[32] Most men of science of the Revolution, like Monge and others, wereadvanced republicans, and the Chevalier Lamarck, though of noble birth, was perhaps not without sympathy with the ideas which led to theestablishment of the republic. It is possible that in his walks andintercourse with Rousseau he may have been inspired with the new notionsof liberty and equality first promulgated by that philosopher. 

His studies and meditations were probably not interrupted by the eventsof the Terror. Stevens, in his history of the French Revolution, tellsus that Paris was never gayer than in the summer of 1793, and thatduring the Reign of Terror the restaurants, _cafés_, and theatres werealways full. There were never more theatres open at the same period thanthen, though no single great play or opera was produced. Meanwhile thegreat painter David at this time built up a school of art and made thatcity a centre for art students. Indeed the Revolution was "a grand timefor enthusiastic young men, " while people in general lived theirordinary lives. There is little doubt, then, that the savants, exceptthe few who were occupied by their duties as members of the _ConventionNationale_, worked away quietly at their specialties, each in his ownstudy or laboratory or lecture-room. 

[33] Bern. Germ. Étienne, Comte de Lacépède, born in 1756, died in 1825, was elected professor of the zoölogy of "quadrupedes ovipares, reptiles, et poissons, " January 12, 1795 (Records of the Museum). He was theauthor of works on amphibia, reptiles, and mammals, formingcontinuations of Buffon's _Histoire Naturelle_. He also published_Histoire Naturelle des Poissons_ (1798-1803), _Histoire des Cétacés_(1804), and _Histoire Naturelle de l'Homme_ (1827), _Les Ages de laNature et Histoire de l'Espèce Humaine_, tome 2, 1830. 

[34] Perrier, _l.  c. _, p.  14. 

[35] _Fragments Biographiques_, p.  214. 

[36] _Fragments Biographiques_, p.  213. 

[37] A few years ago, when we formed the plan of writing his life, wewrote to friends in Paris for information as to the exact house in whichLamarck lived, and received the answer that it was unknown; anotherproof of the neglect and forgetfulness that had followed Lamarck so manyyears after his death, and which was even manifested before he died. Afterwards Professor Giard kindly wrote that by reference to the _procèsverbaux_ of the Assembly, it had been found by Professor Hamy that hehad lived in the house of Buffon. 

The house is situated at the corner of Rue de Buffon and Rue GeoffroySt.  Hilaire. The courtyard facing Rue Geoffroy St.  Hilaire bears thenumber 2 Rue de Buffon, and is in the angle between the Galerie deZoologie and the Bibliothèque. The edifice is a large four-storied one. Lamarck occupied the second _étage_, what we should call the thirdstory; it was first occupied by Buffon. His bedroom, where he died, wason the _premier étage_. It was tenanted by De Quatrefages in his time, and is at present occupied by Professor G.  T. Hamy; Professor L. Vaillant living in the first _étage_, or second story, and Dr.  J. Deniker, the _bibliothécaire_ and learned anthropologist, in the third. The second _étage_ was, about fifty years ago (1840-50), renovated forthe use of Fremy the chemist, so that the exact room occupied by Lamarckas a study cannot be identified. 

This ancient house was originally called _La Croix de Fer_, and wasbuilt about two centuries before the foundation of the Jardin du Roi. Itappears from an inspection of the notes on the titles and copies of theoriginal deeds, preserved in the Archives, and kindly shown me byProfessor G.  T. Hamy, the Archivist of the Museum, that this house waserected in 1468, the deed being dated _1xbre_, 1468. The house isreferred to as _maison ditte La Croix de Fer_ in deeds of 1684, 1755, and 1768. It was sold by Charles Roger to M.  le Compte de Buffon, March 23, 1771. One of the old gardens overlooked by it was called _deJardin de la Croix_. It was originally the first structure erected onthe south side of the Jardin du Roi. 

[38] In the "avertissement" to his _Système des Animaux sans Vertèbres_(1801), after stating that he had at his disposition the magnificentcollection of invertebrate animals of the museum, he refers to hisprivate collection as follows: "Et une autre assez riche que j'ai forméemoi-même par près de trente années de recherches, " p.  vii. Afterwards heformed another collection of shells named according to his system, andcontaining a part of the types described in his _Histoire Naturelle desAnimaux sans Vertèbres_ and in his minor articles. This collection thegovernment did not acquire, and it is now in the museum at Geneva. TheParis museum, however, possesses a good many of the Lamarckian types, which are on exhibition (Perrier, _l.  c. _, p.  20). 

[39] _Lettre du Ministre des Finances (de Ramel) au Ministre del'Intérieur_ (13 pr. An V. ). See Perrier, _l.  c. _, p.  20. 

CHAPTER V

LAST DAYS AND DEATH

Lamarck's life was saddened and embittered by the loss of four wives, and the pangs of losing three of his children;[40] also by the rigideconomy he had to practise and the unending poverty of his wholeexistence. A very heavy blow to him and to science was the loss, at anadvanced age, of his eyesight. 

It was, apparently, not a sudden attack of blindness, for we have hintsthat at times he had to call in Latreille and others to aid him in thestudy of the insects. The continuous use of the magnifying lens and themicroscope, probably, was the cause of enfeebled eyesight, resulting incomplete loss of vision. Duval[41] states that he passed the last tenyears of his life in darkness; that his loss of sight gradually came onuntil he became completely blind. 

In the reports of the meetings of the Board of Professors there is butone reference to his blindness. Previous to this we find that, at hislast appearance at these sessions--_i. E. _, April 19, 1825--since hiscondition did not permit him to give his course of lectures, he hadasked M.  Latreille to fill his place; but such was the latter's health, he proposed that M.  Audouin, sub-librarian of the French Institute, should lecture in his stead, on the invertebrate animals. This wasagreed to. 

The next reference, and the only explicit one, is that in the recordsfor May 23, 1826, as follows: "Vu la cécité dont M. De Lamarck estfrappé, M.  Bosc[42] continuera d'exercer sur les parties confiert àM.  Audouin la surveillance attribuée au Professeur. "

But, according to Duval, long before this he had been unable to use hiseyes. In his _Système analytique des Connaissances positives del'Homme_, published in 1820, he refers to the sudden loss of hiseyesight. 

Even in advanced life Lamarck seems not to have suffered fromill-health, despite the fact that he apparently during the last thirtyyears of his life lived in a very secluded way. Whether he went out intothe world, to the theatre, or even went away from Paris and the Museuminto the country in his later years, is a matter of doubt. It is saidthat he was fond of novels, his daughters reading to him those of thebest French authors. After looking with some care through the records ofthe sessions of the Assembly of Professors, we are struck with theevidences of his devotion to routine museum work and to his courses oflectures. 

At that time the Museum sent out to the _Écoles centrales_ of thedifferent departments of France named collections made up from theduplicates, and in this sort of drudgery Lamarck took an active part. Healso took a prominent share in the business of the Museum, in theexchange and in the purchase of specimens and collections in hisdepartment, and even in the management of the menagerie. Thus hereported on the dentition of the young lions (one dying from teething), on the illness and recovery of one of the elephants, on the generationsof goats and kids in the park; also on a small-sized bull born of asmall cow covered by a Scottish bull, the young animal having, as hestates, all the characters of the original. 

For one year (1794) he was secretary of the Board of Professors of theMuseum. [43] The records of the meetings from 4 vendémiaire, l'an III. , until 4 vendémiaire, l'an IV. , are each written in his bold, legiblehandwriting or signed by him. He signed his name _Lamarck_, this periodbeing that of the first republic. Afterwards, in the records, his nameis written _De Lamarck_. He was succeeded by É. Geoffroy St.  Hilaire, who signed himself plain _Geoffroy_. 

In 1802 he acted as treasurer of the Assembly, and again for a period ofsix years, until and including 1811, when he resigned, the reason givenbeing: "Il s'occupe depuis six ans et que ses travaux et son age luirendent penibles. "

Lamarck was extremely regular in his attendance at these meetings. From1793 until 1818 he rarely, if ever, missed a meeting. We have onlyobserved in the records of this long period the absence of his name ontwo or three occasions from the list of those present. During 1818 andthe following year it was his blindness which probably prevented hisregular attendance. July 15, 1818, he was present, and presented thefifth volume of his _Animaux sans Vertèbres_; and August 31, 1819, hewas present[44] and laid before the Assembly the sixth volume of thesame great work. 

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF LAMARCK, WHEN OLD AND BLIND, IN THE COSTUMEOF A MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE, ENGRAVED IN 1824. ]

From the observations of the records we infer that Lamarck never hadany long, lingering illness or suffered from overwork, though his lifehad little sunshine or playtime in it. He must have had a strongconstitution, his only infirmity being the terrible one (especially toan observer of nature) of total blindness. 

Lamarck's greatest work in systematic zoölogy would never have beencompleted had it not been for the self-sacrificing spirit and devotionof his eldest daughter. 

A part of the sixth and the whole of the last volume of the _Animauxsans Vertèbres_ were presented to the Assembly of ProfessorsSeptember 10, 1822. This volume was dictated to and written out by oneof his daughters, Mlle. Cornelie De Lamarck. On her the aged savantleaned during the last ten years of his life--those years of failingstrength and of blindness finally becoming total. The frail womanaccompanied him in his hours of exercise, and when he was confined tohis house she never left him. It is stated by Cuvier, in his eulogy, that at her first walk out of doors after the end came she was nearlyovercome by the fresh air, to which she had become so unaccustomed. She, indeed, practically sacrificed her life to her father. It is one of therarest and most striking instances of filial devotion known in theannals of science or literature, and is a noticeable contrast to thedaughters of the blind Milton, whose domestic life was rendered unhappyby their undutifulness, as they were impatient of the restraint andlabors his blindness had imposed upon them. 

Besides this, the seventh volume is a voluminous scientific work, filledwith very dry special details, making the labor of writing out fromdictation, of corrections and preparation for the press, most wearisomeand exhausting, to say nothing of the corrections of the proof-sheets, atask which probably fell to her--work enough to break down the health ofa strong man. 

It was a natural and becoming thing for the Assembly of Professors ofthe Museum, in view of the "malheureuse position de la famille, " to voteto give her employment in the botanical laboratory in arranging andpasting the dried plants, with a salary of 1, 000 francs. 

Of the last illness of Lamarck, and the nature of the sickness to whichhe finally succumbed, there is no account. It is probable that, enfeebled by the weakness of extreme old age, he gradually sank awaywithout suffering from any acute disease. 

The exact date of his death has been ascertained by Dr.  Mondière, [45]with the aid of M.  Saint-Joanny, archiviste du Dèpartment de la Seine, who made special search for the record. The "acte" states thatDecember 28, 1829, Lamarck, then a widower, died in the Jardin du Roi, at the age of eighty-five years. 

The obsequies, as stated in the _Moniteur Universel_ of Paris forDecember 23, 1829, were celebrated on the Sunday previous in the Churchof Saint-Médard, his parish. From the church the remains were borne tothe cemetery of Montparnasse. At the interment, which took placeDecember 30, M.  Latreille, in the name of the Academy of Sciences, andM.  Geoffroy St.  Hilaire, in the name and on behalf of his colleagues, the Professors of the Museum of Natural History, pronounced eulogies atthe grave. The eulogy prepared by Cuvier, and published after his death, was read at a session of the Academy of Sciences, by Baron Silvestre, November 26, 1832. 

With the exception of these formalities, the great French naturalist, "the Linné of France, " was buried as one forgotten and unknown. We readwith astonishment, in the account by Dr.  A. Mondière, who made zealousinquiries for the exact site of the grave of Lamarck, that it is andforever will be unknown. It is a sad and discreditable, and to usinexplicable, fact that his remains did not receive decent burial. Theywere not even deposited in a separate grave, but were thrown into atrench apparently situated apart from the other graves, and from whichthe bones of those thrown there were removed every five years. They areprobably now in the catacombs of Paris, mingled with those of thethousands of unknown or paupers in that great ossuary. [46]

Dr.  Mondière's account is as follows. Having found in the _Moniteur_ thenotice of the burial services, as above stated, he goes on to say:

 "Armed with this document, I went again to the cemetery of Montparnasse, where I fortunately found a conservator, M.  Lacave, who is entirely _au courant_ with the question of transformism. He therefore interested himself in my inquiries, and, thanks to him, I have been able to determine exactly where Lamarck had been buried. I say had been, because, alas! he had been simply placed in a _trench off on one side_ (_fosse à part_), that is to say, one which should change its occupant at the end of five years. Was it negligence, was it the jealousy of his colleagues, was it the result of the troubles of 1830? In brief, there had been no permission granted to purchase a burial lot. The bones of Lamarck are probably at this moment mixed with those of all the other unknown which lie there. What had at first led us into an error is that we made the inquiries under the name of Lamarck instead of that of de Monnet. In reality, the register of inscription bears the following mention:

 "'De Monnet de Lamarck buried this 20 December 1829 (85 years), 3d square, 1st division, 2d line, trench 22. '

 "At some period later, a friendly hand, without doubt, had written on the margin of the register the following information:

 "'To the left of M.  Dassas. '

 "M.  Lacave kindly went with us to search for the place where Lamarck had been interred, and on the register we saw this:

 "'Dassas, 1st division, 4th line south, No.  6 to the west, concession 1165-1829. ' On arriving at the spot designated, we found some new graves, but nothing to indicate that of M.  Dassas, our only mark by which we could trace the site after the changes wrought since 1829. After several ineffectual attempts, I finally perceived a flat grave, surrounded by an iron railing, and covered with weeds. Its surface seemed to me very regular, and I probed this lot. There was a gravestone there. The grave-digger who accompanied us cleared away the surface, and I confess that it was with the greatest pleasure and with deep emotion that we read the name Dassas. 

[Illustration: POSITION OF THE BURIAL PLACE OF LAMARCK IN THE CEMETERYOF MONTPARNASSE. ]

 "We found the place, but unfortunately, as I have previously said, the remains of Lamarck are no longer there. "

Mondière added to his letter a little plan (p.  59), which he drew on thespot. [47]

But the life-work of Lamarck and his theory of organic evolution, aswell as the lessons of his simple and noble character, are more durableand lasting than any monument of stone or brass. His name will never beforgotten either by his own countrymen or by the world of science andphilosophy. After the lapse of nearly a hundred years, and in this firstyear of the twentieth century, his views have taken root and flourishedwith a surprising strength and vigor, and his name is preëminent amongthe naturalists of his time. 

No monument exists in Montparnasse, but within the last decade, thoughthe reparation has come tardily, the bust of Lamarck may be seen byvisitors to the Jardin des Plantes, on the outer wall of the NouvelleGalerie, containing the Museums of Comparative Anatomy, Palæontology, and Anthropology. 

Although the city of Paris has not yet erected a monument to itsgreatest naturalist, some public recognition of his eminent services tothe city and nation was manifested when the Municipal Council of Paris, on February 10, 1875, gave the name Lamarck to a street. [48] This is along and not unimportant street on the hill of Montmartre in the XVIII^e_arrondissement_, and in the zone of the old stone or gypsum quarrieswhich existed before Paris extended so far out in that direction, andfrom which were taken the fossil remains of the early tertiary mammalsdescribed by Cuvier. 

The city of Toulouse has also honored itself by naming one of itsstreets after Lamarck; this was due to the proposal of Professor ÉmileCartailhac to the Municipal Council, which voted to this effect May 12, 1886. 

In the meetings of the Assembly of Professors no one took the trouble toprepare and enter minutes, however brief and formal, relative to hisdecease. The death of Lamarck is not even referred to in the_Procès-verbaux_. This is the more marked because there is an entry inthe same records for 1829, and about the same date, of an extraordinary_séance_ held November 19, 1829, when "the Assembly" was convoked totake measures regarding the death of Professor Vauquelin relative to thechoice of a candidate, Chevreul being elected to fill his chair. 

Lamarck's chair was at his death divided, and the two professorshipsthus formed were given to Latreille and De Blainville. 

At the session of the Assembly of Professors held December 8, 1829, Geoffroy St.  Hilaire sent in a letter to the Assembly urging that thedepartment of invertebrate animals be divided into two, and referred tothe bad state of preservation of the insects, the force of assistants tocare for these being insufficient. He also, in his usual tactful way, referred to the "_complaisance extrème de la parte de M.  De Lamarck_" in1793, in assenting to the reunion in a single professorship of the massof animals then called "_insectes et vermes_. "

The two successors of the chair held by Lamarck were certainly notdilatory in asking for appointments. At a session of the Professors heldDecember 22, 1829, the first meeting after his death, we find thefollowing entry: "M.  Latreille écrit pour exprimer son désir d'êtreprésenté comme candidat à la chaire vacante par le décès de M.  Lamarcket pour rappeler ses titres à cette place. "

M. De Blainville also wrote in the same manner: "Dans le cas que lachaire serait divisée, il demande la place de Professeur de l'histoiredes animaux inarticulés. Dans le cas contraire il se présente égalementcomme candidat, voulant, tout en respectant les droits acquis, ne paslaisser dans l'oubli ceux qui lui appartiennent. "

January 12, 1830, Latreille[49] was unanimously elected by the Assemblya candidate to the chair of entomology, and at a following session(February 16th) De Blainville was unanimously elected a candidate forthe chair of _Molluscs, Vers et Zoophytes_, and on the 16th of March theroyal ordinance confirming those elections was received by the Assembly. 

There could have been no fitter appointments made for those twopositions. Lamarck had long known Latreille "and loved him as a son. " DeBlainville honored and respected Lamarck, and fully appreciated hiscommanding abilities as an observer and thinker. 

FOOTNOTES:

[40] I have been unable to ascertain the names of any of his wives, orof his children, except his daughter, Cornelie. 

[41] "L'examen minutieux de petits animaux, analysés à l'aided'instruments grossissants, fatigua, puis affaiblait, sa vue. Bientôt ilfut complement aveugle. Il passa les dix derniers années de sa vieplongé dans les ténèbres, entouré des soins de ses deux tilles, à l'unedesquelles il dictait le dernier volume de son _Histoire des Animauxsans Vertèbres_. "--_Le Transformiste Lamarck_, _Bull. Soc. Anthropologie_, xii. , 1889, p.  341. Cuvier, also, in his history of theprogress of natural science for 1819, remarks: "M. De La Marck, malgrél'affoiblissement total de sa vue, poursuit avec un courage inaltérablela continuation de son grand ouvrage sur les animaux sans vertèbres"(p.  406). 

[42] Louis Auguste Guillaume Bosc, born in Paris, 1759; died in 1828. Author of now unimportant works, entitled: _Histoire Naturelle desCoquilles_ (1801); _Hist. Nat. Des Vers_ (1802); _Hist. Nat. DesCrustacés_ (1828), and papers on insects and plants. He was associatedwith Lamarck in the publication of the _Journal d'Histoire Naturelle_. During the Reign of Terror in 1793 he was a friend of Madame Roland, wasarrested, but afterwards set free and placed first on the Directory in1795. In 1798 he sailed for Charleston, S.  C. Nominated successivelyvice-consul at Wilmington and consul at New York, but not obtaining hisexequatur from President Adams, he went to live with the botanistMichaux in Carolina in his botanical garden, where he devoted himself tonatural history until the quarrel in 1800 between the United States andFrance caused him to return to France. On his return he sent NorthAmerican insects to his friends Fabricius and Olivier, fishes toLacépède, birds to Daudin, reptiles to Latreille. Not giving all histime to public life, he devoted himself to natural history, horticulture, and agriculture, succeeding Thouin in the chair ofhorticulture, where he was most usefully employed until hisdeath. --(Cuvier's _Éloge_. )

[43] The first director of the Board or Assembly ofProfessors-administrative of the Museum was Daubenton, Lacépède beingthe secretary, Thouin the treasurer. Daubenton was succeeded by Jussieu;and Lacépède, first by Desfontaines and afterwards by Lamarck, who waselected secretary 18 fructidor, an II. (1794). 

[44] His attendance this year was infrequent. July 10, 1820, he waspresent and made a report relative to madrepores and molluscs. In thesummer of 1821 he attended several of the meetings. August 7, 1821, hewas present, and referred to the collection of shells of Struthiolaria. He was present May 23d and June 9th, when it was voted that he shouldenjoy the garden of the house he occupied and that a chamber should beadded to his lodgings. He was frequent in attendance this year, especially during the summer months. He attended a few meetings atintervals in 1822, 1823, and only twice in 1824. 

At a meeting held April 19, 1825, he was present, and, stating that hiscondition did not permit him to lecture, asked to have Audouin take hisplace, as Latreille's health did not allow him to take up the work. Thenext week (26th) he was likewise present. On May 10 he was present, asalso on June 28, October 11, and also through December, 1825. His lastappearance at these business meetings was on July 11, 1828. 

[45] See, for the _Acte de décès_, _L'Homme_, iv. P.  289, and _Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Transformistes_, etc. , p.  24. 

[46] Dr.  Mondière in _L'Homme_, iv. P.  291, and _Lamarck. Par un Groupede Transformistes_, p.  271. A somewhat parallel case is that of Mozart, who was buried at Vienna in the common ground of St.  Marx, the exactposition of his grave being unknown. There were no ceremonies at hisgrave, and even his friends followed him no farther than the city gates, owing to a violent storm. --(_The Century Cyclopedia of Names. _)

[47] Still hoping that the site of the grave might have been kept open, and desiring to satisfy myself as to whether there was possibly spaceenough left on which to erect a modest monument to the memory ofLamarck, I took with me the _brochure_ containing the letter and plan ofDr.  Mondière to the cemetery of Montparnasse. With the aid of one of theofficials I found what he told me was the site, but the entire place wasdensely covered with the tombs and grave-stones of later interments, rendering the erection of a stone, however small and simple, quite outof the question. 

[48] The Rue Lamarck begins at the elevated square on which is situatedthe Church of the Sacré-Coeur, now in process of erection, and from thispoint one obtains a commanding and very fine view overlooking the city;from there the street curves round to the westward, ending in the Avenuede Saint-Ouen, and continues as a wide and long thoroughfare, ending tothe north of the cemetery of Montmartre. A neighboring street, RueBecquerel, is named after another French savant, and parallel to it is ashort street named Rue Darwin. 

[49] Latreille was born at Brives, November 29, 1762, and diedFebruary 6, 1833. He was the leading entomologist of his time, and tohim Cuvier was indebted for the arrangement of the insects in the _RègneAnimal_. His bust is to be seen on the same side of the Nouvelle Galeriein the Jardin des Plantes as those of Lamarck, Cuvier, De Blainville, and D'Orbigny. His first paper was introduced by Lamarck in 1792. In theminutes of the session of 4 thermidor, l'an VI. (July, 1798), we findthis entry: "The citizen Lamarck announces that the citizen Latreilleoffered to the administration to work under the direction of thatprofessor in arranging the very numerous collection of insects of theMuseum, so as to place them under the eye of the public. " And here heremained until his appointment. Several years (1825) before Lamarck'sdeath he had asked to have Latreille fill his place in givinginstruction. 

Audouin (1797-1841), also an eminent entomologist and morphologist, wasappointed _aide-naturaliste-adjoint_ in charge of Mollusca, Crustacea, Worms, and Zoöphytes. He was afterwards associated with H. Milne Edwardsin works on annelid worms. December 26, 1827, Latreille asked to beallowed to employ Boisduval as a _préparateur_; he became the author ofseveral works on injurious insects and Lepidoptera. 

CHAPTER VI

POSITION IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE; OPINIONS OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES ANDSOME LATER BIOLOGISTS

De Blainville, a worthy successor of Lamarck, in his posthumous book, _Cuvier et Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire_, pays the highest tribute to hispredecessor, whose position as the leading naturalist of his time hefully and gratefully acknowledges, saying: "Among the men whose lecturesI have had the advantage of hearing, I truly recognize only threemasters, M. De Lamarck, M.  Claude Richard, and M.  Pinel" (p.  43). Healso speaks of wishing to write the scientific biographies of Cuvier andDe Lamarck, the two zoölogists of this epoch whose lectures he mostfrequently attended and whose writings he studied, and "who haveexercised the greatest influence on the zoölogy of our time" (p.  42). Likewise in the opening words of the preface he refers to the rank takenby Lamarck:

 "The aim which I have proposed to myself in my course on the principles of zoölogy demonstrated by the history of its progress from Aristotle to our time, and consequently the plan which I have followed to attain this aim, have very naturally led me, so to speak, in spite of myself, to signalize in M. De Lamarck the expression of one of those phases through which the science of organization has to pass in order to arrive at its last term before showing its true aim. From my point of view this phase does not seem to me to have been represented by any other naturalist of our time, whatever may have been the reputation which he made during his life. "

He then refers to the estimation in which Lamarck was held by AugusteComte, who, in his _Cours de Philosophie Positive_, has anticipated andeven surpassed himself in the high esteem he felt for "the celebratedauthor of the _Philosophie Zoologique_. "

The eulogy by Cuvier, which gives most fully the details of the earlylife of Lamarck, and which has been the basis for all the subsequentbiographical sketches, was unworthy of him. Lamarck had, with hiscustomary self-abnegation and generosity, aided and favored the youngCuvier in the beginning of his career, [50] who in his _Règne Animal_adopted the classes founded by Lamarck. Thoroughly convinced of theerroneous views of Cuvier in regard to cataclysms, he criticised andopposed them in his writings in a courteous and proper way withoutdirectly mentioning Cuvier by name or entering into any public debatewith him. 

When the hour came for the great comparative anatomist andpalæontologist, from his exalted position, to prepare a tribute to thememory of a naturalist of equal merit and of a far more thoughtful andprofound spirit, to be read before the French Academy of Sciences, whata eulogy it was--as De Blainville exclaims, _et quel éloge_! It was notprinted until after Cuvier's death, and then, it is stated, portionswere omitted as not suitable for publication. [51] This is, we believe, the only stain on Cuvier's life, and it was unworthy of the great man. In this _éloge_, so different in tone from the many others which arecollected in the three volumes of Cuvier's eulogies, he indiscriminatelyridicules all of Lamarck's theories. Whatever may have been hiscondemnation of Lamarck's essays on physical and chemical subjects, hemight have been more reserved and less dogmatic and sarcastic in hisestimate of what he supposed to be the value of Lamarck's views onevolution. It was Cuvier's adverse criticisms and ridicule and hisanti-evolutional views which, more than any other single cause, retardedthe progress of biological science and the adoption of a working theoryof evolution for which the world had to wait half a century. 

It even appears that Lamarck was in part instrumental in inducing Cuvierin 1795 to go to Paris from Normandy, and become connected with theMuseum. De Blainville relates that the Abbé Tessier met the youngzoölogist at Valmont near Fécamp, and wrote to Geoffroy that "he hadjust discovered in Normandy a pearl, " and invited him to do what hecould to induce Cuvier to come to Paris. "I made, " said Geoffroy, "theproposition to my _confrères_, but I was supported, and only feebly, byM. De Lamarck, who slightly knew M.  Cuvier as the author of a memoir onentomology. "

The eulogy pronounced by Geoffroy St.  Hilaire over the remains of hisold friend and colleague was generous, sympathetic, and heartfelt. 

 "Yes [he said, in his eloquent way], for us who knew M. De Lamarck, whom his counsels have guided, whom we have found always indefatigable, devoted, occupied so willingly with the most difficult labors, we shall not fear to say that such a loss leaves in our ranks an immense void. From the blessings of such a life, so rich in instructive lessons, so remarkable for the most generous self-abnegation, it is difficult to choose. 

 "A man of vigorous, profound ideas, and very often admirably generalized, Lamarck conceived them with a view to the public good. If he met, as often happened, with great opposition, he spoke of it as a condition imposed on every one who begins a reform. Moreover, the great age, the infirmities, but especially the grievous blindness of M. De Lamarck had reserved for him another lot. This great and strong mind could enjoy some consolation in knowing the judgment of posterity, which for him began in his own lifetime. When his last tedious days, useless to science, had arrived, when he had ceased to be subjected to rivalry, envy and passion became extinguished and justice alone remained. De Lamarck then heard impartial voices, the anticipated echo of posterity, which would judge him as history will judge him. Yes, the scientific world has pronounced its judgment in giving him the name of 'the French Linné, ' thus linking together the two men who have both merited a triple crown by their works on general natural history, zoölogy and botany, and whose names, increasing in fame from age to age, will both be handed down to the remotest posterity. "[52]

Also in his _Études sur la Vie, les Ouvrages, et les Doctrines deBuffon_ (1838), Geoffroy again, with much warmth of affection, says:

 "Attacked on all sides, injured likewise by odious ridicule, Lamarck, too indignant to answer these cutting epigrams, submitted to the indignity with a sorrowful patience. .. . Lamarck lived a long while poor, blind, and forsaken, but not by me; I shall ever love and venerate him. "[53]

The following evidently heartfelt and sincere tribute to his memory, showing warm esteem and thorough respect for Lamarck, and also aconfident feeling that his lasting fame was secure, is to be found in anobscure little book[54] containing satirical, humorous, but perhaps notalways fair or just, characterizations and squibs concerning theprofessors and aid-naturalists of the Jardin des Plantes. 

 "What head will not be uncovered on hearing pronounced the name of the man whose genius was ignored and who languished steeped in bitterness. Blind, poor, forgotten, he remained alone with a glory of whose extent he himself was conscious, but which only the coming ages will sanction, when shall be revealed more clearly the laws of organization. 

 "Lamarck, thy abandonment, sad as it was in thy old age, is better than the ephemeral glory of men who only maintain their reputation by sharing in the errors of their time. 

 "Honor to thee! Respect to thy memory! Thou hast died in the breach while fighting for truth, and the truth assures thee immortality. "

Lamarck's theoretical views were not known in Germany until many yearsafter his death. Had Goethe, his contemporary (1749-1832), known ofthem, he would undoubtedly have welcomed his speculations, haveexpressed his appreciation of them, and Lamarck's reputation would, inhis own lifetime, have raised him from the obscurity of his later yearsat Paris. 

Hearty appreciation, though late in the century, came from ErnstHaeckel, whose bold and suggestive works have been so widely read. Inhis _History of Creation_ (1868) he thus estimates Lamarck's work as aphilosopher:

 "To him will always belong the immortal glory of having for the first time worked out the theory of descent, as an independent scientific theory of the first order, and as the philosophical foundation of the whole science of biology. "

Referring to the _Philosophie Zoologique_, he says:

 "This admirable work is the first connected exposition of the theory of descent carried out strictly into all its consequences. By its purely mechanical method of viewing organic nature, and the strictly philosophical proofs brought forward in it, Lamarck's work is raised far above the prevailing dualistic views of his time; and with the exception of Darwin's work, which appeared just half a century later, we know of none which we could, in this respect, place by the side of the _Philosophie Zoologique_. How far it was in advance of its time is perhaps best seen from the circumstance that it was not understood by most men, and for fifty years was not spoken of at all. Cuvier, Lamarck's greatest opponent, in his _Report on the Progress of Natural Science_, in which the most unimportant anatomical investigations are enumerated, does not devote a single word to this work, which forms an epoch in science. Goethe, also, who took such a lively interest in the French nature-philosophy and in the 'thoughts of kindred minds beyond the Rhine, ' nowhere mentions Lamarck, and does not seem to have known the _Philosophie Zoologique_ at all. "

Again in 1882 Haeckel writes:[55]

 "We regard it as a truly tragic fact that the _Philosophie Zoologique_ of Lamarck, one of the greatest productions of the great literary period of the beginning of our century, received at first only the slightest notice, and within a few years became wholly forgotten. .. . Not until fully fifty years later, when Darwin breathed new life into the transformation views founded therein, was the buried treasure again recovered, and we cannot refrain from regarding it as the most complete presentation of the development theory before Darwin. 

 "While Lamarck clearly expressed all the essential fundamental ideas of our present doctrine of descent; and excites our admiration at the depth of his morphological knowledge, he none the less surprises us by the prophetic (_vorausschauende_) clearness of his physiological conceptions. "

In his views on life, the nature of the will and reason, and othersubjects, Haeckel declares that Lamarck was far above most of hiscontemporaries, and that he sketched out a programme of the biology ofthe future which was not carried out until our day. 

J. Victor Carus[56] also claims for Lamarck "the lasting merit of havingbeen the first to have placed the theory (of descent) on a scientificfoundation. "

The best, most catholic, and just exposition of Lamarck's views, andwhich is still worth reading, is that by Lyell Chapters XXXIV. -XXXVI. Ofhis _Principles of Geology_, 1830, and though at that time one would notlook for an acceptance of views which then seemed extraordinary and, indeed, far-fetched, Lyell had no words of satire and ridicule, only acalm, able statement and discussion of his principles. Indeed, it iswell known that when, in after years, his friend Charles Darwinpublished his views, Lyell expressed some leaning towards the olderspeculations of Lamarck. 

Lyell's opinions as to the interest and value of Lamarck's ideas may befound in his _Life and Letters_, and also in the _Life and Letters ofCharles Darwin_. In the chapter, _On the Reception of the Origin ofSpecies_, by Huxley, are the following extracts from Lyell's _Letters_(ii. , pp.  179-204). In a letter addressed to Mantell (dated March 2, 1827), Lyell speaks of having just read Lamarck; he expresses hisdelight at Lamarck's theories, and his personal freedom from anyobjections based on theological grounds. And though he is evidentlyalarmed at the pithecoid origin of man involved in Lamarck's doctrine, he observes: "But, after all, what changes species may really undergo!How impossible will it be to distinguish and lay down a line beyondwhich some of the so-called extinct species have never passed intorecent ones?"

He also quotes a remarkable passage in the postscript to a letterwritten to Sir John Herschel in 1836: "In regard to the origination ofnew species, I am very glad to find that you think it probable it may becarried on through the intervention of intermediate causes. "

How nearly Lyell was made a convert to evolution by reading Lamarck'sworks may be seen by the following extracts from his letters, quoted byHuxley:

 "I think the old 'creation' is almost as much required as ever, but of course it takes a new form if Lamarck's views, improved by yours, are adopted. " (To Darwin, March 11, 1863, p.  363. )

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 "As to Lamarck, I find that Grove, who has been reading him, is wonderfully struck with his book. I remember that it was the conclusion he (Lamarck) came to about man, that fortified me thirty years ago against the great impression which his argument at first made on my mind--all the greater because Constant Prevost, a pupil of Cuvier forty years ago, told me his conviction 'that Cuvier thought species not real, but that science could not advance without assuming that they were so. '"

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 "When I came to the conclusion that after all Lamarck was going to be shown to be right, that we must 'go the whole orang, ' I re-read his book, and remembering when it was written, I felt I had done him injustice. 

 "Even as to man's gradual acquisition of more and more ideas, and then of speech slowly as the ideas multiplied, and then his persecution of the beings most nearly allied and competing with him--all this is very Darwinian. 

 "The substitution of the variety-making power for 'volition, ' 'muscular action, ' etc. (and in plants even volition was not called in), is in some respects only a change of names. Call a new variety a new creation, one may say of the former, as of the latter, what you say when you observe that the creationist explains nothing, and only affirms 'it is so because it is so. '

 "Lamarck's belief in the slow changes in the organic and inorganic world in the year 1800 was surely above the standard of his times, and he was right about progression in the main, though you have vastly advanced that doctrine. As to Owen in his 'Aye Aye' paper, he seems to me a disciple of Pouchet, who converted him at Rouen to 'spontaneous generation. '

 "Have I not, at p.  412, put the vast distinction between you and Lamarck as to 'necessary progression' strongly enough?" (To Darwin, March 15, 1863. _Lyell's Letters_, ii. , p.  365. )

Darwin, in the freedom of private correspondence, paid scant respect tothe views of his renowned predecessor, as the following extracts fromhis published letters will show:

 "Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a 'tendency to progression, ' 'adaptations from the slow willing of animals, ' etc. But the conclusions I am led to are not widely different from his; though the means of change are wholly so. " (Darwin's _Life and Letters_, ii. , p.  23, 1844. )

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 "With respect to books on this subject, I do not know of any systematical ones, except Lamarck's, which is veritable rubbish. .. . Is it not strange that the author of such a book as the _Animaux sans Vertèbres_ should have written that insects, which never see their eggs, should _will_ (and plants, their seeds) to be of particular forms, so as to become attached to particular objects. "[57] (ii. , p.  29, 1844. )

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 "Lamarck is the only exception, that I can think of, of an accurate describer of species, at least in the Invertebrate Kingdom, who has disbelieved in permanent species, but he in his absurd though clever work has done the subject harm. " (ii. , p.  39, no date. )

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 "To talk of climate or Lamarckian habit producing such adaptions to other organic beings is futile. " (ii. , p.  121, 1858. )

On the other hand, another great English thinker and naturalist of rarebreadth and catholicity, and despite the fact that he rejected Lamarck'speculiar evolutional views, associated him with the most eminentbiologists. 

In a letter to Romanes, dated in 1882, Huxley thus estimates Lamarck'sposition in the scientific world:

 "I am not likely to take a low view of Darwin's position in the history of science, but I am disposed to think that Buffon and Lamarck would run him hard in both genius and fertility. In breadth of view and in extent of knowledge these two men were giants, though we are apt to forget their services. Von Bär was another man of the same stamp; Cuvier, in a somewhat lower rank, another; and J. Müller another. " (_Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley_, ii. , p.  42, 1900. )

The memory of Lamarck is deeply and warmly cherished throughout France. He gave his country a second Linné. One of the leading botanists inEurope, and the greatest zoölogist of his time, he now shares equallywith Geoffroy St.  Hilaire and with Cuvier the distinction of raisingbiological science to that eminence in the first third of the nineteenthcentury which placed France, as the mother of biologists, in the van ofall the nations. When we add to his triumphs in pure zoölogy the factthat he was in his time the philosopher of biology, it is not going toofar to crown him as one of the intellectual glories, not only of France, but of the civilized world. 

How warmly his memory is now cherished may be appreciated by the perusalof the following letter, with its delightful reminiscences, for which weare indebted to the venerable and distinguished zoölogist andcomparative anatomist who formerly occupied the chair made illustriousby Lamarck, and by his successor, De Blainville, and who founded theLaboratoire Arago on the Mediterranean, also that of ExperimentalZoölogy at Roscoff, and who still conducts the _Journal de ZoologieExpérimentale_. 

 PARIS LE 28 _Décembre_, 1899. 

 M.  le PROFESSEUR PACKARD. 

 _Cher Monsieur_: Vous m'avez fait l'honneur de me demander des renseignements sur la famille de De Lamarck, et sur ses relations, afin de vous en servir dans la biographie que vous préparez de notre grand naturaliste. 

 Je n'ai rien appris de plus que ce que vous voulez bien me rappeler comme l'ayant trouvé dans mon adresse de 1889. Je ne connais plus ni les noms ni les adresses des parents de De Lamarck, et c'est avec regret qu'il ne m'est pas possible de répondre à vos désirs. 

 Lorsque je commençai mes études à Paris, on ne s'occupait guère des idées générales de De Lamarck que pour s'en moquer. Excepté Geoffroy St.  Hilaire et De Blainville, dont j'ai pu suivre les belles leçons et qui le citaient souvent, on parlait peu de la philosophie zoologique. 

 Il m'a été possible de causer avec des anciens collègues du grand naturaliste; au Jardin des Plantes de très grands savants, dont je ne veux pas écrire le nom, le traitaient _de fou_!

 Il avait loué un appartement sur le haut d'une maison, et là cherchait d'après la direction des nuages à prévoir l'état du temps. 

 On riait de ces études. N'est-ce pas comme un observatoire de météorologie que ce savant zoologiste avait pour ainsi dire fondé avant que la science ne se fut emparée de l'idée?

 Lorsque j'eus l'honneur d'être nommé professeur au Jardin des Plantes en 1865, je fis l'historique de la chaire que j'occupais, et qui avait été illustrée par De Lamarck et De Blainville. Je crois que je suis le premier à avoir fait l'histoire de notre grand naturaliste dans un cours public. Je dus travailler pas mal pour arriver à bien saisir l'idée fondamentale de la philosophie. Les définitions de la nature et des forces qui président aux changements qui modifient les êtres d'après les conditions auxquelles ils sont soumis ne sont pas toujours faciles à rendre claires pour un public souvent difficile. 

 Ce qui frappe surtout dans ses raisonnements, c'est que De Lamarck est parfaitement logique. Il comprend très bien ce que plus d'un transformiste de nos jours ne cherche pas à éclairer, que le premier pas, le pas difficile à faire pour arriver à expliquer la création par des modifications successives, c'est le passage de la matière inorganique à la matière organisée, et il imagine la chaleur et l'électricité comme étant les deux facteurs qui par attraction ou répulsion finissent par former ces petits amas organisés qui seront le point de départ de toutes les transformations de tous les organismes. 

 Voilà le point de départ--la génération spontanée se trouve ainsi expliquée!

 De Lamarck était un grand et profond observateur. On me disait au Museum (des contemporains) qu'il avait l'Instinct de l'Espèce. Il y aurait beaucoup à dire sur cette expression--l'instinct de l'espèce--il m'est difficile dans une simple lettre de développer des idées philosophiques que j'ai sur cette question, --laquelle suppose la notion de l'individu parfaitement définie et acquis. 

 Je ne vous citerai qu'un exemple. Je ne l'ai vu signalé nulle part dans les ouvrages anciens sur De Lamarck. 

 Qu'étaient nos connaissances à l'époque de De Lamarck sur les Polypiers? Les Hydraires étaient loin d'avoir fourni les remarquables observations qui parurent dans le milieu à peu près du siècle qui vient de finir, et cependant De Lamarck déplace hardiment la Lucernaire--l'éloigne des Coralliaires, et la rapproche des êtres qui forment le grand groupe des Hydraires. Ce trait me paraît remarquable et le rapporte à cette réputation qu'il avait au Museum de jouir de l'instinct de l'espèce. 

 De toute part on acclame le grand naturaliste, et'il n'y a pas même une rue portant son nom aux environs du Jardin des Plantes? J'ai eu beau réclamer le conseil municipal de Paris à d'autres favoris que De Lamarck. 

 Lorsque le Jardin des Plantes fut réorganisé par la Convention, De Lamarck avait 50 ans. Il ne s'était jusqu'alors occupé que de botanique. Il fut à cet age chargé de l'histoire de la partie du règne animal renfermant les animaux invertèbres sauf les Insectes et les Crustacés. La chaire est restée la même; elle comprend les vers, les helminthes, les mollusques, et ce qu'on appelait autrefois les Zoophytes ou Rayonnées, enfin les Infusoires. Quelle puissance de travail! Ne fallait-il pas pour passer de la Botanique, à 50 ans, à la Zoologie, et laisser un ouvrage semblable à celui qui illustre encore le nom du Botaniste devenue Zoologiste par ordre de la Convention!

 Sans doute dans cet ouvrage il y a bien des choses qui ne sont plus acceptables--mais pour le juger avec équité, il faut se porter a l'époque où il fut fait, et alors on est pris d'admiration pour l'auteur d'un aussi immense travail. 

 J'ai une grande admiration pour le génie de De Lamarck, et je ne puis que vous louer de le faire encore mieux connaître de nos contemporains. 

 Recevez, mon cher collègue, l'expression de mes sentiments d'estime pour vos travaux remarquables et croyez-moi--tout à vous, H. DE LACAZE DUTHIERS. 

FOOTNOTES:

[50] For example, while Cuvier's chair was in the field of vertebratezoölogy, owing to the kindness of Lamarck ("_par gracieuseté de la partde M. De Lamarck_") he had retained that of Mollusca, and yet it was inthe special classification of the molluscs that Lamarck did his bestwork (Blainville, _l.  c. _, p.  116). 

[51] De Blainville states that "the Academy did not even allow it to beprinted in the form in which it was pronounced" (p.  324); and again hespeaks of the lack of judgment in Cuvier's estimate of Lamarck, "thenaturalist who had the greatest force in the general conception ofbeings and of phenomena, although he might often be far from the path"(p.  323). 

[52] _Fragments Biographiques_, pp.  209-219. 

[53] _L.  c. _ p.  81. 

[54] _Histoire Naturelle Drolatique et Philosophique des Professeurs duJardin des Plantes, _etc. _ Par Isid. S. De Gosse. Avec des Annotationsde M.  Frédéric Gerard. _ Paris, 1847. 

[55] _Die Naturanschauung von Darwin, Goethe und Lamarck_, Jena, 1882. 

[56] _Geschichte der Zoologie bis auf Joh. Müller und Charles Darwin_, 1872. 

[57] We have been unable to find these statements in any of Lamarck'swritings. 

CHAPTER VII

LAMARCK'S WORK IN METEOROLOGY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE

When a medical student in Paris, Lamarck, from day to day watching theclouds from his attic windows, became much interested in meteorology, and, indeed, at first this subject had nearly as much attraction for himas botany. For a long period he pursued these studies, and he was thefirst one to foretell the probabilities of the weather, thusanticipating by over half a century the modern idea of making thescience of meteorology of practical use to mankind. 

His article, "De l'influence de la lune sur l'atmosphère terrestre, "appeared in the _Journal de Physique_ for 1798, and was translated intwo English journals. The titles of several other essays will be foundin the Bibliography at the close of this volume. 

From 1799 to 1810 he regularly published an annual meteorological reportcontaining the statement of probabilities acquired by a long series ofobservations on the state of the weather and the variations of theatmosphere at different times of the year, giving indications of theperiods when to expect pleasant weather, or rain, storms, tempests, frosts, thaws, etc. ; finally the citations of these probabilities oftimes favorable to fêtes, journeys, voyages, harvesting crops, andother enterprises dependent on good weather. 

Lamarck thus explained the principles on which he based hisprobabilities: Two kinds of causes, he says, displace the fluids whichcompose the atmosphere, some being variable and irregular, othersconstant, whose action is subject to progressive and fixed laws. 

Between the tropics constant causes exercise an action so considerablethat the irregular effects of variable causes are there in some degreelost; hence result the prevailing winds which in these climates becomeestablished and change at determinate epochs. 

Beyond the tropics, and especially toward the middle of the temperatezones, variable causes predominate. We can, however, still discoverthere the effects of the action of constant causes, though muchweakened; we can assign them the principal epochs, and in a great numberof cases make this knowledge turn to our profit. It is in the elevationand depression (_abaissement_) of the moon above and below the celestialequator that we should seek for the most constant of these causes. 

With his usual facility in such matters, he was not long in advancing atheory, according to which the atmosphere is regarded as resembling thesea, having a surface, waves, and storms; it ought likewise to have aflux and reflux, for the moon ought to exercise the same influence uponit that it does on the ocean. In the temperate and frigid zones, therefore, the wind, which is only the tide of the atmosphere, mustdepend greatly on the declination of the moon; it ought to blow towardthe pole that is nearest to it, and advancing in that direction only, inorder to reach every place, traversing dry countries or extensive seas, it ought then to render the sky serene or stormy. If the influence ofthe moon on the weather is denied, it is only that it may be referred toits phases, but its position in the ecliptic is regarded as affordingprobabilities much nearer the truth. [58]

In each of these annuals Lamarck took great care to avoid making anypositive predictions. "No one, " he says, "could make these predictionswithout deceiving himself and abusing the confidence of persons whomight place reliance on them. " He only intended to propose simpleprobabilities. 

After the publication of the first of these annuals, at the request ofLamarck, who had made it the subject of a memoir read to the Institutein 1800 (9 ventôse, l'an IX. ), Chaptal, Minister of the Interior, thought it well to establish in France a regular correspondence ofmeteorological observations made daily at different points remote fromeach other, and he conferred the direction of it on Lamarck. This systemof meteorological reports lasted but a short time, and was notmaintained by Chaptal's successor. After three of these annual reportshad appeared, Lamarck rather suddenly stopped publishing them, and anincident occurred in connection with their cessation which led to thestory that he had suffered ill treatment and neglect from Napoleon I. 

It has been supposed that Lamarck, who was frank and at times brusque incharacter, had made some enemies, and that he had been represented tothe Emperor as a maker of almanacs and of weather predictions, and thatNapoleon, during a reception, showing to Lamarck his greatdissatisfaction with the annuals, had ordered him to stop theirpublication. 

But according to Bourguin's statement this is not the correct version. He tells us:

 "According to traditions preserved in the family of Lamarck things did not happen so at all. During a reception given to the Institute at the Tuileries, Napoleon, who really liked Lamarck, spoke to him in a jocular way about his weather probabilities, and Lamarck, very much provoked (_très contrarié_) at being thus chaffed in the presence of his colleagues, resolved to stop the publication of his observations on the weather. What proves that this version is the true one is that Lamarck published another annual which he had in preparation for the year 1810. In the preface he announced that his age, ill health, and his circumstances placed him in the unfortunate necessity of ceasing to busy himself with this periodical work. He ended by inviting those who had the taste for meteorological observations, and the means of devoting their time to it, to take up with confidence an enterprise good in itself, based on a genuine foundation, and from which the public would derive advantageous results. "

These opuscles, such as they were, in which Lamarck treated differentsubjects bearing on the winds, great droughts, rainy seasons, tides, etc. , became the precursors of the _Annuaires du Bureau desLongitudes_. 

An observation of Lamarck's on a rare and curious form of cloud hasquite recently been referred to by a French meteorologist. It isprobable, says M.  E. Durand-Greville in _La Nature_, November 24, 1900, that Lamarck was the first to observe the so-called pocky or festooncloud, or mammato-cirrus cloud, which at rare intervals has beenobserved since his time. [59]

Full of over confidence in the correctness of his views formed withoutreference to experiments, although Lavoisier, by his discovery of oxygenin the years 1772-85, and other researches, had laid the foundations ofthe antiphlogistic or modern chemistry, Lamarck quixotically attemptedto substitute his own speculative views for those of the discoverers ofoxygen--Priestley (1774) and the great French chemist Lavoisier. Lamarck, in his _Hydrogéologie_ (1802), went so far as to declare:

 "It is not true, and it seems to me even absurd to believe that pure air, which has been justly called _vital air_, and which chemists now call _oxygen gas_, can be the radical of saline matters--namely, can be the principle of acidity, of causticity, or any salinity whatever. There are a thousand ways of refuting this error without the possibility of a reply. .. . This hypothesis, the best of all those which had been imagined when Lavoisier conceived it, cannot now be longer held, since I have discovered what is really _caloric_" (p.  161). 

After paying his respects to Priestley, he asks: "What, then, can be thereason why the views of chemists and mine are so opposed?" and complainsthat the former have avoided all written discussion on this subject. Andthis after his three physico-chemical works, the _Réfutation_, the_Recherches_, and the _Mémoires_ had appeared, and seemed to chemists tobe unworthy of a reply. 

It must be admitted that Lamarck was on this occasion undulyself-opinionated and stubborn in adhering to such views at a time whenthe physical sciences were being placed on a firm and lasting basis byexperimental philosophers. The two great lessons of science--to suspendone's judgment and to wait for more light in theoretical matters onwhich scientific men were so divided--and the necessity of adhering tohis own line of biological study, where he had facts of his ownobserving on which to rest his opinions, Lamarck did not seem ever tohave learned. 

The excuse for his rash and quixotic course in respect to hisphysico-chemical vagaries is that he had great mental activity. Lamarckwas a synthetic philosopher. He had been brought up in the encyclopædicperiod of learning. He had from his early manhood been deeply interestedin physical subjects. In middle age he probably lived a very retiredlife, did not mingle with his compeers or discuss his views with them. So that when he came to publish them, he found not a single supporter. His speculations were received in silence and not deemed worthy ofdiscussion. 

A very just and discriminating judge of Lamarck's work, ProfessorCleland, thus refers to his writings on physics and chemistry:

 "The most prominent defect in Lamarck must be admitted, quite apart from all consideration of the famous hypothesis which bears his name, to have been want of control in speculation. Doubtless the speculative tendency furnished a powerful incentive to work, but it outran the legitimate deductions from observation, and led him into the production of volumes of worthless chemistry without experimental basis, as well as into spending much time in fruitless meteorological predictions. " (_Encyc. Brit. _, Art. LAMARCK. )

How a modern physicist regards Lamarck's views on physics may be seen bythe following statement kindly written for this book by Professor CarlBarus of Brown University, Providence:

 "Lamarck's physical and chemical speculations, made throughout on the basis of the alchemistic philosophy of the time, will have little further interest to-day than as evidence showing the broadly philosophic tendencies of Lamarck's mind. Made without experiment and without mathematics, the contents of the three volumes will hardly repay perusal, except by the historian interested in certain aspects of pre-Lavoisierian science. The temerity with which physical phenomena are referred to occult static molecules, permeated by subtle fluids, the whole mechanism left without dynamic quality, since the mass of the molecule is to be non-essential, is markedly in contrast with the discredit into which such hypotheses have now fallen. It is true that an explanation of natural phenomena in terms "le feu éthéré, le feu calorique, et le feu fixé" might be interpreted with reference to the modern doctrine of energy; but it is certain that Lamarck, antedating Fresnel, Carnot, Ampère, not to mention their great followers, had not the faintest inkling of the possibility of such an interpretation. Indeed, one may readily account for the resemblance to modern views, seeing that all speculative systems of science must to some extent run in parallel, inasmuch as they begin with the facts of common experience. Nor were his speculations in any degree stimulating to theoretical science. Many of his mechanisms in which the ether operates on a plane of equality with the air can only be regarded with amusement. The whole of his elaborate schemes of color classification may be instanced as forerunners of the methods commercially in vogue to-day; they are not the harbingers of methods scientifically in vogue. One looks in vain for research adequate to carry the load of so much speculative text. 

 "Even if we realize that the beginnings of science could but be made amid such groping in the dark, it is a pity that a man of Lamarck's genius, which seems to have been destitute of the instincts of an experimentalist, should have lavished so much serious thought in evolving a system of chemical physics out of himself. "

The chemical status of Lamarck's writings is thus stated by Professor H. Carrington Bolton in a letter dated Washington, D.  C. , February 9, 1900:

 "Excuse delay in replying to your inquiry as to the chemical status of the French naturalist, Lamarck. Not until this morning have I found it convenient to go to the Library of Congress. That Library has not the _Recherches_ nor the _Mémoires_, but the position of Lamarck is well known. He had no influence on chemistry, and his name is not mentioned in the principal histories of chemistry. He made no experiments, but depended upon his imagination for his facts; he opposed the tenets of the new French school founded by Lavoisier, and proposed a fanciful scheme of abstract principles that remind one of alchemy. 

 "Cuvier, in his _Éloge_ (_Mémoires Acad. Royale des Sciences_, 1832), estimates Lamarck correctly as respects his position in physical science. "

Lamarck boldly carried the principle of change and evolution intoinorganic nature by the same law of change of circumstances producingchange of species. 

Under the head, "De l'espèce parmi les minéraux, " p.  149, the authorstates that he had for a long time supposed that there were no speciesamong minerals. Here, also, he doubts, and boldly, if not rashly, inthis case, opposes accepted views, and in this field, as elsewhere, shows, at least, his independence of thought. 

 "They teach in Paris, " he says, "that the integrant molecule of each kind of compound is invariable in nature, and consequently that it is as old as nature, hence, mineral species are constant. 

 "For myself, I declare that I am persuaded, and even feel convinced, that the integrant molecule of every compound substance whatever, may change its nature, namely, may undergo changes in the number and in the proportions of the principles which compose it. "

He enlarges on this subject through eight pages. He was evidently led totake this view from his assumption that everything, every naturalobject, organic or inorganic, undergoes a change. But it may beobjected that this view will not apply to minerals, because those of thearchæan rocks do not differ, and have undergone no change since then tothe present time, unless we except such minerals as are alterationproducts due to metamorphism. The primary laws of nature, of physics, and of chemistry are unchangeable, while change, progression from thegeneralized to the specialized, is distinctly characteristic of theorganic as opposed to the inorganic world. 

FOOTNOTES:

[58] "On the Influence of the Moon on the Earth's Atmosphere, " _Journalde Physique_, prairial, l'an VI. (1798). 

[59] Nature, Dec.  6, 1900. 

CHAPTER VIII

LAMARCK'S WORK IN GEOLOGY

Whatever may be said of his chemical and physical lucubrations, Lamarckin his geological and palæontological writings is, despite their errors, always suggestive, and in some most important respects in advance of histime. And this largely for the reason that he had once travelled, and tosome extent observed geological phenomena, in the central regions ofFrance, in Germany, and Hungary; visiting mines and collecting ores andminerals, besides being in a degree familiar with the French cretaceousfossils, but more especially those of the tertiary strata of Paris andits vicinity. He had, therefore, from his own experience, slight as itwas, some solid grounds of facts and observations on which to meditateand from which to reason. 

He did not attempt to touch upon cosmological theories--chaos andcreation--but, rather, confined himself to the earth, and moreparticularly to the action of the ocean, and to the changes which hebelieved to be due to organic agencies. The most impressive truth ingeology is the conception of the immensity of past time, and this truthLamarck fully realized. His views are to be found in a little book of268 pages, entitled _Hydrogéologie_. It appeared in 1802 (an X. ), orten years before the first publication of Cuvier's famous _Discours surles Revolutions de la Surface du Globe_ (1812). Written in his popularand attractive style, and thoroughly in accord with the cosmological andtheological prepossessions of the age, the Discours was widely read, andpassed through many editions. On the other hand, the _Hydrogéologie_died stillborn, with scarcely a friend or a reader, never reaching asecond edition, and is now, like most of his works, a bibliographicalrarity. 

The only writer who has said a word in its favor, or contrasted it withthe work of Cuvier, is the judicious and candid Huxley, who, though byno means favorable to Lamarck's factors of evolution, frankly said:

 "The vast authority of Cuvier was employed in support of the traditionally respectable hypotheses of special creation and of catastrophism; and the wild speculations of the _Discours sur les Revolutions de la Surface du Globe_ were held to be models of sound scientific thinking, while the really much more sober and philosophic hypotheses of the _Hydrogéologie_ were scouted. "[60]

Before summarizing the contents of this book, let us glance at thegeological atmosphere--thin and tenuous as it was then--in which Lamarcklived. The credit of being the first observer, before Steno (1669), tostate that fossils are the remains of animals which were once alive, isdue to an Italian, Frascatero, of Verona, who wrote in 1517. 

 "But, " says Lyell, [61] "the clear and philosophical views of Frascatero were disregarded, and the talent and argumentative powers of the learned were doomed for three centuries to be wasted in the discussion of these two simple and preliminary questions: First, whether fossil remains had ever belonged to living creatures; and, secondly, whether, if this be admitted, all the phenomena could not be explained by the deluge of Noah. "

Previous to this the great artist, architect, engineer, and musician, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), who, among other great works, planned andexecuted some navigable canals in Northern Italy, and who was anobserver of rare penetration and judgment, saw how fossil shells wereformed, saying that the mud of rivers had covered and penetrated intothe interior of fossil shells at a time when these were still at thebottom of the sea near the coast. [62]

That versatile and observing genius, Bernard Palissy, as early as 1580, in a book entitled _The Origin of Springs from Rain-water_, and in otherwritings, criticized the notions of the time, especially of Italianwriters, that petrified shells had all been left by the universaldeluge. 

 "It has happened, " said Fontenelle, in his eulogy on Palissy, delivered before the French Academy a century and a half later, "that a potter who knew neither Latin nor Greek dared, toward the end of the sixteenth century, to say in Paris, and in the presence of all the doctors, that fossil shells were veritable shells deposited at some time by the sea in the places where they were then found; that the animals had given to the figured stones all their different shapes, and that he boldly defied all the school of Aristotle to attack his proofs. "[63]

Then succeeded, at the end of the seventeenth century, the forerunnersof modern geology: Steno (1669), Leibnitz (1683), Ray (1692), Woodward(1695), Vallisneri (1721), while Moro published his views in 1745. Inthe eighteenth century Réaumur[64] (1720) presented a paper on thefossil shells of Touraine. 

Cuvier[65] thus pays his respects, in at least an unsympathetic way, tothe geological essayists and compilers of the seventeenth century:

 "The end of the seventeenth century lived to see the birth of a new science, which took, in its infancy, the high-sounding name of 'Theory of the Earth. ' Starting from a small number of facts, badly observed, connecting them by fantastic suppositions, it pretended to go back to the origin of worlds, to, as it were, play with them, and to create their history. Its arbitrary methods, its pompous language, altogether seemed to render it foreign to the other sciences, and, indeed, the professional savants for a long time cast it out of the circle of their studies. "

Their views, often premature, composed of half-truths, were mingled withglaring errors and fantastic misconceptions, but were none the lessgerminal. Leibnitz was the first to propose the nebular hypothesis, which was more fully elaborated by Kant and Laplace. Buffon, influencedby the writing of Leibnitz, in his _Théorie de la Terre_, published in1749, adopted his notion of an original volcanic nucleus and a universalocean, the latter as he thought leaving the land dry by draining intosubterranean caverns. He also dimly saw, or gathered from his reading, that the mountains and valleys were due to secondary causes; thatfossiliferous strata had been deposited by ocean currents, and thatrivers had transported materials from the highlands to the lowlands. Healso states that many of the fossil shells which occur in Europe do notlive in the adjacent seas, and that there are remains of fishes and ofplants not now living in Europe, and which are either extinct or live inmore southern climates, and others in tropical seas. Also that the bonesand teeth of elephants and of the rhinoceros and hippopotamus found inSiberia and elsewhere in northern Europe and Asia indicate that theseanimals must have lived there, though at present restricted to thetropics. In his last essay, _Époques de la Nature_ (1778), he claimsthat the earth's history may be divided into epochs, from the earliestto the present time. The first epoch was that of fluidity, ofincandescence, when the earth and the planets assumed their form; thesecond, of cooling; the third, when the waters covered the earth, andvolcanoes began to be active; the fourth, that of the retreat of theseas, and the fifth the age when the elephants, the hippopotamus, andother southern animals lived in the regions of the north; the sixth, when the two continents, America and the old world, became separate; theseventh and last being the age of man. Above all, by his attractivestyle and bold suggestions he popularized the subjects and created aninterest in these matters and a spirit of inquiry which spreadthroughout France and the rest of Europe. 

But notwithstanding the crude and uncritical nature of the writings ofthe second half of the eighteenth century, resulting from the lack ofthat more careful and detailed observation which characterizes our day, there was during this period a widespread interest in physical andnatural science, and it led up to that more exact study of nature whichsignalizes the nineteenth century. "More new truths concerning theexternal world, " says Buckle, "were discovered in France during thelatter half of the eighteenth century than during all preceding periodsput together. "[66] As Perkins[67] says: "Interest in scientific study, as in political investigation, seemed to rise suddenly from almostcomplete inactivity to extraordinary development. In both departmentsEnglish thinkers had led the way, but if the impulse to suchinvestigations came from without, the work done in France in everybranch of scientific research during the eighteenth century was excelledby no other nation, and England alone could assert any claim to resultsof equal importance. The researches of Coulomb in electricity, of Buffonin geology, of Lavoisier in chemistry, of Daubenton in comparativeanatomy, carried still farther by their illustrious successors towardsthe close of the century, did much to establish conceptions of theuniverse and its laws upon a scientific basis. " And not only didRousseau make botany fashionable, but Goldsmith wrote from Paris in1755: "I have seen as bright a circle of beauty at the chemical lecturesof Rouelle as gracing the court of Versailles. " Petit lectured onastronomy to crowded houses, and among his listeners were gentlemen andladies of fashion, as well as professional students. [68] Thepopularizers of science during this period were Voltaire, Montesquieu, Alembert, Diderot, and other encyclopædists. 

Here should be mentioned one of Buffon's contemporaries and countrymen;one who was the first true field geologist, an observer rather than acompiler or theorist. This was Jean E. Guettard (1715-1786). Hepublished, says Sir Archibald Geikie, in his valuable work, _TheFounders of Geology_, about two hundred papers on a wide range ofscientific subjects, besides half a dozen quarto volumes of hisobservations, together with many excellent plates. Geikie also statesthat he is undoubtedly entitled to rank among the first great pioneersof modern geology. He was the first (1751) to make a geological map ofnorthern France, and roughly traced the limits of his three bands orformations from France across the southeastern English counties. In hiswork on "The degradation of mountains effected in our time by heavyrains, rivers, and the sea, "[69] he states that the sea is the mostpotent destroyer of the land, and that the material thus removed isdeposited either on the land or along the shores of the sea. He thoughtthat the levels of the valleys are at present being raised, owing to thedeposit of detritus in them. He points out that the deposits laid downby the ocean do not extend far out to sea, "that consequently theelevations of new mountains in the sea, by the deposition of sediment, is a process very difficult to conceive; that the transport of thesediment as far as the equator is not less improbable; and that stillmore difficult to accept is the suggestion that the sediment from ourcontinent is carried into the seas of the New World. In short, we arestill very little advanced towards the theory of the earth as it nowexists. " Guettard was the first to discover the volcanoes of Auvergne, but he was "hopelessly wrong" in regard to the origin of basalt, forestalling Werner in his mistakes as to its aqueous origin. He wasthus the first Neptunist, while, as Geikie states, his "observations inAuvergne practically started the Vulcanist camp. "

We now come to Lamarck's own time. He must have been familiar with theresults of Pallas's travels in Russia and Siberia (1793-94). Thedistinguished German zoölogist and geologist, besides working out thegeology of the Ural Mountains, showed, in 1777, that there was a generallaw in the formation of all mountain chains composed chiefly of primaryrocks;[70] the granitic axis being flanked by schists, and these byfossiliferous strata. From his observations made on the Volga and aboutits mouth, he presented proofs of the former extension, in comparativelyrecent times, of the Caspian Sea. But still more pregnant and remarkablewas his discovery of an entire rhinoceros, with its flesh and skin, inthe frozen soil of Siberia. His memoir on this animal places him amongthe forerunners of, if not within the ranks of, the founders ofpalæontology. 

Meanwhile Soldani, an Italian, had, in 1780, shown that the limestonestrata of Italy had accumulated in a deep sea, at least far from land, and he was the first to observe the alternation of marine andfresh-water strata in the Paris basin. 

Lamarck must have taken much interest in the famous controversy betweenthe Vulcanists and Neptunists. He visited Freyburg in 1771; whether hemet Werner is not known, as Werner began to lecture in 1775. He musthave personally known Faujas of Paris, who, in 1779, published hisdescription of the volcanoes of Vivarais and Velay; while Desmarest's(1725-1815) elaborate work on the volcanoes of Auvergne, published in1774, in which he proved the igneous origin of basalt, was the bestpiece of geological exploration which had yet been accomplished, and isstill a classic. [71]

Werner (1750-1817), the propounder of the Neptunian theory, was one ofthe founders of modern geology and of palæontology. His work entitled_Ueber die aüssern Kennzeichen der Fossilien_ appeared in 1774; his_Kurze Klassifikation und Beschreibung der Gebirgsarten_ in 1787. Hediscovered the law of the superposition of stratified rocks, though hewrongly considered volcanic rocks, such as basalt, to be of aqueousorigin, being as he supposed formed of chemical precipitates from water. But he was the first to state that the age of different formations canbe told by their fossils, certain species being confined to particularbeds, while others ranged throughout whole formations, and others seemedto occur in several different formations; "the original species found inthese formations appearing to have been so constituted as to livethrough a variety of changes which had destroyed hundreds of otherspecies which we find confined to particular beds. "[72] His views asregards fossils, as Jameson states, were probably not known to Cuvier, and it is more than doubtful whether Lamarck knew of them. He observedthat fossils appear first in "transition" or palæozoic strata, and weremainly corals and molluscs; that in the older carboniferous rocks thefossils are of higher types, such as fish and amphibious animals; whilein the tertiary or alluvial strata occur the remains of birds andquadrupeds. He thought that marine plants were more ancient than landplants. His studies led him to infer that the fossils contained in theoldest rocks are very different from any of the species of the presenttime; that the newer the formation, the more do the remains approach inform to the organic beings of the present creation, and that in thevery latest formations, fossil remains of species now existing occur. Such advanced views as these would seem to entitle Werner to rank as oneof the founders of palæontology. [73]

Hutton's _Theory of the Earth_ appeared in 1785, and in a more developedstate, as a separate work, in 1795. [74] "The ruins of an older world, "he said, "are visible in the present structure of our planet, and thestrata which now compose our continents have been once beneath the sea, and were formed out of the waste of preëxisting continents. The sameforces are still destroying, by chemical decomposition or mechanicalviolence, even the hardest rocks, and transporting the materials to thesea, where they are spread out and form strata analogous to those ofmore ancient date. Although loosely deposited along the bottom of theocean, they became afterwards altered and consolidated by volcanic heat, and were then heaved up, fractured, and contorted. " Again he said: "Inthe economy of the world I can find no traces of a beginning, noprospect of an end. " As Lyell remarks: "Hutton imagined that thecontinents were first gradually destroyed by aqueous degradation, andwhen their ruins had furnished materials for new continents, they wereupheaved by violent convulsions. He therefore required alternate periodsof general disturbance and repose. "

To Hutton, therefore, we are indebted for the idea of the immensity ofthe duration of time. He was the forerunner of Lyell and of theuniformitarian school of geologists. 

Hutton observed that fossils characterized certain strata, but the valueof fossils as time-marks and the principle of the superposition ofstratified fossiliferous rocks were still more clearly established byWilliam Smith, an English surveyor, in 1790. Meanwhile the Abbé Haüy, the founder of crystallography, was in 1802 Professor of Mineralogy inthe Jardin des Plantes. 

_Lamarck's Contributions to Physical Geology; his Theory of the Earth. _

Such were the amount and kind of knowledge regarding the origin andstructure of our earth which existed at the close of the eighteenthcentury, while Lamarck was meditating his _Hydrogéologie_, and had begunto study the invertebrate fossils of the Paris tertiary basin. 

His object, he says in his work, is to present certain considerationswhich he believed to be new and of the first order, which had escapedthe notice of physicists, and which seemed to him should serve as thefoundations for a good theory of the earth. His theses are:

 1. What are the natural consequences of the influence and the movements of the waters on the surface of the globe?

 2. Why does the sea constantly occupy a basin within the limits which contain it, and there separate the dry parts of the surface of the globe always projecting above it?

 3. Has the ocean basin always existed where we actually see it, and if we find proofs of the sojourn of the sea in places where it no longer remains, by what cause was it found there, and why is it no longer there?

 4. What influence have living bodies exerted on the substances found on the surface of the earth and which compose the crust which invests it, and what are the general results of this influence?

Lamarck then disclaims any intentions of framing brilliant hypothesesbased on supposititious principles, but nevertheless, as we shall see, he falls into this same error, and like others of his period makes somepreposterous hypotheses, though these are far less so than those ofCuvier's _Discours_. He distinguishes between the action of rivers or offresh-water currents, torrents, storms, the melting of snow, and thework of the ocean. The rivers wear away and bear materials from thehighlands to the lowlands, so that the plains are gradually elevated;ravines form and become immense valleys, and their sides form elevatedcrests and pass into mountain ranges. 

He brings out and emphasizes the fact, now so well known, that theerosive action of rain and rivers has formed mountains of a certainclass. 

 "It is then evident to me, that every mountain which is not the result of a _volcanic irruption_ or of some local catastrophe, has been carved out from a plain, where its mass is gradually formed, and was a part of it; hence what in this case are the summits of the mountains are only the remains of the former level of the plain unless the process of washing away and other means of degradation have not since reduced its height. "

Now this will apply perfectly well to our table-lands, mesas, themountains of our bad-lands, even to our Catskills and to many elevationsof this nature in France and in northern Africa. But Lamarckunfortunately does not stop here, but with the zeal of an innovator, byno means confined to his time alone, claims that the mountain masses ofthe Alps and the Andes were carved out of plains which had been raisedabove the sea-level to the present heights of those mountains. 

Two causes, he says, have concurred in forming these elevated plains. 

 "One consists in the continual accumulation of material filling the portion of the ocean-basin from which the same seas slowly retreat; for it does not abandon those parts of the ocean-basin which are situated nearer and nearer to the shores that it tends to leave, until after having filled its bottom and having gradually raised it. It follows that the coasts which the sea is abandoning are never made by a very deep-lying formation, however often it appears to be such, for they are continually elevated as the result of the perpetual balancing of the sea, which casts off from its shores all the sediments brought down by the rivers; in such a way that the great depths of the ocean are not near the shore from which the sea retreats, but out in the middle of the ocean and near the opposite shores which the sea tends to invade. 

 "The other cause, as we shall see, is found in the detritus of organic bodies successively accumulated, which perpetually elevates, although with extreme slowness, the soil of the dry portions of the globe, and which does it all the more rapidly, as the situation of these parts gives less play to the degradation of the surface caused by the rivers. 

 "Doubtless a plain which is destined some day to furnish the mountains which the rivers will carve out from its mass would have, when still but a little way from the sea, but a moderate elevation above its river channels; but gradually as the ocean basin removed from this plain, this basin constantly sinking down into the interior (_épaisseur_) of the external crust of the globe, and the soil of the plain perpetually rising higher from the deposition of the detritus of organic bodies, it results that, after ages of elevation of the plain in question, it would be in the end sufficiently thick for high mountains to be shaped and carved out of its mass. 

 "Although the ephemeral length of life of man prevents his appreciation of this fact, it is certain that the soil of a plain unceasingly acquires a real increase in its elevation in proportion as it is covered with different plants and animals. Indeed the débris successively heaped up for numerous generations of all these beings which have by turns perished, and which, as the result of the action of their organs, have, during the course of this life, given rise to combinations which would never have existed without this means, most of the principles which have formed them not being borrowed from the soil; this débris, I say, wasting successively on the soil of the plain in question, gradually increases the thickness of its external bed, multiplies there the mineral matters of all kinds and gradually elevates the formation. "

Our author, as is evident, had no conception, nor had any one else atthe time he wrote, of the slow secular elevation of a continentalplateau by crust-movements, and Lamarck's idea of the formation ofelevated plains on land by the accumulation of débris of organisms ismanifestly inadequate, our aërial or eolian rocks and loess beingwind-deposits of sand and silt rather than matters of organic origin. Thus he cites as an example of his theory the vast elevated plains ofTartary, which he thought had been dry land from time immemorable, though we now know that the rise took place in the quaternary or presentperiod. On the other hand, given these vast elevated plains, he wascorrect in affirming that rivers flowing through them wore out enormousvalleys and carved out high mountains, left standing by atmosphericerosion, for examples of such are to be seen in the valley of the Nile, the Colorado, the Upper Missouri, etc. 

He then distinguishes between granitic or crystalline mountains, andthose composed of stratified rocks and volcanic mountains. 

The erosive action of rivers is thus discussed; they tend first, hesays, to fill up the ocean basins, and second, to make the surface ofthe land broken and mountainous, by excavating and furrowing the plains. 

Our author did not at all understand the causes of the inclination ortilting up of strata. Little close observation or field work had yetbeen done, and the rocks about Paris are but slightly if at alldisturbed. He attributes the dipping down of strata to the inclinationof the shores of the sea, though he adds that nevertheless it is oftendue to local subsidences. And then he remarks that "indeed in manymountains, and especially in the Pyrenees, in the very centre of thesemountains, we observe that the strata are for the most part eithervertical or so inclined that they more or less approach this direction. "

 "But, " he asks, "should we conclude from this that there has necessarily occurred a universal catastrophe, a general overturning? This assumption, so convenient for those naturalists who would explain all the facts of this kind without taking the trouble to observe and study the course which nature follows, is not at all necessary here; for it is easy to conceive that the inclined direction of the beds in the mountains may have been produced by other causes, and especially by causes more natural and less hypothetical than a general overturning of strata. "

While streams of fresh water tend to fill up and destroy the oceanbasins, he also insists that the movements of the sea, such as thetides, currents, storms, submarine volcanoes, etc. , on the contrary, tend to unceasingly excavate and reëstablish these basins. Of course wenow know that tides and currents have no effect in the ocean depths, though their scouring effects near shore in shallow waters have locallyhad a marked effect in changing the relations of land and sea. Lamarckwent so far as to insist that the ocean basin owes its existence and itspreservation to the scouring action of the tides and currents. 

The earth's interior was, in Lamarck's opinion, solid, formed ofquartzose and silicious rocks, and its centre of gravity did notcoincide with its geographical centre, or what he calls the _centre deforme_. He imagined also that the ocean revolved around the globe fromeast to west, and that this movement, by its continuity, displaced theocean basin and made it pass successively over all the surface of theearth. 

Then, in the third chapter, he asks if the basin of the sea has alwaysbeen where we now actually see it, and whether we find proofs of thesojourn of the sea in the place where it is now absent; if so, what arethe causes of these changes. He reiterates his strange idea of a generalmovement of the ocean from east to west, at the rate of at least threeleagues in twenty-four hours and due to the moon's influence. And hereLamarck, in spite of his uniformitarian principles, is stronglycataclysmic. What he seems to have in mind is the great equatorialcurrent between Africa and the West Indies. To this perpetual movementof the waters of the Atlantic Ocean he ventures to attribute theexcavation of the Gulf of Mexico, and presumes that at the end of agesit will break through the Isthmus of Panama, and transform America intotwo great islands or two small continents. Not understanding that theislands are either the result of upheaval, or outliers of continents, due to subsidence, Lamarck supposed that his westward flow of the ocean, due to the moon's attraction, eroded the eastern shores of America, andthe currents thus formed "in their efforts to move westward, arrested byAmerica and by the eastern coasts of China, were in great part divertedtowards the South Pole, and seeking to break through a passage acrossthe ancient continent have, a long time since, reduced the portion ofthis continent which united New Holland to Asia into an archipelagowhich comprises the Molucca, Philippine, and Mariana Islands. " The WestIndies and Windward Islands were formed by the same means, and the seanot breaking through the Isthmus of Panama was turned southward, and theaction of its currents resulted in detaching the island of Tierra delFuego from South America. In like manner New Zealand was separated fromNew Holland, Madagascar from Africa, and Ceylon from India. 

He then refers to other "displacements of the ocean basin, " to theshallowing of the Straits of Sunda, of the Baltic Sea, the ancientsubsidence of the coast of Holland and Zealand, and states that Swedenoffers all the appearance of having recently emerged from the sea, whilethe Caspian Sea, formerly much larger than at present, was once incommunication with the Black Sea, and that some day the Straits of Sundaand the Straits of Dover will be dry land, so that the union of Englandand France will be formed anew. 

Strangely enough, with these facts known to him, Lamarck did not seethat such changes were due to changes of level of the land rather thanto their being abandoned or invaded by the sea, but explained these byhis bizarre hypothesis of westward-flowing currents due to the moon'saction; though it should be in all fairness stated that down to recenttimes there have been those who believed that it is the sea and not theland which has changed its level. 

This idea, that the sea and not the land has changed its level, wasgenerally held at the time Lamarck wrote, though Strabo had made theshrewd observation that it was the land which moved. The Greekgeographer threw aside the notion of some of his contemporaries, andwith wonderful prevision, considering the time he wrote and the limitedobservations he could make, claimed that it is not the sea which hasrisen or fallen, but the land itself which is sometimes raised up andsometimes depressed, while the sea-bottom may also be elevated or sunkdown. He refers to such facts as deluges, earthquakes, and volcaniceruptions, and sudden swellings of the land beneath the sea. 

 "And it is not merely the small, but the large islands also, not merely the islands, but the continents which can be lifted up together with the sea; and, too, the large and small tracts may subside, for habitations and cities, like Bure, Bizona, and many others, have been engulfed by earthquakes. "[75]

But it was not until eighteen centuries later that this doctrine, underthe teachings of Playfair, Leopold von Buch, and Élie de Beaumont(1829-30) became generally accepted. In 1845 Humboldt remarked, "It is afact to-day recognized by all geologists, that the rise of continents isdue to an actual upheaval, and not to an apparent subsidence occasionedby a general depression of the level of the sea" (_Cosmos_, i). Yet aslate as 1869 we have an essay by H. Trautschold[76] in which is astatement of the arguments which can be brought forward in favor of thedoctrine that the increase of the land above sea level is due to theretirement of the sea. [77]

As authentic and unimpeachable proofs of the former existence of the seawhere now it is absent, Lamarck cites the occurrence of fossils in rocksinland. Lamarck's first paper on fossils was read to the Institute in1799, or about three years previous to the publication of the_Hydrogéologie_. He restricts the term "fossils" to vegetable and animalremains, since the word in his time was by some loosely applied tominerals as well as fossils; to anything dug out of the earth. "We findfossils, " he says, "on dry land, even in the middle of continents andlarge islands; and not only in places far removed from the sea, but evenon mountains and in their bowels, at considerable heights, each part ofthe earth's surface having at some time been a veritable ocean bottom. "He then quotes at length accounts of such instances from Buffon, andnotices their prodigious number, and that while the greater number aremarine, others are fresh-water and terrestrial shells, and the marineshells may be divided into littoral and pelagic. 

 "This distinction is very important to make, because the consideration of fossils is, as we have already said, one of the principal means of knowing well the revolutions which have taken place on the surface of our globe. This subject is of great importance, and under this point of view it should lead naturalists to study fossil shells, in order to compare them with their analogues which we can discover in the sea; finally, to carefully seek the places where each species lives, the banks which are formed of them, the different beds which these banks may present, etc. , etc. , so that we do not believe it out of place to insert here the principal considerations which have already resulted from that which is known in this respect. 

"_The fossils which are found in the dry parts of the surface of theglobe are evident indications of a long sojourn of the sea in the veryplaces where we observe them. _" Under this heading, after repeating thestatement previously made that fossils occur in all parts of the dryland, in the midst of the continents and on high mountains, he inquires_by what cause_ so many marine shells could be found in the exploredparts of the world. Discarding the old idea that they are monuments ofthe deluge, transformed into fossils, he denies that there was such ageneral catastrophe as a universal deluge, and goes on to say in hisassured, but calm and philosophic way:

 "On the globe which we inhabit, everything is submitted to continual and inevitable changes, which result from the essential order of things: they take place, in truth, with more or less promptitude or slowness, according to the nature, the condition, or the situation of the objects; nevertheless they are wrought in some time or other. 

 "To nature, time is nothing, and it never presents a difficulty; she always has it at her disposal, and it is for her a means without limit, with which she has made the greatest as well as the least things. 

 "The changes to which everything in this world is subjected are changes not only of form and of nature, but they are changes also of bulk, and even of situation. 

 "All the considerations stated in the preceding chapters should convince us that nothing on the surface of the terrestrial globe is immutable. They teach us that the vast ocean which occupies so great a part of the surface of our globe cannot have its bed constantly fixed in the same place; that the dry or exposed parts of this surface themselves undergo perpetual changes in their condition, and that they are in turn successively invaded and abandoned by the sea. 

 "There is, indeed, every evidence that these enormous masses of water continually displace themselves, both their bed and their limits. 

 "In truth these displacements, which are never interrupted, are in general only made with extreme and almost inappreciable slowness, but they are in ceaseless operation, and with such constancy that the ocean bottom, which necessarily loses on one side while it gains on another, has already, without doubt, spread over not only once, but even several times, every point of the surface of the globe. 

 "If it is thus, if each point of the surface of the terrestrial globe has been in turn dominated by the seas--that is to say, has contributed to form the bed of those immense masses of water which constitute the ocean--it should result (1) that the insensible but uninterrupted transfer of the bed of the ocean over the whole surface of the globe has given place to deposits of the remains of marine animals which we should find in a fossil state; (2) that this translation of the ocean basin should be the reason why the dry portions of the earth are always more elevated than the level of the sea; so that the old ocean bed should become exposed without being elevated above the sea, and without consequently giving rise to the formation of mountains which we observe in so many different regions of the naked parts of our globe. "

Thus littoral shells of many genera, such as Pectens, Tellinæ, cockleshells, turban shells (_sabots_), etc. , madrepores and other littoralpolyps, the bones of marine or of amphibious animals which have livednear the sea, and which occur as fossils, are then unimpeachablemonuments of the sojourn of the sea on the points of the dry parts ofthe globe where we observe their deposits, and besides these occurdeep-water forms. "Thus the encrinites, the belemnites, theorthoceratites, the ostracites, the terebratules, etc. , all animalswhich habitually live at the bottom, found for the most part among thefossils deposited on the point of the globe in question, areunimpeachable witnesses which attest that this same place was once partof the bottom or great depths of the sea. " He then attempts to prove, and does so satisfactorily, that the shells he refers to are what hecalls deep-water (pélagiennes). He proves the truth of his thesis by thefollowing facts:

 1. We are already familiar with a marine Gryphæa, and different Terebratulæ, also marine shell-fish, which do not, however, live near shore. 2. Also the greatest depth which has been reached with the rake or the dredge is not destitute of molluscs, since we find there a great number which only live at this depth, and without instruments to reach and bring them up we should know nothing of the _cones_, _olives_, Mitra, many species of Murex, Strombus, etc. 3. Finally, since the discovery of a living Encrinus, drawn up on a sounding line from a great depth, and where lives the animal or polyp in question, it is not only possible to assure ourselves that at this depth there are other living animals, but on the contrary we are strongly bound to think that other species of the same genus, and probably other animals of different genera, also live at the same depths. All this leads one to admit, with Bruguière, [78] the existence of deep-water shell-fish and polyps, which, like him, I distinguish from littoral shells and polyps. 

 "The two sorts of monuments of which I have above spoken, namely, littoral and deep-sea fossils, may be, and often should be, found separated by different beds in the same bank or in the same mountains, since they have been deposited there at very different epochs. But they may often be found mixed together, because the movements of the water, the currents, submarine volcanoes, etc. , have overturned the beds, yet some regular deposits in water always tranquil would be left in quite distant beds. .. . Every dry part of the earth's surface, when the presence or the abundance of marine fossils prove that formerly the sea has remained in that place, has necessarily twice received, for a single incursion of the sea, littoral shells, and once deep-sea shells, in three different deposits--this will not be disputed. But as such an incursion of the sea can only be accomplished by a period of immense duration, it follows that the littoral shells deposited at the first sojourn of the edge of the sea, and constituting the first deposit, have been destroyed--that is to say, have not been preserved to the present time; while the deep-water shells form the second deposit, and there the littoral shells of the third deposit are, in fact, the only ones which now exist, and which constitute the fossils that we see. "

He again asserts that these deposits could not be the result of anysudden catastrophe, because of the necessarily long sojourn of the seato account for the extensive beds of fossil shells, the remains of"infinitely multiplied generations of shelled animals which have livedin this place, and have there successively deposited their débris. " Hetherefore supposes that these remains, "continually heaped up, haveformed these shell banks, become fossilized after the lapse ofconsiderable time, and in which it is often possible to distinguishdifferent beds. " He then continues his line of anti-catastrophicreasoning, and we must remember that in his time facts in biology andgeology were feebly grasped, and scientific reasoning or induction wasin its infancy. 

 "I would again inquire how, in the supposition of a universal catastrophe, there could have been preserved an infinity of delicate shells which the least shock would break, but of which we now find a great number uninjured among other fossils. How also could it happen that bivalve shells, with which calcareous rocks and even those changed into a silicious condition are interlarded, should be all still provided with their two valves, as I have stated, if the animals of these shells had not lived in these places?

 "There is no doubt but that the remains of so many molluscs, that so many shells deposited and consequently changed into fossils, and most of which were totally destroyed before their substance became silicified, furnished a great part of the calcareous matter which we observe on the surface and in the upper beds of the earth. 

 "Nevertheless there is in the sea, for the formation of calcareous matter, a cause which is greater than shelled molluscs, which is consequently still more powerful, and to which must be referred ninety-nine hundredths, and indeed more, of the calcareous matter occurring in nature. This cause, so important to consider, is the existence of _coralligenous polyps_, which we might therefore call _testaceous polyps_, because, like the testaceous molluscs, these polyps have the faculty of forming, by a transudation or a continual secretion of their bodies, the stony and calcareous polypidom on which they live. 

 "In truth these polyps are animals so small that a single one only forms a minute quantity of calcareous matter. But in this case what nature does not obtain in any volume or in quantity from any one individual, she simply receives by the number of animals in question, through the enormous multiplicity of these animals, and their astonishing fecundity--namely, by the wonderful faculty they have of promptly regenerating, of multiplying in a short time their generations successively, and rapidly accumulating; finally, by the total amount of reunion of the products of these numerous little animals. 

 "Moreover, it is a fact now well known and well established that the coralligenous polyps, namely, this great family of animals with coral stocks, such as the millepores, the madrepores, astrææ, meandrinæ, etc. , prepare on a great scale at the bottom of the sea, by a continual secretion of their bodies, and as the result of their enormous multiplication and their accumulated generations, the greatest part of the calcareous matter which exists. The numerous coral stocks which these animals produce, and whose bulk and numbers perpetually increase, form in certain places islands of considerable extent, fill up extensive bays, gulfs, and roadsteads; in a word, close harbors, and entirely change the condition of coasts. 

 "These enormous banks of madrepores and millepores, heaped upon each other, covered and intermingled with serpulæ, different kinds of oysters, patellæ, barnacles, and other shells fixed by their base, form irregular mountains of an almost limitless extent. 

 "But when, after the lapse of considerable time, the sea has left the places where these immense deposits are laid down, then the slow but combined alteration that these great masses undergo, left uncovered and exposed to the incessant action of the air, light, and a variable humidity, changes them gradually into fossils and destroys their membranous or gelatinous part, which is the readiest to decompose. This alteration, which the enormous masses of the corals in question continued to undergo, caused their structure to gradually disappear, and their great porosity unceasingly diminished the parts of these stony masses by displacing and again bringing together the molecules composing them, so that, undergoing a new aggregation, these calcareous molecules obtained a number of points of contact, and constituted harder and more compact masses. It finally results that instead of the original masses of madrepores and millepores there occurs only masses of a compact calcareous rock, which modern mineralogists have improperly called _primitive limestone_, because, seeing in it no traces of shells or corals, they have mistaken these stony masses for deposits of a matter primitively existing in nature. "

He then reiterates the view that these deposits of marble andlimestones, often forming mountain ranges, could not have been theresult of a universal catastrophe, and in a very modern way goes on tospecify what the limits of catastrophism are. The only catastropheswhich a naturalist can reasonably admit as having taken place arepartial or local ones, those dependent on causes acting in isolatedplaces, such as the disturbances which are caused by volcanic eruptions, by earthquakes, by local inundations, by violent storms, etc. Thesecatastrophes are with reason admissible, because we observe theiranalogues, and because we know that they often happen. He then givesexamples of localities along the coast of France, as at Manche, wherethere are ranges of high hills made up of limestones containing Gryphææ, ammonites, and other deep-water shells. 

In the conclusion of the chapter, after stating that the ocean hasrepeatedly covered the greater part of the earth, he then claims that"the displacement of the sea, producing a constantly variableinequality in the mass of the terrestrial radii, has necessarily causedthe earth's centre of gravity to vary, as also its two poles. [79]Moreover, since it appears that this variation, very irregular as it is, not being subjected to any limits, it is very probable that each pointof the surface of the planet we inhabit is really in the case ofsuccessively finding itself subjected to different climates. " He thenexclaims in eloquent, profound, and impassioned language:

 "How curious it is to see that such suppositions receive their confirmation from the consideration of the state of the earth's surface and of its external crust, from that of the nature of certain fossils found in abundance in the northern regions of the earth, and whose analogues now live in warm climates; finally, in that of the ancient astronomical observations of the Egyptians. 

 "Oh, how great is the antiquity of the terrestrial globe, and how small are the ideas of those who attribute to the existence of this globe a duration of six thousand and some hundred years since its origin down to our time!

 "The physico-naturalist and the geologist in this respect see things very differently; for if they have given the matter the slightest consideration--the one, the nature of fossils spread in such great numbers in all the exposed parts of the globe, both in elevated situations and at considerable depths in the earth; the other, the number and disposition of the beds, as also the nature and order of the materials which compose the external crust of this globe studied throughout a great part of its thickness and in the mountain masses--have they not had opportunities to convince themselves that the antiquity of this same globe is so great that it is absolutely beyond the power of man to appreciate it in an adequate way!

 "Assuredly our chronologies do not extend back very far, and they could only have been made by propping them up by fables. Traditions, both oral and written, become necessarily lost, and it is in the nature of things that this should be so. 

 "Even if the invention of printing had been more ancient than it is, what would have resulted at the end of ten thousand years? Everything changes, everything becomes modified, everything becomes lost or destroyed. Every living language insensibly changes its idiom; at the end of a thousand years the writings made in any language can only be read with difficulty; after two thousand years none of these writings will be understood. Besides wars, vandalism, the greediness of tyrants and of those who guide religious opinions, who always rely on the ignorance of the human race and are supported by it, how many are the causes, as proved by history and the sciences, of epochs after epochs of revolutions, which have more or less completely destroyed them. 

 "How many are the causes by which man loses all trace of that which has existed, and cannot believe nor even conceive of the immense antiquity of the earth he inhabits!

 "How great will yet seem this antiquity of the terrestrial globe in the eyes of man when he shall form a just idea of the origin of living bodies, as also of the causes of the development and of the gradual process of perfection of the organization of these bodies, and especially when it will be conceived that, time and favorable circumstances having been necessary to give existence to all the living species such as we actually see, he is himself the last result and the actual maximum of this process of perfecting, the limit (_terme_) of which, if it exists, cannot be known. "

In the fourth chapter of the book there is less to interest the reader, since the author mainly devotes it to a reiteration of the ideas of hisearlier works on physics and chemistry. He claims that the minerals androcks composing the earth's crust are all of organic origin, includingeven granite. The thickness of this crust he thinks, in the absence ofpositive knowledge, to be from three to four leagues, or from nine totwelve miles. 

After describing the mode of formation of minerals, including agates, flint, geodes, etc. , he discusses the process of fossilization bymolecular changes, silicious particles replacing the vegetable or animalmatter, as in the case of fossil wood. 

While, then, the products of animals such as corals and molluscs arelimestones, those of vegetables are humus and clay; and all of thesedeposits losing their less fixed principles pass into a siliciouscondition, and end by being reduced to quartz, which is the earthyelement in its purest form. The salts, pyrites, and metals only differfrom other minerals by the different circumstances under which they wereaccumulated, in their different proportions, and in their much greateramount of carbonic or acidific fire. 

Regarding granite, which, he says, naturalists very erroneously consideras _primitive_, he begins by observing that it is only by conjecturethat we should designate as primitive any matter whatever. He recognizesthe fact that granite forms the highest mountains, which are generallyarranged in more or less regular chains. But he strangely assumes thatthe constituents of granite, _i. E. _, felspar, quartz, and mica, did notexist before vegetables, and that these minerals and their aggregationinto granite were the result of slow deposition in the ocean. [80] Hegoes so far as to assert that the porphyritic rocks were not thus formedin the sea, but that they are the result of deposits carried down bystreams, especially torrents flowing down from mountains. Gneiss, hethinks, resulted from the detritus of granitic rocks, by means of aninappreciable cement, and formed in a way analogous to that of theporphyries. 

Then he attacks the notion of Leibnitz of a liquid globe, in which allmineral substances were precipitated tumultuously, replacing this ideaby his chemical notion of the origin of the crystalline and volcanicrocks. 

He is on firmer ground in explaining the origin of chalk and clay, forthe rocks of the region about Paris, with which he was familiar, aresedimentary and largely of organic origin. 

In the "Addition" (pp.  173-188) following the fourth chapter Lamarckstates that, allowing for the variations in the intensity of the causeof elevation of the land as the result of the accumulations of organicmatter, he thinks he can, without great error, consider the mean rate as324 mm. (1 foot) a century. As a concrete example it has been observed, he says, that one river valley has risen a foot higher in the space ofeleven years. 

Passing by his speculations on the displacement of the poles of theearth, and on the elevations of the equatorial regions, which willdispense with the necessity of considering the earth as originally in aliquid condition, he allows that "the terrestrial globe is not at all abody entirely and truly solid, but that it is a combination (_réunion_)of bodies more or less solid, displaceable in their mass or in theirseparate parts, and among which there is a great number which undergocontinual changes in condition. "

It was, of course, too early in the history of geology for Lamarck toseize hold of the fact, now so well known, that the highest mountainranges, as the Alps, Pyrenees, the Caucasus, Atlas ranges, and theMountains of the Moon (he does not mention the Himalayas) are theyoungest, and that the lowest mountains, especially those in the morenorthern parts of the continents, are but the roots or remains of whatwere originally lofty mountain ranges. His idea, on the contrary, was, that the high mountain chains above mentioned were the remains ofancient equatorial elevations, which the fresh waters, for an enormousmultitude of ages, were in the process of progressively eroding andwearing down. 

What he says of the formation of coal is noteworthy:

 "Wherever there are masses of fossil wood buried in the earth, the enormous subterranean beds of coal that are met with in different countries, these are the witnesses of ancient encroachments of the sea, over a country covered with forests; it has overturned them, buried them in deposits of clay, and then after a time has withdrawn. "

In the appendix he briefly rehearses the laws of evolution as stated inhis opening lecture of his course given in the year IX. (1801), andwhich would be the subject of his projected work, _Biologie_, the thirdand last part of the Terrestrial Physics, a work which was notpublished, but which was probably comprised in his _Philosophiezoologique_. 

The _Hydrogéologie_ closes with a "_Mémoire sur la matière du feu_" andone "_sur la matière du son_, " both being reprinted from the _Journal dePhysique_. 

FOOTNOTES:

[60] _Evolution in Biology_, in _Darwiniana_, New York, 1896, p.  212. 

[61] _Principles of Geology_. 

[62] Lyell's _Principles of Geology_, 8th edit. , p.  22. 

[63] Quoted from Flourens' _Éloge Historique de Georges Cuvier_, Hoefer's edition. Paris, 1854. 

[64] _Remarques sur les Coquilles fossiles de quelques Cantons de laTouraine_. Mém. Acad. Sc. Paris, 1720, pp.  400-417. 

[65] _Éloge Historique de Werner_, p.  113. 

[66] _History of Civilization_, i. P.  627. 

[67] _France under Louis XV. _, p.  359. 

[68] _France under Louis XV. _, p.  360. 

[69] See vol.  iii. Of his _Mémoires sur differentes Parties des Scienceset des Arts_, pp.  209-403. Geikie does not give the date of the thirdvolume of his work, but it was apparently about 1771, as vol.  ii. Waspublished in 1770. I copy Geikie's account of Guettard's observationsoften in his own words. 

[70] Lyell's _Principles of Geology_. 

[71] Geikie states that the doctrine of the origin of valleys by theerosive action of the streams which flow through them, though it hasbeen credited to various writers, was first clearly taught from actualconcrete examples by Desmarest. _L.  c. _, p.  65. 

[72] Jameson's _Cuvier's Theory of the Earth_, New York, 1818. 

[73] J.  G. Lehmann of Berlin, in 1756, first formally stated that therewas some regular succession in the strata, his observations being basedon profiles of the Hartz and the Erzgebirge. He proposed the namesZechstein, Kupferschiefer, rothes Todtliegendes, which still linger inGerman treatises. G.  C. Fuchsel (1762) wrote on the stratigraphy of thecoal measures, the Permian and the later systems in Thuringia. (Zittel. )

[74] James Hutton was born at Edinburgh, June 3, 1726, where he diedMarch 26, 1797. 

[75] Quoted from Lyell's _Principles of Geology_, eighth edit. , p.  17. 

[76] _Bulletin Société Imp. Des Naturalistes De Moscou_, xlii. (1869), pt.  1. P.  4, quoted from Geikie's _Geology_, p.  276, footnote. 

[77] Suess also, in his _Anlitz_ etc. , substitutes for the folding ofthe earth's crust by tangential pressure the subsidence by gravity ofportions of the crust, their falling in obliging the sea to follow. Suess also explains the later transgressions of the sea by theprogressive accumulation of sediments which raise the level of the seaby their deposition at its bottom. Thus he believes that the true factorin the deformation of the globe is vertical descent, and not, as Neumayrhad previously thought, the folding of the crust. 

[78] Bruguière (1750-1799), a conchologist of great merit. Hisdescriptions of new species were clear and precise. In his paper on thecoal mines of the mountains of Cevennes (Choix de Mémoires d'Hist. Nat. , 1792) he made the first careful study of the coal formation in theCevennes, including its beds of coal, sandstone, and shale. A. DeJussieu had previously supposed that the immense deposits of coal weredue to sudden cataclysms or to one of the great revolutions of the earthduring which the seas of the East or West Indies, having been driven asfar as into Europe, had deposited on its soil all these exotic plants tobe found there, after having torn them up on their way. 

But Bruguière, who is to be reckoned among the early uniformitarians, says that "the capacity for observation is now too well-informed to becontented with such a theory, " and he explains the formation of coaldeposits in the following essentially modern way:

"The stores of coal, although formed of vegetable substances, owe theirorigin to the sea. It is when the places where we now find them werecovered by its waters that these prodigious masses of vegetablesubstances were gathered there, and this operation of nature, whichastonishes the imagination, far from depending on any extraordinarycommotion of the globe, seems, on the contrary, to be only the result oftime, of an order of things now existing, and especially that of slowchanges" (i, pp.  116, 117). 

The proofs he brings forward are the horizontality of the beds, both ofcoal and deposits between them, the marine shells in the sandstones, thefossil fishes intermingled with the plant remains in the shales;moreover, some of the coal deposits are covered by beds of limestonecontaining marine shells which lived in the sea at a very great depth. The alternation of these beds, the great mass of vegetable matter whichlived at small distances from the soil which conceals them, and theoccurrence of these beds so high up, show that at this time Europe wasalmost wholly covered by the sea, the summits of the Alps and thePyrenees being then, as he says, so many small islands in the midst ofthe ocean. He also intimates that the climate when these ferns ("bamboo"and "banana") lived was warmer than that of Europe at present. 

In this essay, then, we see a great advance in correctness of geologicalobservation and reasoning over any previous writers, while itssuggestions were appreciated and adopted by Lamarck. 

[79] Hooke had previously, in order to explain the presence of tropicalfossil shells in England, indulged in a variety of speculationsconcerning changes in the position of the axis of the earth's rotation, "a shifting of the earth's centre of gravity analogous to therevolutions of the magnetic pole, etc. " (Lyell's _Principles_). See alsop.  132. 

[80] Cuvier, in a footnote to his _Discours_ (sixth edition, p.  49), inreferring to this view, states that it originated with Rodig (_LaPhysique_, p.  106, Leipzig, 1801) and De Maillet (_Telliamed_, tome ii. , p.  169), "also an infinity of new German works. " He adds: "M. De Lamarckhas recently expanded this system in France at great length in his_Hydrogéologie_ and in his _Philosophie zoologique_. " Is the Rodigreferred to Ih. Chr. Rodig, author of _Beiträge zur Naturwissenschaft_(Leipzig, 1803. 8^o)? We have been unable to discover this view in DeMaillet; Cuvier's reference to p.  169 is certainly incorrect, as quite adifferent subject is there discussed. 

CHAPTER IX

LAMARCK THE FOUNDER OF INVERTEBRATE PALÆONTOLOGY

It was fortunate for palæontology that the two greatest zoölogists ofthe end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, Lamarck and Cuvier, lived in the Paris basin, a vast cemetery of corals, shells, and mammals; and not far from extensive deposits of cretaceousrocks packed with fossil invertebrates. With their then unrivalledknowledge of recent or existing forms, they could restore theassemblages of extinct animals which peopled the cretaceous ocean, andmore especially the tertiary seas and lakes. 

Lamarck drew his supplies of tertiary shells from the tertiary bedssituated within a radius of from twenty-five to thirty miles from thecentre of Paris, and chiefly from the village of Grignon, about tenmiles west of Paris, beyond Versailles, and still a rich collectingground for the students of the Museum and Sorbonne. He acknowledges theaid received from Defrance, [81] who had already collected at Grignonfive hundred species of fossil shells, three-fourths of which, he says, had not then been described. 

Lamarck's first essay ("_Sur les fossiles_") on fossils in general waspublished at the end of his _Système des Animaux sans Vertèbres_(pp.  401-411), in 1801, a year before the publication of the_Hydrogéologie_. "I give the name _fossils_, " he says, "to remains ofliving beings, changed by their long sojourn in the earth or underwater, but whose forms and structure are still recognizable. 

 "From this point of view, the bones of vertebrate animals and the remains of testaceous molluscs, of certain crustacea, of many echinoderms, coral polyps, when after having been for a long time buried in the earth or hidden under the sea, will have undergone an alteration which, while changing their substance, has nevertheless destroyed neither their forms, their figures, nor the special features of their structures. "

He goes on to say that the animal parts having been destroyed, the shellremains, being composed of calcareous matter. This shell, then, has lostits lustre, its colors, and often even its nacre, if it had any; and inthis altered condition it is usually entirely white. In some cases wherethe shells have remained for a long period buried in a mud of someparticular color, the shell receives the same color. 

 "In France, the fossil shells of Courtagnon near Reims, Grignon near Versailles, of what was formerly Touraine, etc. , are almost all still in this calcareous state, having more or less completely lost their animal parts--namely, their lustre, their peculiar colors, and their nacre. 

 "Other fossils have undergone such an alteration that not only have they lost their animal portion, but their substance has been changed into a silicious matter. I give to this second kind of fossil the name of _silicious fossils_, and examples of this kind are the different oysters ('des ostracites'), many terebratulæ ('des terebratulites'), trigoniæ, ammonites, echinites, encrinites, etc. 

 "The fossils of which I have just spoken are in part buried in the earth, and others lie scattered over its surface. They occur in all the exposed parts of our globe, in the middle even of the largest continents, and, what is very remarkable, they occur on mountains up to very considerable altitudes. In many places the fossils buried in the earth form banks extending several leagues in length. "[82]

Conchologists, he says, did not care to collect or study fossil shells, because they had lost their lustre, colors, and beauty, and they wererejected from collections on this account as "dead" and uninteresting. "But, " he adds, "since attention has been drawn to the fact that thesefossils are extremely valuable _monuments_ for the study of therevolutions which have taken place in different regions of the earth, and of the changes which the beings living there have themselvessuccessively undergone (in my lectures I have always insisted on theseconsiderations), consequently the search for and study of fossils haveexcited special interest, and are now the objects of the greatestinterest to naturalists. "

Lamarck then combats the views of several naturalists, undoubtedlyreferring to Cuvier, that the fossils are extinct species, and that theearth has passed through a general catastrophe (_un bouleversementuniversel_) with the result that a multitude of species of animals andplants were consequently absolutely lost or destroyed, and remarks inthe following telling and somewhat derisive language:

 "A universal catastrophe (_bouleversement_) which necessarily regulates nothing, mixes up and disperses everything, is a very convenient way to solve the problem for those naturalists who wish to explain everything, and who do not take the trouble to observe and investigate the course followed by nature as respects its production and everything which constitutes its domain. I have already elsewhere said what should be thought of this so-called universal overturning of the globe; I return to fossils. 

 "It is very true that, of the great quantity of fossil shells gathered in the different countries of the earth, there are yet but a very small number of species whose living or marine analogues are known. Nevertheless, although this number may be very small, which no one will deny, it is enough to suppress the universality announced in the proposition cited above. 

 "It is well to remark that among the fossil shells whose marine or living analogues are not known, there are many which have a form closely allied to shells of the same genera known to be now living in the sea. However, they differ more or less, and cannot be rigorously regarded as the same species as those known to be living, since they do not perfectly resemble them. These are, it is said, extinct species. 

 "I am convinced that it is possible never to find, among fresh or marine shells, any shells perfectly similar to the fossil shells of which I have just spoken. I believe I know the reason; I proceed to succinctly indicate, and I hope that it will then be seen, that although many fossil shells are different from all the marine shells known, this does not prove that the species of these shells are extinct, but only that these species have changed as the result of time, and that actually they have different forms from those individuals whose fossil remains we have found. "

Then he goes on in the same strain as in the opening discourse, sayingthat nothing terrestrial remains constant, that geological changes arecontinually occurring, and that these changes produce in livingorganisms a diversity of habits, a different mode of life, and as theresult modifications or developments in their organs and in the shape oftheir parts. 

 "We should still realize that all the modifications which the organism undergoes in its structure and form as the result of the influence of circumstances which would influence this being, are propagated by generation, and that after a long series of ages not only will it be able to form new species, new genera, and even new orders, but also each species will even necessarily vary in its organization and in its forms. 

 "We should not be more surprised then if, among the numerous fossils which occur in all the dry parts of the globe and which offer us the remains of so many animals which have formerly existed, there should be found so few of which we know the living analogues. If there is in this, on the contrary, anything which should astonish us, it is to find that among these numerous fossil remains of beings which have lived there should be known to us some whose analogues still exist, from a germ to a vast multitude of living forms, of different and ascending grades of perfection, ending in man. 

 "This fact, as our collection of fossils proves, should lead us to suppose that the fossil remains of the animals whose living analogues we know are the less ancient fossils. The species to which each of them belongs had doubtless not yet time to vary in any of its forms. 

 "We should, then, never expect to find among the living species the totality of those that we meet with in the fossil state, and yet we cannot conclude that any species can really be lost or extinct. It is undoubtedly possible that among the largest animals some species have been destroyed as a result of the multiplication of man in the regions where they live. But this conjecture cannot be based on the consideration of fossils alone; we can only form an opinion in this respect when all the inhabited parts of the globe will have become perfectly known. "

Lamarck did not have, as we now have, a knowledge of the geologicalsuccession of organic forms. The comparatively full and detailed viewwhich we possess of the different vast assemblages of plant and animallife which have successively peopled the surface of our earth is avision on which his eyes never rested. His slight, piecemeal glimpse ofthe animal life of the Paris Basin, and of the few other extinct formsthen known, was all he had to depend upon or reason from. He was notdisposed to believe that the thread of life once begun in the earliesttimes could be arbitrarily broken by catastrophic means; that there wasno relation whatever between the earlier and later faunas. He utterlyopposed Cuvier's view that species once formed could ever be lost orbecome extinct without ancestors or descendants. He on the contrarybelieved that species underwent a slow modification, and that the fossilforms are the ancestors of the animals now living. Moreover, Lamarck wasthe inventor of the first genealogical tree; his phylogeny, in thesecond volume of his _Philosophie zoologique_ (p.  463), proves that herealized that the forms leading up to the existing ones were practicallyextinct, as we now use the word. Lamarck in theory was throughout, asHoussay well says, at one with us who are now living, but a centurybehind us in knowledge of the facts needed to support his theory. 

In this first published expression of his views on palæontology, we findthe following truths enumerated on which the science is based: (1) Thegreat length of geological time; (2) The continuous existence of animallife all through the different geological periods without sudden totalextinctions and as sudden recreations of new assemblages; (3) Thephysical environment remaining practically the same throughout ingeneral, but with (4) continual gradual but not catastrophic changes inthe relative distribution of land and sea and other modifications in thephysical geography, changes which (5) caused corresponding changes inthe habitat, and (6) consequently in the habits of the living beings; sothat there has been all through geological history a slow modificationof life-forms. 

Thus Lamarck's idea of creation is _evolutional_ rather than_uniformitarian_. There was, from his point of view, not simply auniform march along a dead level, but a progression, a change from thelower or generalized to the higher or specialized--an evolution orunfolding of organic life. In his effort to disprove catastrophism hefailed to clearly see that species, as we style them, became extinct, though really the changes in the species practically amounted toextinctions of the earlier species as such. The little that was knownto Lamarck at the time he wrote, prevented his knowing that speciesbecame extinct, as we say, or recognizing the fact that while somespecies, genera, and even orders may rise, culminate, and die, othersare modified, while a few persist from one period to another. He did, however, see clearly that, taking plant and animal life as a whole, itunderwent a slow modification, the later forms being the descendants ofthe earlier; and this truth is the central one of modern palæontology. 

Lamarck's first memoir on fossil shells, in which he described many newspecies, was published in 1802, after the appearance of his_Hydrogéologie_, to which he refers. It was the first of a series ofdescriptive papers, which appeared at intervals from 1802 to 1806. Hedoes not fail to open the series of memoirs with some general remarks, which prove his broad, philosophic spirit, that characterizing thefounder of a new science. He begins by saying that the fossil forms havetheir analogues in the tropical seas. He claims that there was evidentproof that these molluscs could not have lived in a climate like that ofplaces in which they now occur, instancing _Nautilius pompilius_, whichnow lives in the seas of warm countries; also the presence of exoticferns, palms, fossil amber, fossil gum elastic, besides the occurrenceof fossil crocodiles and elephants both in France and Germany. [83]

Hence there have been changes of climate since these forms flourished, and, he adds, the intervals between these changes of climate werestationary periods, whose duration was practically without limit. Heassigns a duration to these stationary or intermediate periods of fromthree to five million years each--"a duration infinitely small relativeto those required for all the changes of the earth's surface. "

He refers in an appreciative way to the first special treatise on fossilshells ever published, that of an Englishman named Brander, [84] whocollected the shells "out of the cliffs by the sea-coast between ChristChurch and Lymington, but more especially about the cliffs by thevillage of Hordwell, " where the strata are filled with these fossils. Lamarck, working upon collections of tertiary shells from Grignon andalso from Courtagnon near Reims, with the aid of Brander's work showedthat these beds, not known to be Eocene, extended into Hampshire, England; thus being the first to correlate by their fossils, though in alimited way to be sure, the tertiary beds of France with those ofEngland. 

How he at a later period (1805) regarded fossils and their relations togeology may be seen in his later memoirs, _Sur les Fossiles des environsde Paris_. [85]

 "The determination of the characters, both generic and specific, of animals of which we find the fossil remains in almost all the dry parts of the continents and large islands of our globe will be, from several points of view, a thing extremely useful to the progress of natural history. At the outset, the more this determination is advanced, the more will it tend to complete our knowledge in regard to the species which exist in nature and of those which have existed, as it is true that some of them have been lost, as we have reason to believe, at least as concerns the large animals. Moreover, this same determination will be singularly advantageous for the advancement of geology; for the fossil remains in question may be considered, from their nature, their condition, and their situation, as authentic monuments of the revolutions which the surface of our globe has undergone, and they can throw a strong light on the nature and character of these revolutions. "

This series of papers on the fossils of the Paris tertiary basinextended through the first eight volumes of the _Annales_, and weregathered into a volume published in 1806. In his descriptions his workwas comparative, the fossil species being compared with their livingrepresentatives. The thirty plates, containing 483 figures representing184 species (exclusive of those figured by Brard), were afterwardspublished, with the explanations, but not the descriptions, as aseparate volume in 1823. [86] This (the text published in 1806) is thefirst truly scientific palæontological work ever published, precedingCuvier's _Ossemens fossiles_ by six years. 

When we consider Lamarck's--at his time unrivalled--knowledge ofmolluscs, his philosophical treatment of the relations of the study offossils to geology, his correlation of the tertiary beds of England withthose of France, and his comparative descriptions of the fossil formsrepresented by the existing shells, it seems not unreasonable to regardhim as the founder of invertebrate palæontology, as Cuvier was ofvertebrate or mammalian palæontology. 

We have entered the claim that Lamarck was one of the chief founders ofpalæontology, and the first French author of a genuine, detailedpalæontological treatise. It must be admitted, therefore, that thestatement generally made that Cuvier was the founder of this scienceshould be somewhat modified, though he may be regarded as the chieffounder of vertebrate palæontology. 

In this field, however, Cuvier had his precursors not only in Germanyand Holland, but also in France. 

Our information as to the history of the rise of vertebrate palæontologyis taken from Blainville's posthumous work entitled _Cuvier et GeoffroySaint-Hilaire_. [87] In this work, a severe critical and perhaps notalways sufficiently appreciative account of Cuvier's character and work, we find an excellent history of the first beginnings of vertebratepalæontology. Blainville has little or nothing to say of the first stepsin invertebrate palæontology, and, singularly enough, not a word ofLamarck's principles and of his papers and works on fossil shells--arather strange oversight, because he was a friend and admirer ofLamarck, and succeeded him in one of the two departments ofinvertebrates created at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle after Lamarck'sdeath. 

Blainville, who by the way was the first to propose the word_palæontology_, shows that the study of the great extinct mammals hadfor forty years been held in great esteem in Germany, before Faujas andCuvier took up the subject in France. Two Frenchmen, also before 1789, had examined mammalian bones. Thus Bernard de Jussieu knew of theexistence in a fossil state of the teeth of the hippopotamus. Guettard[88] published in 1760 a memoir on the fossil bones of Aix enProvence. Lamanon (1780-1783)[89] in a beautiful memoir described ahead, almost entire, found in the gypsum beds of Paris. Daubenton hadalso slightly anticipated Cuvier's law of correlation, giving "a veryremarkable example of the mode of procedure to follow in order to solvethese kinds of questions by the way in which he had recognized a bone ofa giraffe whose skeleton he did not possess" (De Blainville). 

 "But it was especially in Germany, in the hands of Pallas, Camper, Blumenbach, anatomists and physicians, also those of Walch, Merck, Hollmann, Esper, Rosenmüller, and Collini (who was not, however, occupied with natural history), of Beckman, who had even discussed the subject in a general way (_De reductione rerum fossilium ad genera naturalia prototyporum--Nov. Comm. Soc. Scient. Goettingensis_, t.  ii. ), that palæontology applied to quadrupeds had already settled all that pertained to the largest species. "

As early as 1764, Hollmann[90] had admirably identified the bones of arhinoceros found in a bone-deposit of the Hartz, although he had noskeleton of this animal for comparison. 

Pallas, in a series of memoirs dating from 1773, had discovered anddistinguished the species of Siberian elephant or mammoth, therhinoceros, and the large species of oxen and buffalo whose bones werefound in such abundance in the quaternary deposits of Siberia; and, asBlainville says, if he did not distinguish the species, it was becauseat this epoch the question of the distinction of the two species ofrhinoceros and of elephants, in the absence of material, could not besolved. This solution, however, was made by the Dutch anatomist Camper, in 1777, who had brought together at Amsterdam a collection of skeletonsand skulls of the existing species which enabled him for the first timeto make the necessary comparisons between the extinct and livingspecies. A few years later (1780) Blumenbach confirmed Camper'sidentification, and gave the name of _Elephas primigenius_ to theSiberian mammoth. 

 "Beckman" [says Blainville] "as early as 1772 had even published a very good memoir on the way in which we should consider fossil organic bodies; he was also the first to propose using the name _fossilia_ instead of _petrefacta_, and to name the science which studies fossils _Oryctology_. It was also he who admitted that these bodies should be studied with reference to the class, order, genus, species, as we would do with a living being, and he compared them, which he called _prototypes_, [91] with their analogues. He then passes in review, following the zoölogical order, the fossils which had been discovered by naturalists. He even described one of them as a new species, besides citing, with an erudition then rare, all the authors and all the works where they were described. He did no more than to indicate but not name each species. Thus he was the means of soon producing a number of German authors who made little advance from lack of anatomical knowledge; but afterwards the task fell into the hands of men capable of giving to the newly created palæontology a remarkable impulse, and one which since then has not abated. "

Blumenbach, [92] the most eminent and all-round German anatomist andphysiologist of his time, one of the founders of anthropology as well asof palæontology, had meanwhile established the fact that there were twospecies of fossil cave-bear, which he named _Ursus spelæus_ and _U. Arctoideus_. He began to publish his _Archæologia telluris_, [93] thefirst part of which appeared in 1803. 

From Blainville's useful summary we learn that Blumenbach, mainlylimiting his work to the fossils of Hanover, aimed at studying fossilsin order to explain the revolutions of the earth. 

 "Hence the order he proposed to follow was not that commonly followed in treatises on oryctology, namely, systematic, following the classes and the orders of the animal and vegetable kingdom, but in a chronological order, in such a way as to show that the classes, so far as it was possible to conjecture with any probability, were established after or in consequence of the different revolutions of the earth. 

 "Thus, as we see, all the great questions, more or less insoluble, which the study of fossil organic bodies can offer, were raised and even discussed by the celebrated professor of Göttingen as early as 1803, before anything of the sort could have arisen from the essays of M.  G. Cuvier; the errors of distribution in the classes committed by Blumenbach were due to the backward state of geology. "

The political troubles of Germany, which also bore heavily upon theUniversity of Göttingen, probably brought Blumenbach's labors to an end, for after a second "specimen" of his work, of less importance than thefirst, the _Archæologia telluris_ was discontinued. 

The French geologist Faujas, [94] who also published several articles onfossil animals, ceased his labors, and now Cuvier began his memorablework. 

The field of the labors and triumphs of palæontology were nowtransferred to France. We have seen that the year 1793, when Lamarck andGeoffroy Saint-Hilaire were appointed to fill the new zoölogical chairs, and the latter had in 1795 called Cuvier from Normandy to Paris, was atime of renascence of the natural sciences in France. Cuvier began acourse of lectures on comparative anatomy at the Museum of NaturalHistory. He was more familiar than any one else in France with theprogress in natural science in Germany, and had felt the stimulusarising from this source; besides, as Blainville stated, he was alsoimpelled by the questions boldly raised by Faujas in his geologicallectures, who was somewhat of the school of Buffon. Cuvier, moreover, had at his disposition the collection of skeletons of the Museum, whichwas frequently increased by those of the animals which died in themenagerie. With his knowledge of comparative anatomy, of which, afterVicq-d'Azyr, he was the chief founder, and with the gypsum quarry ofMontmartre, that rich cemetery of tertiary mammals, to draw from, he hadthe whole field before him, and rapidly built up his own vastreputation and thus added to the glory of France. 

His first contribution to palæontology[95] appeared in 1798, in which heannounced his intention of publishing an extended work on fossil bonesof quadrupeds, to restore the skeletons and to compare them with thosenow living, and to determine their relations and differences; but, saysBlainville, in the list of thirty or forty species which he enumeratesin his tableau, none was apparently discovered by him, unless it was thespecies of "dog" of Montmartre, which he afterward referred to his newgenera Palæotherium and Anaplotherium. In 1801 (le 26 brumaire, an IX. )he published, by order of the Institut, the programme of a work onfossil quadrupeds, with an increased number of species; but, asBlainville states, "It was not until 1804, and in tome iii. Of the_Annales du Muséum_, namely, more than three years after his programme, that he began his publications by fragments and without any order, whilethese publications lasted more than eight years before they werecollected into a general work"; this "_corps d'ouvrage_" being the_Ossemens fossiles_, which was issued in 1812 in four quarto volumes, with an atlas of plates. 

It is with much interest, then, that we turn to Cuvier's great work, which brought him such immediate and widespread fame, in order to seehow he treated his subject. His general views are contained in thepreliminary remarks in his well-known "Essay on the Theory of the Earth"(1812), which was followed in 1821 by his _Discours sur les Révolutionsde la Surface du Globe_. 

It was written in a more attractive and vigorous style than the writingsof Lamarck, more elegant, concise, and with less repetition, but it isdestitute of the philosophic grasp, and is not the work of a profoundthinker, but rather of a man of talent who was an industrious collectorand accurate describer of fossil bones, of a high order to be sure, butanalytical rather than synthetical, of one knowing well the value ofcarefully ascertained and demonstrated facts, but too cautious, if hewas by nature able to do so, to speculate on what may have seemed to himtoo few facts. It is also the work of one who fell in with the currentviews of the time as to the general bearing of his discoveries onphilosophy and theology, believing as he did in the universality of theNoachian deluge. 

Like Lamarck, Cuvier independently made use of the comparative method, the foundation method in palæontology; and Cuvier's well-known "law ofcorrelation of structures, " so well exemplified in the vertebrates, wasa fresh, new contribution to philosophical biology. 

In his _Discours_, speaking of the difficulty of determining the bonesof fossil quadrupeds, as compared with fossil shells or the remains offishes, he remarks:[96]

 "Happily comparative anatomy possessed a principle which, well developed, was capable of overcoming every difficulty; it was that of the correlation of forms in organic beings, by means of which each kind of organism can with exactitude be recognized by every fragment of each of its parts. --Every organized being, " he adds, "forms an entire system, unique and closed, whose organs mutually correspond, and concur in the same definite action by a reciprocal reaction. Hence none of these parts can change without the other being also modified, and consequently each of them, taken separately, indicates and produces (_donne_) all the others. 

 "A claw, a shoulder-blade, a condyle, a leg or arm-bone, or any other bone separately considered, enables us to discover the kind of teeth to which they have belonged; so also reciprocally we may determine the form of the other bones from the teeth. Thus, commencing our investigation by a careful survey of any one bone by itself, a person who is sufficiently master of the laws of organic structure can reconstruct the entire animal. The smallest facet of bone, the smallest apophysis, has a determinate character, relative to the class, the order, the genus, and the species to which it belongs, so that even when one has only the extremity of a well-preserved bone, he can, with careful examination, assisted by analogy and exact comparison, determine all these things as surely as if he had before him the entire animal. "

Cuvier adds that he has enjoyed every kind of advantage for suchinvestigations owing to his fortunate situation in the Museum of NaturalHistory, and that by assiduous researches for nearly thirty years[97]he has collected skeletons of all the genera and sub-genera ofquadrupeds, with those of many species in certain genera, and severalindividuals of certain species. With such means it was easy for him tomultiply his comparisons, and to verify in all their details theapplications of his laws. 

Such is the famous law of correlation of parts, of Cuvier. It could beeasily understood by the layman, and its enunciation added vastly to thepopular reputation and prestige of the young science of comparativeanatomy. [98] In his time, and applied to the forms occurring in theParis Basin, it was a most valuable, ingenious, and yet obvious method, and even now is the principal rule the palæontologist follows inidentifying fragments of fossils of any class. But it has itslimitations, and it goes without saying that the more complete thefossil skeleton of a vertebrate, or the remains of an arthropod, themore complete will be our conception of the form of the extinctorganism. It may be misleading in the numerous cases of convergence andof generalized forms which now abound in our palæontologicalcollections. We can well understand how guarded one must be in workingout the restorations of dinosaurs and fossil birds, of the Permian andTriassic theromorphs, and the Tertiary creodonts as compared withexisting carnivora. 

As the late O.  C. Marsh[99] observed:

 "We know to-day that unknown extinct animals cannot be restored from a single tooth or claw unless they are very similar to forms already known. Had Cuvier himself applied his methods to many forms from the early tertiary or older formations he would have failed. If, for instance, he had had before him the disconnected fragments of an eocene tillodont he would undoubtedly have referred a molar tooth to one of his pachyderms, an incisor tooth to a rodent, and a claw bone to a carnivore. The tooth of a Hesperornis would have given him no possible hint of the rest of the skeleton, nor its swimming feet the slightest clue to the ostrich-like sternum or skull. And yet the earnest belief in his own methods led Cuvier to some of his most important discoveries. "

Let us now examine from Cuvier's own words in his _Discours_, notrelying on the statements of his expositors or followers, just what hetaught notwithstanding the clear utterances of his older colleague, Lamarck, whose views he set aside and either ignored or ridiculed. [100]

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He at the outset affirms that nature has, like mankind, also had herintestine wars, and that "the surface of the globe has been muchconvulsed by successive revolutions and various catastrophes. "

As first proof of the revolutions on the surface of the earth heinstances fossil shells, which in the lowest and most level parts of theearth are "almost everywhere in such a perfect state of preservationthat even the smallest of them retain their most delicate parts, theirsharpest ridges, and their finest and tenderest processes. "

 "We are therefore forcibly led to believe not only that the sea has at one period or another covered all our plains, but that it must have remained there for a long time and in a state of tranquillity, which circumstance was necessary for the formation of deposits so extensive, so thick, in part so solid, and filled with the exuviæ of aquatic animals. "

But the traces of revolutions become still more marked when we ascend alittle higher and approach nearer to the foot of the great mountainchains. Hence the strata are variously inclined, and at times vertical, contain shells differing specifically from those of beds on the plainsbelow, and are covered by horizontal later beds. Thus the sea, previousto the formation of the horizontal strata, had formed others, which bysome means have been broken, lifted up, and overturned in a thousandways. There had therefore been also at least one change in the basin ofthat sea which preceded ours; it had also experienced at least onerevolution. 

He then gives proofs that such revolutions have been numerous. 

 "Thus the great catastrophes which have produced revolutions in the basins of the sea were preceded, accompanied, and followed by changes in the nature of the fluid and of the substances which it held in solution, and when the surface of the seas came to be divided by islands and projecting ridges, different changes took place in every separate basin. "

We now come to the Cuvierian doctrine _par excellence_, one in which heradically differs from Lamarck's views as to the genetic relationsbetween the organisms of successive strata. 

 "Amid these changes of the general fluid it must have been almost impossible for the same kind of animals to continue to live, nor did they do so in fact. Their species, and even their genera, change with the strata, and although the same species occasionally recur at small distances, it is generally the case that the shells of the ancient strata have forms peculiar to themselves; that they gradually disappear till they are not to be seen at all in the recent strata, still less in the existing seas, in which, indeed, we never discover their corresponding species, and where several even of their genera are not to be found; that, on the contrary, the shells of the recent strata resemble, as regards the genus, those which still exist in the sea, and that in the last formed and loosest of these strata there are some species which the eye of the most expert naturalists cannot distinguish from those which at present inhabit the ocean. 

 "In animal nature, therefore, there has been a succession of changes corresponding to those which have taken place in the chemical nature of the fluid; and when the sea last receded from our continent its inhabitants were not very different from those which it still continues to support. "

He then refers to successive irruptions and retreats of the sea, "thefinal result of which, however, has been a universal depression of thelevel of the sea. "

 "These repeated irruptions and retreats of the sea have neither been slow nor gradual; most of the catastrophes which have occasioned them have been sudden. "

He then adds his proofs of the occurrence of revolutions before theexistence of living beings. Like Lamarck, Cuvier was a Wernerian, and inspeaking of the older or primitive crystalline rocks which contain novestige of fossils, he accepted the view of the German theorist ingeology, that granites forming the axis of mountain chains were formedin a fluid. 

We must give Cuvier the credit of fully appreciating the value offossils as being what he calls "historical documents, " also forappreciating the fact that there were a number of revolutions markingeither the incoming or end of a geological period; but as he failed toperceive the unity of organization in organic beings, and their geneticrelationship, as had been indicated by Lamarck and by GeoffroySt.  Hilaire, so in geological history he did not grasp, as did Lamarck, the vast extent of geological time, and the general uninterruptedcontinuity of geological events. He was analytic, thoroughly believingin the importance of confining himself to the discovery of facts, and, considering the multitude of fantastic hypotheses and suggestions ofprevious writers of the eighteenth century, this was sound, sensible, and thoroughly scientific. But unfortunately he did not stop here. Master of facts concerning the fossil mammals of the Paris Basin, healso--usually cautious and always a shrewd man of the world--fell intothe error of writing his "theory of the world, " and of going to theextreme length of imagining universal catastrophes where there are butlocal ones, a universal Noachian deluge when there was none, and ofassuming that there were at successive periods thoroughgoing total andsudden extinctions of life, and as sudden recreations. Cuvier was anatural leader of men, a ready debater, and a clear, forcible writer, aman of great executive force, but lacking in insight and imagination; hedominated scientific Paris and France, he was the law-giver and autocratof the laboratories of Paris, and the views of quiet, thoughtful, profound scholars such as Lamarck and Geoffroy St.  Hilaire weredisdainfully pushed aside, overborne, and the progress of geologicalthought was arrested, while, owing to his great prestige, the risingviews of the Lamarckian school were nipped in the bud. Every one, afterthe appearance of Cuvier's great work on fossil mammals and of his_Règne Animal_, was a Cuvierian, and down to the time of Lyell and ofCharles Darwin all naturalists, with only here and there an exception, were pronounced Cuvierians in biology and geology--catastrophists ratherthan uniformitarians. We now, with the increase of knowledge of physicaland historical geology, of the succession of life on the earth, of theunity of organization pervading that life from monad to man all throughthe ages from the Precambrian to the present age, know that there werevast periods of preparation followed by crises, perhaps geologicallybrief, when there were widespread changes in physical geography, whichreacted on the life-forms, rendering certain ones extinct, and modifyingothers; but this conception is entirely distinct from the views ofCuvier and his school, [101] which may, in the light of our presentknowledge, properly be deemed not only totally inadequate, but childishand fantastic. 

Cuvier cites the view of Dolomieu, the well-known geologist andmineralogist (1770-1801), only, however, to reject it, who went to theextent of supposing that "tides of seven or eight hundred fathoms havecarried off from time to time the bottom of the ocean, throwing it up inmountains and hills on the primitive valleys and plains of thecontinents" (Dolomieu in _Journal de Physique_). 

Cuvier met with objections to his extreme views. In his discourse hethus endeavors to answer "the following objection" which "has alreadybeen stated against my conclusions":

 "Why may not the non-existing races of mammiferous land quadrupeds be mere modifications or varieties of those ancient races which we now find in the fossil state, which modifications may have been produced by change of climate and other local circumstances, and since raised to the present excessive differences by the operation of similar causes during a long succession of ages?

 "This objection may appear strong to those who believe in the indefinite possibility of change of forms in organized bodies, and think that during a succession of ages, and by alternations of habits, all the species may change into each other, or one of them give birth to all the rest. Yet to these persons the following answer may be given from their own system: If the species have changed by degrees, as they assume, we ought to find traces of this gradual modification. Thus, between the Palæotherium and the species of our own days, we should be able to discover some intermediate forms; and yet no such discovery has ever been made. Since the bowels of the earth have not preserved monuments of this strange genealogy, we have a right to conclude that the ancient and now extinct species were as permanent in their forms and characters as those which exist at present; or, at least, that the catastrophe which destroyed them did not have sufficient time for the production of the changes that are alleged to have taken place. "

Cuvier thus emphatically rejects all idea that any of the tertiarymammals could have been the ancestral forms of those now existing. 

 "From all these well-established facts, there does not seem to be the smallest foundation for supposing that the new genera which I have discovered or established among extraneous fossils, such as the _palæotherium_, _anaplotherium_, _megalonynx_, _mastodon_, _pterodactylis_, etc. , have ever been the sources of any of our present animals, which only differ as far as they are influenced by time or climate. Even if it should prove true, which I am far from believing to be the case, that the fossil elephants, rhinoceroses, elks, and bears do not differ further from the present existing species of the same genera than the present races of dogs differ among themselves, this would by no means be a sufficient reason to conclude that they were of the same species; since the races or varieties of dogs have been influenced by the trammels of domestication, which these other animals never did and indeed never could experience. "[102]

The extreme views of Cuvier as to the frequent renewal and extinction oflife were afterward (in 1850) carried out to an exaggerated extent byD'Orbigny, who maintained that the life of the earth must have becomeextinct and again renewed twenty-seven times. Similar views were held byAgassiz, who, however, maintained the geological succession of animalsand the parallelism between their embryonic development and geologicalsuccession, the two foundation stones of the biogenetic law of Haeckel. But immediately after the publication of Cuvier's _Ossemens fossiles_, as early as 1813, Von Schlotheim, the founder of vegetable palæontology, refused to admit that each set of beds was the result of such athoroughgoing revolution. [103]

At a later date Bronn "demonstrated that certain species indeed reallypassed from one formation to another, and though stratigraphicboundaries are often barriers confining the persistence of some form, still this is not an absolute rule, since the species in nowise appearin their entirety. "[104] At present the persistence of genera likeSaccamina, Lingula, Ceratodus, etc. , from one age to another, or eventhrough two or more geological ages, is well known, while _Atrypareticulatus_, a species of world-wide distribution, lived from near thebeginning of the Upper Silurian to the Waverly or beginning of theCarboniferous age. 

Such were the views of the distinguished founder of vertebratepalæontology. When we compare the _Hydrogéologie_ of Lamarck withCuvier's _Discours_, we see, though some erroneous views, some veryfantastic conceptions are held, in common with others of his time, inregard to changes of level of the land and the origin of the crystallinerocks, that it did contain the principles upon which modern palæontologyis founded, while those of Cuvier are now in the limbo--so denselypopulated--of exploded, ill-founded theories. 

Our claim that Lamarck should share with Cuvier the honor of being afounder of palæontology[105] is substantiated by the philosophic Lyell, who as early as 1836, in his _Principles of Geology_, expresses the sameview in the following words: "The labors of Cuvier in comparativeosteology, and of Lamarck in recent and fossil shells, had raised thesedepartments of study to a rank of which they had never previously beendeemed susceptible. "

Our distinguished American palæontologist, the late O.  C. Marsh, takesthe same view, and draws the following parallel between the two greatFrench naturalists:

 "In looking back from this point of view, the philosophical breadth of Lamarck's conclusions, in comparison with those of Cuvier, is clearly evident. The invertebrates on which Lamarck worked offered less striking evidence of change than the various animals investigated by Cuvier; yet they led Lamarck directly to evolution, while Cuvier ignored what was before him on this point, and rejected the proof offered by others. Both pursued the same methods, and had an abundance of material on which to work, yet the facts observed induced Cuvier to believe in catastrophes, and Lamarck in the uniform course of nature. Cuvier declared species to be permanent; Lamarck, that they were descended from others. Both men stand in the first rank in science; but Lamarck was the prophetic genius, half a century in advance of his time. "[106]

FOOTNOTES:

[81] Although Defrance (born 1759, died in 1850) aided Lamarck incollecting tertiary shells, his earliest palæontological paper (onHipponyx) did not appear until the year 1819. 

[82] In a footnote Lamarck refers to an unpublished work, which probablyformed a part of the _Hydrogéologie_, published in the following year. "_Voyez à ce sujet mon ouvrage intitulé: De l'influence du mouvement deseaus sur la surface du globe terrestre, et des indices du déplacementcontinuel du bassin des mers, ainsi que de son transport successif surles différens points de la surface du globe_" (no date). 

[83] It should be stated that the first observer to inaugurate thecomparative method was that remarkable forerunner of modernpalæontologists, Steno the Dane, who was for a while a professor atPadua. In 1669, in his treatise entitled _De Solido intra Solidumnaturaliter contento_, which Lyell translates "On gems, crystals, andorganic petrefactions inclosed within solid rocks, " he showed, bydissecting a shark from the Mediterranean, that certain fossil teethfound in Tuscany were also those of some shark. "He had also comparedthe shells discovered in the Italian strata with living species, pointedout their resemblance, and traced the various gradations from shellsmerely calcined, or which had only lost their animal gluten, to thosepetrefactions in which there was a perfect substitution of stony matter"(Lyell's _Principles_, p.  25). About twenty years afterwards, theEnglish philosopher Robert Hooke, in a discourse on earthquakes, writtenin 1688, but published posthumously in 1705, was aware that the fossilammonites, nautili, and many other shells and fossil skeletons found inEngland, were of different species from any then known; but he doubtedwhether the species had become extinct, observing that the knowledge ofnaturalists of all the marine species, especially those inhabiting thedeep sea, was very deficient. In some parts of his writings, however, heleans to the opinion that species had been lost. Some species, heobserves with great sagacity, "are _peculiar to certain places_, and notto be found elsewhere. " Turtles and such large ammonites as are found inPortland seem to have been the productions of hotter countries, and hethought that England once lay under the sea within the torrid zone(Lyell's _Principles_). 

Gesner the botanist, of Zurich, also published in 1758 an excellenttreatise on petrefactions and the changes of the earth which theytestify. He observed that some fossils, "such as ammonites, gryphites, belemnites, and other shells, are either of unknown species or foundonly in the Indian and other distant seas" (Lyell's _Principles_). 

Geikie estimates very highly Guettard's labors in palæontology, sayingthat "his descriptions and excellent drawings entitle him to rank as thefirst great leader of the palæontological school of France. " Hepublished many long and elaborate memoirs containing brief descriptions, but without specific names, and figured some hundreds of fossil shells. He was the first to recognize trilobites (Illænus) in the Silurianslates of Angers, in a memoir published in 1762. Some of his genericnames, says Geikie, "have passed into the languages of modernpalæontology, " and one of the genera of chalk sponges which hedescribed has been named after him, _Guettardia_. In his memoir "On theaccidents that have befallen fossil shells compared with those which arefound to happen to shells now living in the sea" (Trans. Acad. Roy. Sciences, 1765, pp.  189, 329, 399) he shows that the beds of fossilshells on the land present the closest possible analogy to the flow ofthe present sea, so that it becomes impossible to doubt that theaccidents, such as broken and worn shells, which have affected thefossil organisms, arose from precisely the same causes as those ofexactly the same nature that still befall their successors on theexisting ocean bottom. On the other hand, Geikie observes that it mustbe acknowledged "that Guettard does not seem to have had any clear ideasof the sequence of formations and of geological structures. "

[84] Scheuchzer's "Complaint and Vindication of the Fishes" (_PisciumQuerelae et Vindiciae_, Germany, 1708), "a work of zoölogical merit, inwhich he gave some good plates and descriptions of fossil fish" (Lyell). Gesner's treatise on petrefactions preceded Lamarck's work in thisdirection, as did Brander's _Fossillia Hantoniensia_, published in 1766, which contained "excellent figures of fossil shells from the more modern(or Eocene) marine strata of Hampshire. In his opinion fossil animalsand testacea were, for the most part, of unknown species, and of such aswere known the living analogues now belonged to southern latitudes"(Lyell's _Principles_, eighth edition, p.  46). 

[85] _Annales du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle_, vi. , 1805, pp.  222-228. 

[86] _Recueil de Planches des Coquilles fossiles des environs de Paris_(Paris, 1823). There are added two plates of fossil fresh-water shells(twenty-one species of Limnæa, etc. ) by Brard, with sixty-two figures. 

[87] _Cuvier et Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. Biographies scientifiques_, parDucrotay de Blainville (Paris, 1890, p.  446). 

[88] "Mémoire sur des os fossiles découverts auprès de la ville d'Aix enProvence" (Mém. Acad. Sc. , Paris, 1760, pp.  209-220). 

[89] "Sur un os d'une grosseur énorme qu'on a trouvé dans une couche deglaise au milieu de Paris; et en général sur les ossemens fossiles quiont appartenu à de grands animaux" (_Journal de Physique_, tome xvii. , 1781. Pp.  393-405). Lamanon also, in 1780, published in the same_Journal_ an article on the nature and position of the bones found atAix en Provence; and in 1783 another article on the fossil bonesbelonging to gigantic animals. 

[90] Hollmann had still earlier published a paper entitled _De corporummarinorum, aliorumque peregrinorum in terra continente origine_(_Commentarii Soc. Goettingen. _, tom.  iii. , 1753, pp.  285-374). 

[91] _Novi Commentarii Soc. Sc. Goettingensis_, tom.  ii. , _Commentat. _, tom.  i. 

[92] His first palæontological article appears to have been one entitled_Beiträge zur Naturgeschichte der Vorwelt_ (Lichtenberg, _Voigt'sMagaz. _, Bd.  vi. , S.  4, 1790, pp.  1-17). I have been unable to ascertainin which of his publications he describes and names the cave-bear. 

[93] _Specimen archæologia telluris terrarumque imprimis Hannoveranæ_, pts.  i. , ii. _Cum 4 tabl. Aen. 4 maj. _ Gottingæ, 1803. 

[94] Faujas Saint-Fond wrote articles on fossil bones (1794); on fossilplants both of France (1803) and of Monte Bolca (1820); on a fish fromNanterre (1802) and a fossil turtle (1803); on two species of fossil ox, whose skulls were found in Germany, France, and England (1803), and onan elephant's tusk found in the volcanic tufa of Darbres (1803); on thefossil shells of Mayence (1806); and on a new genus (_Clotho_) ofbivalve shells. 

[95] _Sur les ossemens qui se trouvent dans le gyps de Montmartre_(_Bulletin des sciences pour la Société philomatique_, tomes 1, 2, 1798, pp.  154-155). 

[96] The following account is translated from the fourth edition of the_Ossemens fossiles_, vol.  1. , 1834, also the sixth edition of the_Discours_, separately published in 1830. It does not differ materiallyfrom the first edition of the _Essay on the Theory of the Earth_, translated by Jameson, and republished in New York, with additions bySamuel L. Mitchell, in 1818. 

[97] In the first edition of the _Théorie_ he says fifteen years, writing in 1812. In the later edition he changed the number of years tothirty. 

[98] De Blainville is inclined to make light of Cuvier's law and of hisassumptions; and in his somewhat cynical, depreciatory way, says:

"Thus for the thirty years during which appeared the works of M.  G. Cuvier on fossil bones, under the most favorable circumstances, in akind of renascence of the science of organization of animals, thenalmost effaced in France, aided by the richest osteological collectionswhich then existed in Europe, M.  G. Cuvier passed an active and acomparatively long life, in a region abounding in fossil bones, withouthaving established any other principle in osteology than a witticismwhich he had been unable for a moment to take seriously himself, becausehe had not yet investigated or sufficiently studied the science oforganization, which I even doubt, to speak frankly, if he ever did. Otherwise, he would himself soon have perceived the falsity of hisassertion that a single facet of a bone was sufficient to reconstruct askeleton from the observation that everything is harmoniously correlatedin an animal. It is a great thing if the memory, aided by a strongimagination, can thus pass from a bone to the entire skeleton, even inan animal well known and studied even to satiety; but for an unknownanimal, there is no one except a man but slightly acquainted with theanatomy of animals who could pretend to do it. It is not true anatomistslike Hunter, Camper, Pallas, Vicq-d'Azyr, Blumenbach, Soemmering, andMeckel who would be so presuming, and M.  G. Cuvier would have beenhimself much embarrassed if he had been taken at his word, and besidesit is this assertion which will remain formulated in the mouths of theignorant, and which has already made many persons believe that it ispossible to answer the most difficult and often insoluble problems inpalæontology, without having made any preliminary study, with the aid ofdividers, and, on the other hand, discouraging the Blumenbachs andSoemmerings from giving their attention to this kind of work. "

Huxley has, _inter alia_, put the case in a somewhat similar way, toshow that the law should at least be applied with much caution tounknown forms:

"Cuvier, in the _Discours sur les Révolutions de la Surface du Globe_, strangely credits himself, and has ever since been credited by others, with the invention of a new method of palæontological research. But ifyou will turn to the _Recherches sur les Ossemens fossiles_, and watchCuvier not speculating, but working, you will find that his method isneither more nor less than that of Steno. If he was able to make hisfamous prophecy from the jaw which lay upon the surface of a block ofstone to the pelvis which lay hidden in it, it was not because either heor any one else knew, or knows, why a certain form of jaw is, as a rule, constantly accompanied by the presence of marsupial bones, but simplybecause experience has shown that these two structures are coördinated"(_Science and Hebrew Tradition. Rise and Progress of Paleontology_ 1881, p.  23). 

[99] _History and Methods of Paleontological Discovery_ (1879). 

[100] The following statement of Cuvier's views is taken from Jameson'stranslation of the first _Essay on the Theory of the Earth_, "whichformed the introduction to his _Recherches sur les Ossemens fossiles_, "the first edition of which appeared in 1812, or ten years after thepublication of the _Hydrogéologie_. The original I have not seen, but Ihave compared Jameson's translation with the sixth edition of the_Discours_ (1820). 

[101] Cuvier, in speaking of these revolutions, "which have changed thesurface of our earth, " correctly reasons that they must have excited amore powerful action upon terrestrial quadrupeds than upon marineanimals. "As these revolutions, " he says, "have consisted chiefly inchanges of the bed of the sea, and as the waters must have destroyed allthe quadrupeds which they reached if their irruption over the land wasgeneral, they must have destroyed the entire class, or, if confined onlyto certain continents at one time, they must have destroyed at least allthe species inhabiting these continents, without having the same effectupon the marine animals. On the other hand, millions of aquatic animalsmay have been left quite dry, or buried in newly formed strata or thrownviolently on the coasts, while their races may have been still preservedin more peaceful parts of the sea, whence they might again propagate andspread after the agitation of the water had ceased. "

[102] _Discours_, etc. Sixth edition. 

[103] Felix Bernard, _The Principles of Paleontology_, Paris, 1895, translated by C.  E. Brooks, edited by J.  M. Clark, from 14th AnnualReport New York State Geologist, 1895, pp.  127-217 (p.  16). Bernardgives no reference to the work in which Schlotheim expressed thisopinion. E.  v. Schlotheim's first work, _Flora der Vorwelt_, appeared in1804, entitled _Beschreibung merkwürdiger Kraüterabdrücke undPflanzenversteinerungen. Ein Beytrag zur Flora der Vorvelt. _ I Abtheil. Mit 14 Kpfrn. 4^o. Gotha, 1804. A later work was _Beyträge zurNaturgeschichte der Versteinerungen in geognostischer Hinsicht_(_Denkschrift d. K. Academie d. Wissenschaften zu München für den Jahren1816 und 1817_. 8 Taf. München, 1819). He was followed in Germany bySternberg (_Versuch einer geognostischbotanischen Darstellung der Florader Vorvelt. _ 1-8. 1811. Leipzig, 1820-38); and in France by A.  T. Brongniart, 1801-1876 (_Histoire des Végétaux fossiles_, 1828). Thesewere the pioneers in palæophytology. 

[104] Bernard's _History and Methods of Paleontological Discovery_(1879), p.  23. 

[105] In his valuable and comprehensive _Geschichte der Geologie undPaläontologie_ (1899), Prof.  K. Von Zittel, while referring to Lamarck'sworks on the tertiary shells of Paris and his _Animaux sans Vertèbres_, also giving a just and full account of his life, practically gives himthe credit of being one of the founders of invertebrate palæontology. Hespeaks of him as "the reformer and founder of scientific conchology, "and states that "he defined with wonderful acuteness the numerous generaand species of invertebrate animals, and created thereby for the tenyears following an authoritative foundation. " Zittel, however, does notmention the _Hydrogéologie_. Probably so rare a book was overlooked bythe eminent German palæontologist. 

[106] _History and Methods of Paleontological Discovery_ (1879), p.  23. 

CHAPTER X

LAMARCK'S OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY AND BIOLOGY

Lamarck died before the rise of the sciences of morphology, embryology, and cytology. As to palæontology, which he aided in founding, he had butthe slightest idea of the geological succession of life-forms, and notan inkling of the biogenetic law or recapitulation theory. Little did heknow or foresee that the main and strongest support of his own theorywas to be this same science of the extinct forms of life. Yet it is amatter of interest to know what were his views or opinions on the natureof life; whether he made any suggestions bearing on the doctrine of theunity of nature; whether he was a vitalist or not; and whether he was afollower of Haller and of Bonnet, [107] as was Cuvier, or pronounced infavor of epigenesis. 

We know that he was a firm believer in spontaneous generation, and thathe conceived that it took place not only in the origination of hisprimeval germs or _ébauches_, but at all later periods down to thepresent day. 

Yet Lamarck accepted Harvey's doctrine, published in 1651, that allliving beings arose from germs or eggs. [108]

He must have known of Spallanzani's experiments, published in 1776, evenif he had not read the writings of Treviranus (1802-1805), both of whomhad experimentally disproved the theory of the spontaneous generation ofanimalcules in putrid infusions, showing that the lowest organismsdevelop only from germs. 

The eighteenth century, though one of great intellectual activity, was, however, as regards cosmology, geology, general physiology or biology, aperiod of groping in the dim twilight, when the whole truth or even apart of it was beyond the reach of the greatest geniuses, and they couldonly seize on half-truths. Lamarck, both a practical botanist, systematic zoölogist, and synthetic philosopher, had done his best workbefore the rise of the experimental and inductive methods, when directobservation and experiments had begun to take the place of vague _àpriori_ thinking and reasoning, so that he labored under a disadvantagedue largely to the age in which he lived. 

Only the closing years of the century witnessed the rise of theexperimental methods in physics and chemistry, owing to the brilliantwork of Priestley and of Lavoisier. The foundations of generalphysiology had been laid by Haller, [109] those of embryology to apartial extent by Wolff, [110] Von Baer's work not appearing until 1829, the year in which Lamarck died. 

_Spontaneous Generation. _--Lamarck's views on spontaneous generation arestated in his _Recherches sur l'Organisation des Corps vivans_ (1802). He begins by referring to his statement in a previous work[111] thatlife may be suspended for a time and then go on again. 

 "Here I would remark it (life) can be produced (_préparée_) both by an organic act and by nature herself, without any act of this kind, in such a way that certain bodies without possessing life can be prepared to receive it, by an impression _which indicates in these bodies the first traces of organization_. "

We will not enter upon an exposition of his views on the nature ofsexual generation and of fecundation, the character of his _vapeursubtile_ (_aura vitalis_) which he supposes to take an active part inthe act of fertilization, because the notion is quite as objectionableas that of the vital force which he rejects. He goes on to say, however, that we cannot penetrate farther into the wonderful mystery offecundation, but the opinions he expresses lead to the view that"nature herself imitates her procedures in fecundation in another stateof things, without having need of the union or of the products of anypreëxistent organization. "

He proceeds to observe that in the places where his _aura vitalis_, orsubtle fluid, is very abundant, as in hot climates or in heated periods, and especially in humid places, life seems to originate and to multiplyitself everywhere and with a singular rapidity. 

 "In this high temperature the higher animals and mankind develop and mature more rapidly, and diseases run their courses more swiftly; while on the other hand these conditions are more favorable to the simpler forms of life, for the reason that in them the orgasm and irritability are entirely dependent on external influences, and all plants are in the same case, because heat, moisture, and light complete the conditions necessary to their existence. 

 "Because heat is so advantageous to the simplest animals, let us examine whether there is not occasion for believing that it can itself form, with the concourse of favorable circumstances, the first germs of animal life. 

 "_Nature necessarily forms generations, spontaneous or direct, at the extremity of each organic kingdom or where the simplest organic bodies occur. _"

This proposition, he allows, is so far removed from the view generallyheld, that it will be for a long time, and perhaps always, regarded asone of the errors of the human mind. 

 "I do not, " he adds, "ask any one to accord it the least confidence on my word alone. But as surely it will happen, sooner or later, that men on the one hand independent of prejudices even the most widespread, and on the other profound observers of nature, may have a glimpse of this truth, I am very content that we should know that it is of the number of those views which, in spite of the prejudices of my age, I have thought it well to accept. "

"Why, " he asks, "should not heat and electricity act on certain mattersunder favorable conditions and circumstances?" He quotes Lavoisier assaying (_Chémie_, i. , p.  202) "that God in creating light had spreadover the world the principle of organization of feeling and of thought";and Lamarck suggests that heat, "this mother of generation, thismaterial soul of organized bodies, " may be the chief one of the meanswhich nature directly employs to produce in the appropriate kind ofmatter an act of arrangement of parts, of a primitive germ oforganization, and consequently of vitalization analogous to sexualfecundation. 

 "Not only the direct formation of the simplest living beings could have taken place, as I shall attempt to demonstrate, but the following considerations prove that it is necessary that such germ-formations should be effected and be repeated under favorable conditions, without which the state of things which we observe could neither exist nor subsist. "

His argument is that in the lower polyps (the Protozoa) there is nosexual reproduction, no eggs. But they perish (as he strangely thought, without apparently attempting to verify his belief) in the winter. How, he asks, can they reappear? Is it not more likely that these simpleorganisms are themselves regenerated? After much verbiage andrepetition, he concludes:

 "We may conceive that the simplest organisms can arise from a minute mass of substances which possess the following conditions--namely, which will have solid parts in a state nearest the fluid conditions, consequently having the greatest suppleness and only sufficient consistence to be susceptible of constituting the parts contained in it. Such is the condition of the most gelatinous organized bodies. 

 "Through such a mass of substances the subtile and expansive fluids spread, and, always in motion in the milieu environing it, unceasingly penetrate it and likewise dissipate it, arranging while traversing this mass the internal disposition of its parts, and rendering it suitable to continually absorb and to exhale the other environing fluids which are able to penetrate into its interior, and which are susceptible of being contained. 

 "These other fluids, which are water charged with dissolved (_dissous_) gas, or with other tenuous substances, the atmospheric air, which contains water, etc. , I call containable fluids, to distinguish them from subtile fluids, such as caloric, electricity, etc. , which no known bodies are believed to contain. 

 "The containable fluids absorbed by the small gelatinous mass in question remain almost motionless in its different parts, because the non-containable subtile fluids which always penetrate there do not permit it. 

 "In this way the uncontainable fluids at first mark out the first traces of the simplest organization, and consequently the containable fluids by their movements and their other influences develop it, and with time and all the favorable circumstances complete it. "

This is certainly a sufficiently vague and unsatisfactory theory ofspontaneous generation. This sort of guess-work and hypotheticalreasoning is not entirely confined to Lamarck's time. Have we not, evena century later, examples among some of our biologists, and very eminentones, of whole volumes of _à priori_ theorizing and reasoning, withscarcely a single new fact to serve as a foundation? And yet this is anage of laboratories, of experimentations and of trained observers. Thebest of us indulge in far-fetched hypotheses, such as pangenesis, panmixia, the existence of determinants, and if this be so should we notexcuse Lamarck, who gave so many years to close observation insystematic botany and zoölogy, for his flights into the empyrean ofsubtle fluids, containable and uncontainable, and for his invocation ofan _aura vitalis_, at a time when the world of demonstrated facts inmodern biology was undiscovered and its existence unsuspected?

_The Preëxistence of Germs and the Encasement Theory. _--Lamarck did notbelieve in Bonnet's idea of the "preëxistence of germs. " He asks whetherthere is any foundation for the notion that germs "successively developin generations, _i. E. _ in the multiplication of individuals for thepreservation of species, " and says:

 "I am not inclined to believe it if this preëxistence is taken in a general sense; but in limiting it to individuals in which the unfertilized embryos or germs are formed before generation. I then believe that it has some foundation. --They say with good reason, " he adds, "that every living being originates from an egg. .. . But the eggs being the envelope of every kind of germ, they preëxist in the individuals which produce them, before fertilization has vivified them. The seeds of plants (which are vegetable eggs) actually exist in the ovaries of flowers before the fertilization of these ovaries. "[112]

From whom did he get this idea that seeds or eggs are envelopes of allsorts of germs? It is not the "evolution" of a single germ, as, forexample, an excessively minute but complete chick in the hen's egg, inthe sense held by Bonnet. Who it was he does not mention. He evidently, however, had the Swiss biologist in mind, who held that all livingthings proceed from preëxisting germs. [113]

Whatever may have been his views as to the germs in the egg beforefertilization, we take it that he believed in the epigenetic developmentof the plant or animal after the seed or egg was once fertilized. [114]

Lamarck did not adopt the encasement theory of Swammerdam and of Heller. We find nothing in Lamarck's writings opposed to epigenesis. Thefollowing passage, which bears on this subject, is translated from his_Mémoires de Physique_ (p.  250), where he contrasts the growth oforganic bodies with that of minerals. 

 "The body of this living being not having been formed by _juxtaposition_, as most mineral substances, that is to say, by the external and successive apposition of particles aggregated _en masse_ by attraction, but essentially formed by generation, in its principle, it has then grown by intussusception--namely, by the introduction, the transportation, and the internal apposition of molecules borne along and deposited between its parts; whence have resulted the successive developments of parts which compose the body of this living individual, and from which afterwards also result the repairs which preserve it during a limited time. "

Here, as elsewhere in his various works, Lamarck brings out the fact, for the first time stated, that all material things are eithernon-living or mineral, inorganic; or living, organic. A favorite phrasewith him is living bodies, or, as we should say, organisms. He also isthe first one to show that minerals increase by juxtaposition, whileorganisms grow by intussusception. 

No one would look in his writings for an idea or suggestion of theprinciple of differentiation of parts or organs as we now understand it, or for the idea of the physiological division of labor; these werereserved for the later periods of embryology and morphology. 

_Origin of the First Vital Function. _--We will now return to the germ. After it had begun spontaneous existence, Lamarck proceeds to say:

 "Before the containable fluids absorbed by the small, jelly-like mass in question have been expelled by the new portions of the same fluids which reach there, they can then deposit certain of the contained fluids they carry along, and the movements of the contained fluids may apply these substances to the containing parts of the newly organized microscopic being. In this way originates the first of the vital functions which becomes established in the simplest organism, _i. E. _, nutrition. The environing containable fluids are, then, for the living body of very great simplicity, a veritable chyle entirely prepared by nature. 

 "Mutilation cannot operate without gradually increasing the consistence of the parts contained within the minute new organism and without extending its dimensions. Hence soon arose the second of the vital functions, _growth or internal development_. "

_First Faculty of Animal Nature. _--Then gradually as the continuity ofthis state of things within the same minute living mass in questionincreases the consistence of its parts enclosed within and extends itsdimensions, a vital orgasm, at first very feeble, but becomingprogressively more intense, is formed in these enclosed parts andrenders them susceptible of _reaction_ against the slight impression ofthe fluids in motion which they contain, and at the same time rendersthem capable of contraction and of distention. Hence the origin of_animal irritability_ and the basis of feeling, which is developedwherever a nervous fluid, susceptible of locating the effects in one ofseveral special centres, can be formed. 

 "Scarcely will the living corpuscle, newly animalized, have received any increase in consistence and in dimensions of the parts contained, when, as the result of the organic movement which it enjoys, it will be subjected to successive changes and losses of its substance. 

 "It will then be obliged to take nourishment not only to obtain any development whatever, but also to preserve its individual existence, because it is necessary that it repair its losses under penalty of its destruction. 

 "But as the individual in question has not yet any special organ for nutrition, it therefore absorbs by the pores of its internal surface the substance adapted for its nourishment. Thus the first mode of taking food in a living body so simple can be no other than by absorption or a sort of suction, which is accomplished by the pores of its outer surface. 

 "This is not all; up to the present time the animalized corpuscle we are considering is still only a primitive animalcule because it as yet has no special organ. Let us see then how nature will come to furnish it with any primitive special organ, and what will be the organ that nature will form before any others, and which in the simplest animal is the only one constantly found; this is the alimentary canal, the principal organ of digestion common to all except colpodes, vibrios, proteus (amoeba), volvoces, monads, etc. 

 "This digestive canal is, " he says--proceeding with his _à priori_ morphology--"a little different from that of this day, produced by contractions of the body, which are stronger in one part of the body than in another, until a little crease is produced on the surface of the body. This furrow or crease will receive the food. Insensibly this little furrow by the habit of being filled, and by the so frequent use of its pores, will gradually increase in depth; it will soon assume the form of a pouch or of a tubular cavity with porous walls, a blind sac, or with but a single opening. Behold the primitive alimentary canal created by nature, the simplest organ of digestion. "

In like _à priori_ manner he describes the creation of the faculty ofreproduction. The next organ, he says, is that of reproduction due tothe regenerative faculty. He describes fission and budding. Finally(p.  122) he says:

 "Indeed, we perceive that if the first germs of living bodies are all formed in one day in such great abundance and facility under favorable circumstances, they ought to be, nevertheless, by reason of the antiquity of the causes which make them exist, the most ancient organisms in nature. "

In 1794 he rejected the view once held of a continuous chain of being, the _échelle des êtres_ suggested by Locke and by Leibnitz, and morefully elaborated by Bonnet, from the inorganic to the organic worlds, from minerals to plants, from plants to polyps (our Infusoria), polypsto worms, and so on to the higher animals. He, on the contrary, affirmsthat nature makes leaps, that there is a wide gap between minerals andliving bodies, that everything is not gradated and shaded into eachother. One reason for this was possibly his strange view, expressed in1794, that all brute bodies and inorganic matters, even granite, werenot formed at the same epoch but at different times, and were derivedfrom organisms. [115]

The mystical doctrine of a vital force was rife in Lamarck's time. Thechief starting point of the doctrine was due to Haller, and, as Verwornstates, it is a doctrine which has confused all physiology down to themiddle of the present century, and even now emerges again here and therein varied form. [116]

Lamarck was not a vitalist. Life, he says, [117] is usually supposed tobe a particular being or entity; a sort of principle whose nature isunknown, and which possesses living bodies. This notion he denies asabsurd, saying that life is a very natural phenomenon, a physical fact;in truth a little complicated in its principles, but not in any sense aparticular or special being or entity. 

He then defines life in the following words: "Life is an order and astate of things in the parts of every body possessing it, which permitsor renders possible in it the execution of organic movement, and which, so long as it exists, is effectively opposed to death. Derange thisorder and this state of things to the point of preventing the executionof organic movement, or the possibility of its reëstablishment, then youcause death. " Afterwards, in the _Philosophie zoologique_, he modifiesthis definition, which reads thus: "Life, in the parts of a body whichpossesses it, is an order and a state of things which permit organicmovements; and these movements, which constitute active life, resultfrom the action of a stimulating cause which excites them. "[118]

For the science of all living bodies Lamarck proposed the word"Biology, " which is so convenient a term at the present day. The wordfirst appears in the preface to the _Hydrogéologie_, published in 1802. It is worthy of note that in the same year the same word was proposedfor the same science by G.  R. Treviranus as the title of a work, _Biologie, der Philosophie der lebenden Natur_, published in 1802-1805(vols.  i. -vi. , 1802-1822), the first volume appearing in 1802. 

In the second part of the _Philosophie zoologique_ he considers thephysical causes of life, and in the introduction he defines nature asthe _ensemble_ of objects which comprise: (1) All existing physicalbodies; (2) the general and special laws which regulate the changes ofcondition and situation of these bodies; (3) finally, the movementeverywhere going on among them resulting in the wonderful order ofthings in nature. 

To regard nature as eternal, and consequently as having existed from alltime, is baseless and unreasonable. He prefers to think that nature isonly a result, "whence, I suppose, and am glad to admit, a first cause, in a word, a supreme power which has given existence to nature, whichhas made it as a whole what it is. "

As to the source of life in bodies endowed with it, he considers it aproblem more difficult than to determine the course of the stars inspace, or the size, masses, and movements of the planets belonging toour solar system; but, however formidable the problem, the difficultiesare not insurmountable, as the phenomena are purely physical--_i. E. _, essentially resulting from acts of organization. 

After defining life, in the third chapter (beginning vol.  ii. ) he treatsof the exciting cause of organic movements. This exciting cause isforeign to the body which it vivifies, and does not perish, like thelatter. "This cause resides in invisible, subtile, expansive, ever-active fluids which penetrate or are incessantly developed in thebodies which they animate. " These subtile fluids we should in these daysregard as the physico-chemical agents, such as heat, light, electricity. 

What he says in the next two chapters as to the "orgasme" andirritability excited by the before-mentioned exciting cause may beregarded as a crude foreshadowing of the primary properties ofprotoplasm, now regarded as the physical basis of life--_i. E. _, contractility, irritability, and metabolism. In Chapter VI. Lamarckdiscusses direct or spontaneous generation in the same way as in 1802. In the following paragraph we have foreshadowed the characteristicqualities of the primeval protoplasmic matter fitted to receive thefirst traces of organization and life:

 "Every mass of substance homogeneous in appearance, of a gelatinous or mucilaginous consistence, whose parts, coherent among themselves, will be in the state nearest fluidity, but will have only a consistence sufficient to constitute containing parts, will be the body most fitted to receive the first traces of organization and life. "

In the third part of the _Philosophie zoologique_ Lamarck considers thephysical causes of feeling--_i. E. _, those which form the productiveforce of actions, and those giving rise to intelligent acts. Afterdescribing the nervous system and its functions, he discusses thenervous fluid. His physiological views are based on those of Richerand's_Physiologie_, which he at times quotes. 

Lamarck's thoughts on the nature of the nervous fluid (_Recherches surle fluide nerveux_) are curious and illustrative of the gropings afterthe truth of his age. 

He claims that the supposed nervous fluid has much analogy to theelectric, that it is the _feu éthéré_ "animalized by the circumstancesunder which it occurs. " In his _Recherches sur l'organisation des corpsvivans_ (1802) he states that, as the result of changes continuallyundergone by the principal fluids of an animal, there is continually setfree in a state of _feu fixé_ a special fluid, which at the instant ofits disengagement occurs in the expansive state of the caloric, thenbecomes gradually rarefied, and insensibly arrives at the state of anextremely subtile fluid which then passes along the smallest nervousramifications in the substance of the nerve, which is a very goodconductor for it. On its side the brain sends back the subtile fluid inquestion along the nerves to the different organs. 

In the same work (1802) Lamarck defines thought as a physical act takingplace in the brain. "This act of thinking gives rise to differentdisplacements of the subtile nervous fluid and to differentaccumulations of this fluid in the parts of the brain where the ideashave been traced. " There result from the flow of the fluid on theconserved impressions of ideas, special movements which portions of thisfluid acquire with each impression, which give rise to compounds bytheir union producing new impressions on the delicate organ whichreceives them, and which constitute abstract ideas of all kinds, alsothe different acts of thought. 

All the acts which constitute thought are the comparisons of ideas, bothsimple and complex, and the results of these comparisons are judgments. 

He then discusses the influence of the nervous fluid on the muscles, andalso its influence considered as the cause of feeling (_sentiment_). Finally he concludes that _feu fixé_, caloric, the nervous fluid, andthe electric fluid "are only one and the same substance occurring indifferent states. "

FOOTNOTES:

[107] Charles Bonnet (1720-1793), a Swiss naturalist, is famous for hiswork on Aphides and their parthenogenetic generation, on the mode ofreproduction in the Polyzoa, and on the respiration of insects. Afterthe age of thirty-four, when his eyesight became impaired, he began hispremature speculations, which did not add to his reputation. Judging, however, by an extract from his writings by D'Archiac (_Introduction àl'Étude de la Paléontologie stratigraphique_, ii. , p.  49), he had soundideas on the theory of descent, claiming that "la diversité et lamultitude des conjunctions, peut-être même la diversité des climats etdes nourritures, ont donné naissance à de nouvelles espèces ou à desindividus intermédiaires" (_Oeuvres d'Hist. Nat. Et de Philosophie_, in-8vo, p.  230, 1779). 

[108] See his remark: "_On a dit avec raison que tout ce qui a vieprovient d'un auf_" (_Mémoires de Physique_, etc. , 1797, p.  272). Heappears, however, to have made the simplest organisms exceptions to thisdoctrine. 

[109] _Elementa physiologiae corporis humani_, iv. Lausanne, 1762. 

[110] _Theoria generationis_, 1774. 

[111] _Mémoires de Physique_, (1797), p.  250. 

[112] _Mémoires de Physique_, etc. (1797), p.  272. 

[113] Huxley's "Evolution in Biology" (_Darwiniana_, p.  192), where bequotes from Bonnet's statements, which "bear no small resemblance towhat is understood by evolution at the present day. "

[114] Buffon did not accept Bonnet's theory of preëxistent germs, but heassumed the existence of "_germes accumulés_" which reproduced parts ororgans, and for the production of organisms he imagined "_moléculesorganiques_. " Réaumur had previously (1712) conjectured that there were"_germes cachés et accumulés_" to account for the regeneration of thelimbs of the crayfish. The ideas of Bonnet on germs are stated in his_Mémoires sur les Salamandres_ (1777-78-80) and in his _Considérationssur les corps organisés_ (1762. )

[115] _Mémoires de Physique_, etc. , pp.  318, 319, 324-359. Yet the ideaof a sort of continuity between the inorganic and the organic world isexpressed by Verworn. 

[116] _General Physiology_ (English trans. , 1899, p.  17). In Francevitalism was founded by Bordeu (1722-1766), developed further by Barthez(1734-1806) and Chaussier (1746-1828), and formulated most distinctly byLouis Dumas (1765-1813). Later vitalists gave it a thoroughly mysticalaspect, distinguishing several varieties, such as the _nisus formativus_or formative effort, to explain the forms of organisms, accounting forthe fact that from the egg of a bird, a bird and no other species alwaysdevelops (_l.  c. _, p.  18). 

[117] _Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivans_ (1802), p.  70. The same view was expressed in _Mémoires de physique_ (1797), pp.  254-257, 386. 

[118] Here might be quoted for comparison other famous definitions oflife:

"Life is the sum of the functions by which death is resisted. "--Bichat. 

"Life is the result of organization. "--(?)

"Life is the principle of individuation. "--Coleridge ex. Schelling. 

"Life is the twofold internal movement of composition and decomposition, at once general and continuous. "--De Blainville, who wisely added thatthere are "two fundamental and correlative conditions inseparable fromthe living being--an organism and a medium. "

"Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to externalrelations. "--Herbert Spencer. 

CHAPTER XI

LAMARCK AS A BOTANIST

During the century preceding the time of Lamarck, botany had notflourished in France with the vigor shown in other countries. Lamarckhimself frankly stated in his address to the Committee of PublicInstruction of the National Convention that the study of plants had beenfor a century neglected by Frenchmen, and that the great progress whichit had made during this time was almost entirely due to foreigners. 

 "I am free to say that since the distinguished Tournefort the French have remained to some extent inactive in this direction; they have produced almost nothing, unless we except some fragmentary mediocre or unimportant works. On the other hand, Linné in Sweden, Dilwillen in England, Haller in Switzerland, Jacquin in Austria, etc. , have immortalized themselves by their own works, vastly extending the limit of our knowledge in this interesting part of natural history. "

What led young Lamarck to take up botanical studies, his botanicalrambles about Paris, and his longer journeys in different parts ofFrance and in other countries, his six years of unremitting labor on his_Flore Française_, and the immediate fame it brought him, culminating inhis election as a member of the French Academy, have been alreadyrecounted. 

Lamarck was thirty-four when his _Flore Française_ appeared. It was notpreceded, as in the case of most botanical works, by any preliminarypapers containing descriptions of new or unknown species, and the threestout octavo volumes appeared together at the same date. 

The first volume opens with a report on the work made by MM.  Duhamel andGuettard. Then follows the _Discours Préliminaire_, comprising over ahundred pages, while the main body of the work opens with the _PrincipesÉlémentaires de Botanique_, occupying 223 pages. The work was a generalelementary botany and written in French. Before this time botanists haddeparted from the artificial system of Linné, though it was convenientfor amateurs in naming their plants. Jussieu had proposed his system ofnatural families, founded on a scientific basis, but naturally moredifficult for the use of beginners. To obviate the matter Lamarckconceived and proposed the dichotomic method for the easy determinationof species. No new species were described, and the work, written in thevernacular, was simply a guide to the indigenous plants of France, beginning with the cryptogams and ending with the flowering plants. Asecond edition appeared in 1780, and a third, edited and remodelled byA.  P. De Candolle, and forming six volumes, appeared in 1805-1815. Thiswas until within a comparatively few years the standard French botany. 

Soon after the publication of his _Flore Française_ he projected twoother works which gave him a still higher position among botanists. His_Dictionnaire de Botanique_ was published in 1783-1817, forming eightvolumes and five supplementary ones. The first two and part of the thirdvolume were written by Lamarck, the remainder by other botanists, whocompleted it after Lamarck had abandoned botanical studies and taken uphis zoölogical work. His second great undertaking was _L'Illustrationdes Genres_ (1791-1800), with a supplement by Poiret (1823). 

Cuvier speaks thus of these works:

 "_L'Illustration des Genres_ is a work especially fitted to enable one to acquire readily an almost complete idea of this beautiful science. The precision of the descriptions and of the definitions of Linnæus is maintained, as in the institutions of Tournefort, with figures adapted to give body to these abstractions, and to appeal both to the eye and to the mind, and not only are the flowers and fruits represented, but often the entire plant. More than two thousand genera are thus made available for study in a thousand plates in quarto, and at the same time the abridged characters of a vast number of species are given. 

 "The _Dictionnaire_ contains more details of the history with careful descriptions, critical researches on their synonymy, and many interesting observations on their uses or on special points of their organizations. The matter is not all original in either of the works, far from it, but the choice of figures is skilfully made, the descriptions are drawn from the best authors, and there are a large number which relate to species and also some genera previously unknown. "

Lamarck himself says that after the publication of his _FloreFrançaise_, his zeal for work increasing, and after travelling by orderof the government in different parts of Europe, he undertook on a vastscale a general work on botany. 

 "This work comprised two distinct features. In the first (_Le Dictionnaire_), which made a part of the new encyclopedia, the citizen Lamarck treats of philosophical botany, also giving the complete description of all the genera and species known. An immense work from the labor it cost, and truly original in its execution. .. . The second treatise, entitled _Illustration des Genres_, presents in the order of the sexual system the figures and the details of all the genera known in botany, and with a concise exposition of the generic characters and of the species known. This work, unique of its kind, already contains six hundred plates executed by the best artists, and will comprise nine hundred. Also for more than ten years the citizen Lamarck has employed in Paris a great number of artists. Moreover, he has kept running three separate presses for different works, all relating to natural history. "

Cuvier in his _Éloge_ also adds:

 "It is astonishing that M. De Lamarck, who hitherto had been studying botany as an amateur, was able so rapidly to qualify himself to produce so extensive a work, in which the rarest plants were described. It is because, from the moment he undertook it, with all the enthusiasm of his nature, he collected them from the gardens and examined them in all the available herbaria; passing the days at the houses of the botanists he knew, but chiefly at the home of M. De Jussieu, in that home where for more than a century a scientific hospitality welcomed with equal kindness every one who was interested in the delightful study of botany. When any one reached Paris with plants he might be sure that the first one who should visit him would be M. De Lamarck; this eager interest was the means of his receiving one of the most valuable presents he could have desired. The celebrated traveller Sonnerat, having returned in 1781 for the second time from the Indies, with very rich collections of natural history, imagined that every one who cultivated this science would flock to him; it was not at Pondichéry or in the Moluccas that he had conceived an idea of the vortex which too often in this capital draws the savants as well as men of the world; no one came but M. De Lamarck, and Sonnerat, in his chagrin, gave him the magnificent collection of plants which he had brought. He profited also by that of Commerson, and by those which had been accumulated by M. De Jussieu, and which were generously opened to him. "

These works were evidently planned and carried out on a broad andcomprehensive scale, with originality of treatment, and they were mostuseful and widely used. Lamarck's original special botanical papers werenumerous. They were mostly descriptive of new species and genera, butsome were much broader in scope and were published over a period of tenyears, from 1784 to 1794, and appeared in the _Journal d'Histoirenaturelle_, which he founded, and in the _Mémoires_ of the Academy ofSciences. 

He discussed the shape or aspect of the plants characteristic of certaincountries, while his last botanical effort was on the sensibility ofplants (1798). 

Although not in the front rank of botanists, compared with Linné, Jussieu, De Candolle, and others, yet during the twenty-six years of hisbotanical career it may safely be said that Lamarck gave an immenseimpetus to botany in France, and fully earned the title of "the FrenchLinné. "

Lamarck not only described a number of genera and species of plants, buthe attempted a general classification, as Cleland states:

 "In 1785 (_Hist. De l'Acad. _) he evinced his appreciation of the necessity of natural orders in botany by an attempt at the classification of plants, interesting though crude, and falling immeasurably short of the system which grew in the hands of his intimate friend Jussieu. "--_Encyc. Brit. _, Art. LAMARCK. 

A genus of tropical plants of the group _Solanaceæ_ was named _Markea_by Richard, in honor of Lamarck, but changed by Persoon and Poiret to_Lamarckea_. The name _Lamarckia_ of Moench and Koeler was proposed fora genus of grasses; it is now _Chrysurus_. 

Lamarck's success as a botanist led to more or less intimate relationswith Buffon. But it appears that the good-will of this great naturalistand courtier for the rising botanist was not wholly disinterested. Lamarck owed the humble and poorly paid position of keeper of theherbarium to Buffon. Bourguin adds, however:

 "_Mais il les dut moins à ses mérites qu'aux petits passions de la science officielle. _ The illustrious Buffon, who was at the same time a very great lord at court, was jealous of Linné. He could not endure having any one compare his brilliant and eloquent word-pictures of animals with the cold and methodical descriptions of the celebrated Swedish naturalist. So he attempted to combat him in another field--botany. For this reason he encouraged and pushed Lamarck into notice, who, as the popularizer of the system of classification into natural families, seemed to him to oppose the development of the arrangement of Linné. "

Lamarck's style was never a highly finished one, and his incipientessays seemed faulty to Buffon, who took so much pains to write all hisworks in elegant and pure French. So he begged the Abbé Haüy to reviewthe literary form of Lamarck's works. 

Here it might be said that Lamarck's is the philosophic style; oftenanimated, clear, and pure, it at times, however, becomes prolix andtedious, owing to occasional repetition. 

But after all it can easily be understood that the discipline of hisbotanical studies, the friendship manifested for him by Buffon, then soinfluential and popular, the relations Lamarck had with Jussieu, Haüy, and the zoölogists of the Jardin du Roi, were all important factors inLamarck's success in life, a success not without terrible drawbacks, andto the full fruition of which he did not in his own life attain. 

CHAPTER XII

LAMARCK THE ZOÖLOGIST

Although there has been and still may be a difference of opinion as tothe value and permanency of Lamarck's theoretical views, there has neverbeen any lack of appreciation of his labors as a systematic zoölogist. He was undoubtedly the greatest zoölogist of his time. Lamarck is theone dominant personage who in the domain of zoölogy filled the intervalbetween Linné and Cuvier, and in acuteness and sound judgment he attimes surpassed Cuvier. His was the master mind of the period ofsystematic zoölogy, which began with Linné--the period which, in thehistory of zoölogy, preceded that of comparative anatomy and morphology. 

After Aristotle, no epoch-making zoölogist arose until Linné was born. In England Linné was preceded by Ray, but binomial nomenclature and thefirst genuine attempt at the classification of animals dates back to the_Systema Naturæ_ of Linné, the tenth edition of which appeared in 1758. 

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF LAMARCK]

The contemporaries of Lamarck in biological science, in the eighteenthcentury, were Camper (1722-89), Spallanzani (1729-99), Wolff (1733-94), Hunter (1728-93), Bichat (1771-1802), and Vicq d'Azyr (1748-94). Thesewere all anatomists and physiologists, the last-named being the firstto propose and use the term "comparative anatomy, " while Bichat was thefounder of histology and pathological anatomy. There was in fact noprominent systematic zoölogist in the interval between Linné andLamarck. In France there were only two zoölogists of prominence whenLamarck assumed his duties at the Museum. These were Bruguière theconchologist and Olivier the entomologist. In Germany Hermann was theleading systematic zoölogist. We would not forget the labors of thegreat German anatomist and physiologist Blumenbach, who was also thefounder of anthropology; nor the German anatomists Tiedemann, Bojanus, and Carus; nor the embryologist Döllinger. But Lamarck's method andpoint of view were of a new order--he was much more than a meresystematist. His work in systematic zoölogy, unlike that of Linné, andespecially of Cuvier, was that of a far higher grade. Lamarck, besideshis rigid, analytical, thorough, and comprehensive work on theinvertebrates, whereby he evolved order and system out of the chaoticmass of forms comprised in the Insects and Vermes of Linné, was animatedwith conceptions and theories to which his forerunners andcontemporaries, Geoffroy St.  Hilaire excepted, were entire strangers. His tabular view of the classes of the animal kingdom was to his mind agenealogical tree; his idea of the animal kingdom anticipated and wasakin to that of our day. He compares the animal series to a tree withits numerous branches, rather than to a single chain of being. Thisseries, as he expressly states, began with the monad and ended withman; it began with the simple and ended with the complex, or, as weshould now say, it proceeded from the generalized or undifferentiated tothe specialized and differentiated. He perceived that many forms hadbeen subjected to what he calls degeneration, or, as we say, modification, and that the progress from the simple to the complex wasby no means direct. Moreover, fossil animals were, according to hisviews, practically extinct species, and stood in the light of being theancestors of the members of our existing fauna. In fact, his views, notwithstanding shortcomings and errors in classification naturally dueto the limited knowledge of anatomy and development of his time, havebeen at the end of a century entirely confirmed--a striking testimony tohis profound insight, sound judgment, and philosophic breadth. 

The reforms that he brought about in the classification of theinvertebrate animals were direct and positive improvements, were adoptedby Cuvier in his _Règne animal_, and have never been set aside. We oweto him the foundation and definition of the classes of Infusoria, Annelida, Arachnida, and Crustacea, the two latter groups beingseparated from the insects. He also showed the distinctness ofechinoderms from polyps, thus anticipating Leuckart, who established thephylum of Coelenterata nearly half a century later. His special workwas the classification of the great group of Mollusca, which he regardedas a class. When in our boyhood days we attempted to arrange our shells, we were taught to use the Lamarckian system, that of Linné having beendiscarded many years previous. The great reforms in the classificationof shells are evidenced by the numerous manuals of conchology based onthe works of Lamarck. 

We used to hear much of the Lamarckian genera of shells, and Lamarck wasthe first to perceive the necessity of breaking up into smallercategories the few genera of Linné, which now are regarded as families. He may be said to have had a wonderfully good eye for genera. All hisgeneric divisions were at once accepted, since they were based on validcharacters. 

Though not a comparative anatomist, he at once perceived the value of aknowledge of the internal structure of animals, and made effective useof the discoveries of Cuvier and of his predecessors--in fact, basinghis system of classification on the organs of respiration, circulation, and the nervous system. 

He intimated that specific characters vary most, and that the peripheralparts of the body, as the shell, outer protective structures, the limbs, mouth-parts, antennæ, etc. , are first affected by the causes whichproduce variation, while he distinctly states that it requires a longertime for variations to take place in the internal organs. On the latterhe relied in defining his classes. 

One is curious to know how Lamarck viewed the question of species. Thisis discussed at length by him in his general essays, which arereproduced farther on in this biography, but his definition of what aspecies is far surpasses in breadth and terseness, and better satisfiesthe views now prevailing, than that of any other author. 

His definition of a species is as follows:

 "Every collection of similar individuals, perpetuated by generation in the same condition, so long as the circumstances of their situation do not change enough to produce variations in their habits, character, and form. "

Lamarck's rare skill, thoroughness, and acuteness as an observer, combined with great breadth of view, were also supplemented by theadvantages arising from residence in Paris, and his connection with theMuseum of Natural History. Paris was in the opening years of thenineteenth century the chief centre of biological science. France havingconvalesced from the intestinal disorders of the Revolution, and, as theresult of her foreign wars, adding to her territory and power, had begunwith the strength of a young giant to send out those splendid exploringexpeditions which gathered in collections in natural history from allparts of the known or accessible world, and poured them, as it were, into the laps of the professors of the Jardin des Plantes. The shelvesand cases of the galleries fairly groaned with the weight of thezoölogical riches which crowded them. From the year 1800 to 1832 theFrench government showed the greatest activity in sending out exploringexpeditions to Egypt, Africa, and the tropics. [119]

The zoölogists who explored Egypt were Geoffroy St.  Hilaire and Savigny. Those who visited the East, the South Seas, the East Indian archipelago, and other regions were Bruguière, Olivier, Bory de St.  Vincent, Péron, Lesueur, Quoy, Gaimard, Le Vaillant, Edoux, and Souleyet. The naturalresult was the enormous collections of the Jardin des Plantes, andconsequently enlarged views regarding the number and distribution ofspecies, and their relation to their environment. 

In Paris, about the time of Lamarck's death, flourished also Savigny, who published his immortal works on the morphology of arthropods and ofascidians; and Straus-Durckheim, whose splendidly illustrated volumes onthe anatomy of the cockchafer and of the cat will never cease to be ofvalue; and É. Geoffroy St.  Hilaire, whose elaborate and classical workson vertebrate morphology, embryology, and comparative anatomy added somuch to the prestige of French science. 

We may be sure that Lamarck did his own work without help from others, and gave full credit to those who, like Defrance or Bruguière, aided orimmediately preceded him. He probably was lacking in executive force, orin the art which Cuvier knew so well to practise, of enlisting young mento do the drudgery or render material aid, and then, in some cases, neglecting to give them proper credit. 

The first memoir or paper published on a zoölogical subject by Lamarckwas a modest one on shells, which appeared in 1792 in the _Journald'Histoire naturelle_, the editors of which were Lamarck, Bruguière, Olivier, Haüy, and Pelletier. This paper was a review of an excellentmemoir by Bruguière, who preceded Lamarck in the work of dismembermentof the Linnæan genera. His next paper was on four new species of Helix. To this _Journal_, of which only two volumes were published, Cuviercontributed his first paper--namely, on some new species of "Cloportes"(Oniscus, a genus of terrestrial crustacea or "pill-bugs"); this wasfollowed by his second memoir on the anatomy of the limpet, his nextarticle being descriptions of two species of flies from his collectionof insects. [120] Seven years later Lamarck gave some account of thegenera of cuttlefishes. His first general memoir was a prodromus of anew classification of shells (1799). 

Meanwhile Lamarck's knowledge of shells and corals was utilized byCuvier in his _Tableau élémentaire_, published in 1798, who acknowledgesin the preface that in the exposition of the genera of shells he hasbeen powerfully seconded, while he indicated to him (Cuvier) a part ofthe subgenera of corals and alcyonarians, and adds, "I have receivedgreat aid from the examination of his collection. " Also he acknowledgesthat he had been greatly aided (_puissamment secondé_) by Lamarck, whohad even indicated the most of the subdivisions established in his_Tableau élémentaire_ for the insects (Blainville, _l.  c. _, p.  129), andhe also accepted his genera of cuttlefishes. 

After this Lamarck judiciously refrained from publishing descriptions ofnew species, and other fragmentary labors, and for some ten years fromthe date of publication of his first zoölogical article reserved hisstrength and elaborated his first general zoölogical work, a thickoctavo volume of 452 pages, entitled _Système des Animaux sansVertèbres_, which appeared in 1801. 

Linné had divided all the animals below the vertebrates into two classesonly, the Insecta and Vermes, the insects comprising the present classesof insects, Myriapoda, Arachnida, and Crustacea; the Vermes embracingall the other invertebrate animals, from the molluscs to the monads. 

Lamarck perceived the need of reform, of bringing order out of thechaotic mass of animal forms, and he says (p.  33) that he has beencontinually occupied since his attachment to the museum with thisreform. 

He relies for his characters, the fundamental ones, on the organs ofrespiration, circulation, and on the form of the nervous system. Thereasons he gives for his classification are sound and philosophical, andpresented with the ease and aplomb of a master of taxonomy. 

He divided the invertebrates, which Cuvier had called animals with whiteblood, into the seven following classes. 

We place in a parallel column the classification of Cuvier in 1798. 

 _Classification of Lamarck. _ _Classification of Cuvier. _

 1. Mollusca. I. _Mollusca. _

 2. Crustacea. II. _Insectes et Vers. _

 3. Arachnides (comprising 1. Insectes. The Myriapoda). 2. Vers. 

 4. Insectes. III. _Zoophytes. _

 5. Vers. 1. Echinodermes. 2. Meduses, Animaux 6. Radiaires. Infusorines, Rotifer, Vibrio, Volvox. 7. Polypes. 3. Zoophytes proprement dits. 

Of these, four were for the first time defined, and the othersrestricted. It will be noticed that he separates the Radiata(_Radiaires_) from the Polypes. His "Radiaires" included theEchinoderms (the _Vers echinoderms_ of Bruguière) and the Medusæ (his_Radiaires molasses_), the latter forming the Discophora andSiphonophora of present zoölogists. This is an anticipation of thedivision by Leuckart in 1839 of the Radiata of Cuvier intoCoelenterata and Echinodermata. 

The "Polypes" of Lamarck included not only the forms now known as such, but also the Rotifera and Protozoa, though, as we shall see, heafterwards in his course of 1807 eliminated from this heterogeneousassemblage the Infusoria. 

Comparing this classification with that of Cuvier[121] published in1798, we find that in the most important respects, _i. E. _, thefoundation of the classes of Crustacea, Arachnida, and Radiata, there isa great advance over Cuvier's system. In Cuvier's work the molluscs areseparated from the worms, and they are divided into three groups, Cephalopodes, Gasteropodes, and Acephales--an arrangement which stillholds, that of Lamarck into Mollusques céphalés and Mollusques acéphalésbeing much less natural. With the elimination of the Mollusca, Cuvierallowed the Vers or Vermes of Linné to remain undisturbed, except thatthe Zoöphytes, the equivalent of Lamarck's Polypes, are separatelytreated. 

He agrees with Cuvier in placing the molluscs at the head of theinvertebrates, a course still pursued by some zoölogists at the presentday. He states in the _Philosophie Zoologique_[122] that in his courseof lectures of the year 1799 he established the class of Crustacea, andadds that "although this class is essentially distinct, it was not untilsix or seven years after that some naturalists consented to adopt it. "The year following, or in his course of 1800, he separated from theinsects the class of Arachnida, as "easy and necessary to bedistinguished. " But in 1809 he says that this class "is not yet admittedinto any other work than my own. "[123] As to the class of Annelides, heremarks: "Cuvier having discovered the existence of arterial and venousvessels in different animals which have been confounded under the nameof worms (_Vers_) with other animals very differently organized, Iimmediately employed the consideration of this new fact in rendering myclassification more perfect, and in my course of the year 10 (1802) Iestablished the class of Annelides, a class which I have placed afterthe molluscs and before the crustaceans, as their known organizationrequires. " He first established this class in his _Recherches sur lescorps vivans_ (1802), but it was several years before it was adopted bynaturalists. 

The next work in which Lamarck deals with the classification of theinvertebrates is his _Discours d'ouverture du Cours des Animaux sansVertèbres_, published in 1806. 

On page 70 he speaks of the animal chain or series, from the monad toman, ascending from the most simple to the most complex. The monad isone of his _Polypes amorphs_, and he says that it is the most simpleanimal form, the most like the original germ (_ébauche_) from whichliving bodies have descended. From the monad nature passes to theVolvox, Proteus (Amoeba), and Vibrio. From them are derived the_Polypes rotifères_ and other "Radiaires, " and then the Vers, Arachnides, and Crustacea. On page 77 a tabular view is presented, asfollows:

 1. _Les Mollusques. _ 2. _Les Cirrhipèdes. _ 3. _Les Annelides. _ 4. _Les Crustacés. _ 5. _Les Arachnides. _ 6. _Les Insectes. _ 7. _Les Vers. _ 8. _Les Radiaires. _ 9. _Les Polypes. _

It will be seen that at this date two additional classes are proposedand defined--_i. E. _, the Annelides and the Cirrhipedes, though the classof Annelida was first privately characterized in his lectures for 1802. 

The elimination of the barnacles or Cirrhipedes from the molluscs was adecided step in advance, and was a proof of the acute observation andsound judgment of Lamarck. He says that this class is still veryimperfectly known and its position doubtful, and adds: "The Cirrhipedeshave up to the present time been placed among the molluscs, butalthough certain of them closely approach them in some respects, theyhave a special character which compels us to separate them. In short, inthe genera best known the feet of these animals are distinctlyarticulated and even crustaceous (_crustacés_). " He does not refer tothe nervous system, but this is done in his next work. It will beremembered that Cuvier overlooked this feature of the jointed limbs, andalso the crustaceous-like nervous system of the barnacles, and allowedthem to remain among the molluscs, notwithstanding the decisive steptaken by Lamarck. It was not until many years after (1830) that Thompsonproved by their life-history that barnacles are true crustacea. 

In the _Philosophie zoologique_ the ten classes of the invertebrates arearranged in the following order:

 _Les Mollusques. _ _Les Cirrhipèdes. _ _Les Annelides. _ _Les Crustacés. _ _Les Arachnides. _ _Les Insectes. _ _Les Vers. _ _Les Radiaires. _ _Les Polypes. _ _Les Infusoires. _

At the end of the second volume Lamarck gives a tabular view on a pageby itself (p.  463), showing his conception of the origin of thedifferent groups of animals. This is the first phylogeny or genealogicaltree ever published. 

TABLEAU

Servant à montrer l'origine des differens animaux. 

 Vers. Infusoires. . Polypes. . Radiaires. . . . . . . . . Insectes. . Arachnides. Annelides. Crustacés. Cirrhipèdes. Mollusques. . . . Poissons. Reptiles. . . . . . Oiseaux. . . . . . Monotrèmes. M.  Amphibies. . . . . . . . M.  Cétacés. . . . M.  Ongulés. M.  Onguiculés. 

The next innovation made by Lamarck in the _Extrait du Cours deZoologie_, in 1812, was not a happy one. In this work he distributed thefourteen classes of the animal kingdom into three groups, which he named_Animaux Apathiques_, _Sensibles_, and _Intelligens_. In thisphysiologico-psychological base for a classification he unwiselydeparted from his usual more solid foundation of anatomical structure, and the results were worthless. He, however, repeats it in his greatwork, _Histoire naturelle des Animaux sans Vertèbres_ (1815-1822). 

The sponges were by Cuvier, and also by Lamarck, accorded a positionamong the Polypes, near Alcyonium, which represents the latter's_Polypiers empâtés_; and it is interesting to notice that, for manyyears remaining among the Protozoa, meanwhile even by Agassiz regardedas vegetables, they were by Haeckel restored to a position among theCoelenterates, though for over twenty years they have by some Americanzoölogists been more correctly regarded as a separate phylum. [124]Lamarck also separated the seals and morses from the cetacea. Adoptinghis idea, Cuvier referred the seals to an order of carnivora. 

Another interesting matter, to which Professor Lacaze-Duthiers hascalled attention in his interesting letter on p.  77, is the positionassigned _Lucernaria_ among his _Radiaires molasses_ near what are nowCtenophora and Medusæ, though one would have supposed he would, fromits superficial resemblance to polyps, have placed it among the polyps. To Lamarck we are also indebted for the establishment in 1818 of themolluscan group of Heteropoda. 

Lamarck's acuteness is also shown in the fact that, whereas Cuvierplaced them among the acephalous molluscs, he did not regard theascidians as molluscs at all, but places them in a class by themselvesunder the name of _Tunicata_, following the Sipunculus worms. Yet heallowed them to remain near the Holothurians (then including Sipunculus)in his group of _Radiaires echinodermes_, between the latter and theVers. He differs from Cuvier in regarding the tunic as the homologue ofthe shell of Lamellibranches, remarking that it differs in beingmuscular and contractile. 

Lamarck's fame as a zoölogist rests chiefly on this great work. Itelicited the highest praise from his contemporaries. Besides containingthe innovations made in the classification of the animal kingdom, whichhe had published in previous works, it was a summary of all which wasthen known of the invertebrate classes, thus forming a most convenienthand-book, since it mentioned all the known genera and all the knownspecies except those of the insects, of which only the types arementioned. It passed through two editions, and still is not withoutvalue to the working systematist. 

In his _Histoire des Progrès des Sciences naturelles_ Cuvier does itjustice. Referring to the earlier volume, he states that "it hasextended immensely the knowledge, especially by a new distribution, ofthe shelled molluscs . .. M. De Lamarck has established with as muchcare as sagacity the genera of shells. " Again he says, in noticing thethree first volumes: "The great detail into which M. De Lamarck hasentered, the new species he has described, renders his work veryvaluable to naturalists, and renders most desirable its promptcontinuation, especially from the knowledge we have of means which thisexperienced professor possesses to carry to a high degree of perfectionthe enumeration which he will give us of the shells" (_Oeuvrescomplètes de Buffon_, 1828, t.  31, p.  354). 

"His excellences, " says Cleland, speaking of Lamarck as a scientificobserver, "were width of scope, fertility of ideas, and a preëminentfaculty of precise description, arising not only from a singularly tersestyle, but from a clear insight into both the distinctive features andthe resemblance of forms" (_Encyc. Britannica_, Art. LAMARCK). 

The work, moreover, is remarkable for being the first one to begin withthe simplest and to end with the most highly developed forms. 

Lamarck's special line of study was the Mollusca. How his work is stillregarded by malacologists is shown by the following letter from ourleading student of molluscs, Dr.  W.  H. Dall:

 "SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, "UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM, WASHINGTON, D.  C. , "_November 4, 1899. _

 "Lamarck was one of the best naturalists of his time, when geniuses abounded. His work was the first well-marked step toward a natural system as opposed to the formalities of Linné. He owed something to Cuvier, yet he knew how to utilize the work in anatomy offered by Cuvier in making a natural classification. His failing eyesight, which obliged him latterly to trust to the eyes of others; his poverty and trials of various kinds, more than excuse the occasional slips which we find in some of the later volumes of the _Animaux sans Vertèbres_. These are rather of the character of typographical errors than faults of scheme or principle. 

 "The work of Lamarck is really the foundation of rational natural malacological classification; practically all that came before his time was artificial in comparison. Work that came later was in the line of expansion and elaboration of Lamarck's, without any change of principle. Only with the application of embryology and microscopical work of the most modern type has there come any essential change of method, and this is rather a new method of getting at the facts than any fundamental change in the way of using them when found. I shall await your work on Lamarck's biography with great interest. 

 "I remain, "Yours sincerely, "WILLIAM H. DALL. "

FOOTNOTES:

[119] During the same period (1803-1829) Russia sent out expeditions tothe North and Northeast, accompanied by the zoölogists Tilesius, Langsdorff, Chamisso, Eschscholtz, and Brandt, all of them of Germanbirth and education. From 1823 to 1850 England fitted up and sent outexploring expeditions commanded by Beechey, Fitzroy, Belcher, Ross, Franklin, and Stanley, the naturalists of which were Bennett, Owen, Darwin, Adams, and Huxley. From Germany, less of a maritime country, ata later date, Humboldt, Spix, Prince Wied-Neuwied, Natterer, Perty, andothers made memorable exploring expeditions and journeys. 

[120] These papers have been mercilessly criticised by Blainville in his"Cuvier et Geoffroy St.  Hilaire. " In the second article--_i. E. _, on theanatomy of the limpet--Cuvier, in considering the organs, follows nodefinite plan; he gives a description "_tout-a-fait fantastique_" of themuscular fibres of the foot, and among other errors in this first essayon comparative anatomy he mistakes the tongue for the intromittentorgan; the salivary glands, and what is probably part of the brain, being regarded as the testes, with other "_erreurs matériellesinconcevables, même à l'époque ou elle fut rédigée_. " In his firstarticle he mistakes a species of the myriapod genus Glomeris for theisopod genus Armadillo. In this he is corrected by the editor (possiblyLamarck himself), who remarks in a footnote that the forms to whichM.  Cuvier refers under the name of Armadillo are veritable species ofJulus. We have verified these criticisms of Cuvier by reference to hispapers in the "Journal. " It is of interest to note, as Blainville does, that Cuvier at this period admits that there is a passage from theIsopoda to the armadilloes and Julus. Cuvier, then twenty-three yearsold, wrote: "_Nous sommes donc descendus par degrès, des Écrevisses auxSquilles, de celles-ci aux Aselles, puis aux Cloportes, aux Armadilleset aux Ïules_" (_Journal d'Hist. Nat. _, tom.  ii. , p.  29, 1792). Theseerrors, as regards the limpet, were afterwards corrected by Cuvier(though he does not refer to his original papers) in his _Mémoires pourservir à l'Histoire et à l'Anatomie des Mollusques_ (1817). 

[121] _Tableau élémentaire de l'Histoire naturelle des Animaux. _ Paris, An VI. (1798). 8vo, pp.  710. With 14 plates. 

[122] Tome i. , p.  123. 

[123] In his _Histoire des Progrès des Sciences naturelles_ Cuvier takesto himself part of the credit of founding the class Crustacea, statingthat Aristotle had already placed them in a class by themselves, andadding, "_MM.  Cuvier et de Lamarck les en out distingués par descaractères de premier ordre tirés de leur circulation. _" UndoubtedlyCuvier described the circulation, but it was Lamarck who actuallyrealized the taxonomic importance of this feature and placed them in adistinct class. 

[124] See A. Hyatt's _Revision of North American Poriferæ_, Part II. (Boston, 1877, p.  11); also the present writer in his _Text-book ofZoölogy_ (1878). 

CHAPTER XIII

THE EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON AND OF GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE

Of the French precursors of Lamarck there were four--Duret (1609), DeMaillet (1748), Robinet (1768), and Buffon. The opinions of the firstthree could hardly be taken seriously, as they were crude and fantastic, though involving the idea of descent. The suggestions and hypotheses ofBuffon and of Erasmus Darwin were of quite a different order, anddeserve careful consideration. 

[Illustration: MAISON DE BUFFON, IN WHICH LAMARCK LIVED, 1793-1829]

George Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, was born in 1707 at Montbard, Burgundy, in the same year as Linné. He died at Paris in 1788, at theage of eighty-one years. He inherited a large property from his father, who was a councillor of the parliament of Burgundy. He studied at Dijon, and travelled abroad. Buffon was rich, but, greatly to his credit, devoted all his life to the care of the Royal Garden and to writing hisworks, being a most prolific author. He was not an observer, not even acloset naturalist. "I have passed, " he is reported to have said, "fiftyyears at my desk. " Appointed in 1739, when he was thirty-two years old, Intendant of the Royal Garden, he divided his time between his retreatat Montbard and Paris, spending four months in Paris and the remainderof the year at Montbard, away from the distractions and dissipations ofthe capital. It is significant that he wrote his great _Histoirenaturelle_ at Montbard and not at Paris, where were the collections ofnatural history. 

His biographer, Flourens, says: "What dominates in the character ofBuffon is elevation, force, the love of greatness and glory; he lovedmagnificence in everything. His fine figure, his majestic air, seemed tohave some relation with the greatness of his genius; and nature hadrefused him none of those qualities which could attract the attention ofmankind. 

"Nothing is better known than the _naïveté_ of his self-esteem; headmired himself with perfect honesty, frankly, but good-naturedly. "

He was once asked how many great men he could really mention; heanswered: "Five--Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and myself. " Hisadmirable style gained him immediate reputation and glory throughout theworld of letters. His famous epigram, "_Le style est l'homme même_" isfamiliar to every one. That his moral courage was scarcely of a highorder is proved by his little affair with the theologians of theSorbonne. Buffon was not of the stuff of which martyrs are made. 

His forte was that of a brilliant writer and most industrious compiler, a popularizer of science. He was at times a bold thinker; but hisprudence, not to say timidity, in presenting in his ironical way histhoughts on the origin of things, is annoying, for we do not alwaysunderstand what Buffon did really believe about the mutability or thefixity of species, as too plain speaking in the days he wrote often ledto persecution and personal hazard. [125]

His cosmological ideas were based on those of Burnet and Leibnitz. Hisgeological notions were founded on the labors of Palissy, Steno, Woodward, and Whiston. He depended upon his friend Daubenton foranatomical facts, and on Gueneau de Montbéliard and the Abbé Bexon forhis zoölogical data. As Flourens says, "Buffon was not exactly anobserver: others observed and discovered for him. He discovered, himself, the observations of others; he sought for ideas, others soughtfacts for him. " How fulsome his eulogists were is seen in the case ofFlourens, who capped the climax in exclaiming, "Buffon is Leibnitz withthe eloquence of Plato;" and he adds, "He did not write for savants: hewrote for all mankind. " No one now reads Buffon, while the works ofRéaumur, who preceded him, are nearly as valuable as ever, since theyare packed with careful observations. 

The experiments of Redi, of Swammerdam, and of Vallisneri, and theobservations of Réaumur, had no effect on Buffon, who maintained that, of the different forms of genesis, "spontaneous generation" is not onlythe most frequent and the most general, but the most ancient--namely, the primitive and the most universal. [126]

Buffon by nature was unsystematic, and he possessed little of the spiritor aim of the true investigator. He left no technical papers or memoirs, or what we would call contributions to science. In his history ofanimals he began with the domestic breeds, and then described those ofmost general, popular interest, those most known. He knew, asMalesherbes claimed, little about the works even of Linné and othersystematists, neither grasping their principles nor apparently caring toknow their methods. His single positive addition to zoölogical sciencewas generalizations on the geographical distribution of animals. Herecognized that the animals of the tropical and southern portions of theold and new worlds were entirely unlike, while those of North Americaand northern Eurasia were in many cases the same. 

We will first bring together, as Flourens and also Butler have done, hisscattered fragmentary views, or rather suggestions, on the fixity ofspecies, and then present his thoughts on the mutability of species. "The species" is then "an abstract and general term. "[127] "There onlyexist individuals and _suites_ of individuals, that is to say, species. "[128] He also says that Nature "imprints on each species itsunalterable characters;" that "each species has an equal right tocreation;"[129] that species, even those nearest allied, "are separatedby an interval over which nature cannot pass;"[130] and that "eachspecies having been independently created, the first individuals haveserved as a model for their descendants. "[131]

Buffon, however, shows the true scientific spirit in speaking of finalcauses. 

 "The pig, " he says, "is not formed as an original, special, and perfect type; its type is compounded of that of many other animals. It has parts which are evidently useless, or which, at any rate, it cannot use. " . .. "But we, ever on the lookout to refer all parts to a certain end--when we can see no apparent use for them, suppose them to have hidden uses, and imagine connections which are without foundation, and serve only to obscure our perception of Nature as she really is: we fail to see that we thus rob philosophy of her true character, which is to inquire into the 'how' of these things--into the manner in which Nature acts--and that we substitute for this true object a vain idea, seeking to divine the 'why'--the ends which she has proposed in acting" (tome v. , p.  104, 1755, _ex_ Butler). 

The volumes of the _Histoire naturelle_ on animals, beginning withtome iv. , appeared in the years 1753 to 1767, or over a period offourteen years. Butler, in his _Evolution, Old and New_, effectuallydisposes of Isidore Geoffroy St.  Hilaire's statement that at thebeginning of his work (tome iv. , 1753) he affirms the fixity of species, while from 1761 to 1766 he declares for variability. But Butler assertsfrom his reading of the first edition that "from the very first chapteronward he leant strongly to mutability, even if he did not openly avowhis belief in it. .. . The reader who turns to Buffon himself will findthat the idea that Buffon took a less advanced position in his old agethan he had taken in middle life is also without foundation"[132](p.  104). 

But he had more to say on the other side, that of the mutability ofspecies, and it is these tentative views that his commentators haveassumed to have been his real sentiments or belief, and for this reasonplace Buffon among the evolutionists, though he had little or no idea ofevolution in the enlarged and thoroughgoing sense of Lamarck. 

He states, however, that the presence of callosities on the legs of thecamel and llama "are the unmistakable results of rubbing or friction; soalso with the callosities of baboons and the pouched monkeys, and thedouble soles of man's feet. "[133] In this point he anticipates ErasmusDarwin and Lamarck. As we shall see, however, his notions were much lessfirmly grounded than those of Erasmus Darwin, who was a close observeras well as a profound thinker. 

In his chapter on the _Dégénération des Animaux_, or, as it istranslated, "modification of animals, " Buffon insists that the threecauses are climate, food, and domestication. The examples he gives arethe sheep, which having originated, as he thought, from the mufflon, shows marked changes. The ox varies under the influence of food; rearedwhere the pasturage is rich it is twice the size of those living in adry country. The races of the torrid zones bear a hump on theirshoulders; "the zebu, the buffalo, is, in short, only a variety, only arace of our domestic ox. " He attributed the camel's hump to domesticity. He refers the changes of color in the northern hare to the simple changeof seasons. 

He is most explicit in referring to the agency of climate, and also totime and to the uniformity of nature's processes in causing variation. Writing in 1756 he says:

 "If we consider each species in the different climates which it inhabits we shall find perceptible varieties as regards size and form; they all derive an impress to a greater or less extent from the climate in which they live. These changes are only made slowly and imperceptibly. Nature's great workman is time. He marches ever with an even pace and does nothing by leaps and bounds, but by degrees, gradations, and succession he does all things; and the changes which he works--at first imperceptible--become little by little perceptible, and show themselves eventually in results about which there can be no mistake. Nevertheless, animals in a free, wild state are perhaps less subject than any other living beings, man not excepted, to alterations, changes, and variations of all kinds. Being free to choose their own food and climate, they vary less than domestic animals vary. "[134]

The Buffonian factor of the direct influence of climate is not ingeneral of so thoroughgoing a character as usually supposed by thecommentators of Buffon. He generally applies it to the superficialchanges, such as the increase or decrease in the amount of hair, orsimilar modifications not usually regarded as specific characters. Themodifications due to the direct influence of climate may be effected, hesays, within even a few generations. 

Under the head of geographical distribution (in tome ix. , 1761), inwhich subject Buffon made his most original contribution to exactbiology, he claims to have been the first "even to have suspected" thatnot a single tropical species is common to both eastern and westerncontinents, but that the animals common to both continents are thoseadapted to a temperate or cold climate. He even anticipates the subjectof migration in past geological times by supposing that those formstravelled from the Old World either over some land still unknown, or"more probably" over territory which has long since been submerged. [135]

 The mammoth "was certainly the greatest and strongest of all quadrupeds, but it has disappeared; and if so, how many smaller, feebler, and less remarkable species must have perished without leaving us any traces or even hints of their having existed? How many other species have changed their nature, that is to say, become perfected or degraded, through great changes in the distribution of land and ocean; through the cultivation or neglect of the country which they inhabit; through the long-continued effects of climatic changes, so that they are no longer the same animals that they once were. Yet of all living beings after man the quadrupeds are the ones whose nature is most fixed and form most constant; birds and fishes vary much more easily; insects still more again than these; and if we descend to plants, which certainly cannot be excluded from animated nature, we shall be surprised at the readiness with which species are seen to vary, and at the ease with which they change their forms and adopt new natures. "[136]

The following passages, debarring the error of deriving all the Americanfrom the Old World forms, and the mistake in supposing that the Americanforms grew smaller than their ancestors in the Old World, certainlysmack of the principle of isolation and segregation, and this isBuffon's most important contribution to the theory of descent. 

 "It is probable, then, that all the animals of the New World are derived from congeners in the Old, without any deviation from the ordinary course of nature. We may believe that, having become separated in the lapse of ages by vast oceans and countries which they could not traverse, they have gradually been affected by, and derived impressions from, a climate which has itself been modified so as to become a new one through the operations of those same causes which dissociated the individuals of the Old and the New World from one another; thus in the course of time they have grown smaller and changed their characters. This, however, should not prevent our classifying them as different species now, for the difference is no less real though it dates from the creation. _Nature, I maintain, is in a state of continual flux and movement. It is enough for man if he can grasp her as she is in his own time, and throw but a glance or two upon the past and future, so as to try and perceive what she may have been in former times and what one day she may attain to. _"[137]

Buffon thus suggests the principle of the struggle for existence toprevent overcrowding, resulting in the maintenance of the balance ofnature:

 "It may be said that the movement of Nature turns upon two immovable pivots--one, the illimitable fecundity which she has given to all species; the other, the innumerable difficulties which reduce the results of that fecundity, and leave throughout time nearly the same quantity of individuals in every species; . .. Destruction and sterility follow closely upon excessive fecundity, and, independently of the contagion which follows inevitably upon overcrowding, each species has its own special sources of death and destruction, which are of themselves sufficient to compensate for excess in any past generation. "[138]

He also adds, "The species the least perfect, the most delicate, themost unwieldy, the least active, the most unarmed, etc. , have alreadydisappeared or will disappear. "[139]

On one occasion, in writing on the dog, he anticipates Erasmus Darwinand Lamarck in ascribing to the direct cause of modification the innerfeelings of the animal modified, change of condition being the indirectcause. [140] He, however, did not suggest the idea of the transmission ofacquired characters by heredity, and does not mention the word heredity. 

These are all the facts he stated; but though not an observer, Buffonwas a broad thinker, and was led from these few data to generalize, ashe could well do, from the breadth of his knowledge of geology gainedfrom the works of his predecessors, from Leibnitz to Woodward andWhiston. 

 "After the rapid glance, " he says, "at these variations, which indicate to us the special changes undergone by each species, there arises a more important consideration, and the view of which is broader; it is that of the transformation (_changement_) of the species themselves; it is that more ancient modification which has gone on from time immemorial, which seems to have been made in each family or, if we prefer, in each of the genera in which were comprised more or less allied species. "[141]

In the beginning of his first volume he states "that we can descend byalmost imperceptible degrees from the most perfect creature to the mostformless matter--from the most highly organized animal to the mostentirely inorganic substance. We will recognize this gradation as thegreat work of nature; and we will observe it not only as regards sizeand form, but also in respect of movements and in the successivegenerations of every species. "

 "Hence, " he continues, "arises the difficulty of arriving at any perfect system or method in dealing either with nature as a whole or even with any single one of her subdivisions. The gradations are so subtle that we are often obliged to make arbitrary divisions. Nature knows nothing about our classifications, and does not choose to lend herself to them without reasons. We therefore see a number of intermediate species and objects which it is very hard to classify, and which of necessity derange our system, whatever it may be. "[142]

This is all true, and was probably felt by Buffon's predecessors, but itdoes not imply that he thought these forms had descended from oneanother. 

 "In thus comparing, " he adds, "all the animals, and placing them each in its proper genus, we shall find that the two hundred species whose history we have given may be reduced to a quite small number of families or principal sources from which it is not impossible that all the others may have issued. "[143]

He then establishes, on the one hand, nine species which he regarded asisolated, and, on the other, fifteen principal genera, primitive sourcesor, as we would say, ancestral forms, from which he derived all theanimals (mammals) known to him. 

Hence he believed that he could derive the dog, the jackal, the wolf, and the fox from a single one of these four species; yet he remarks, _per contra_, in 1753:

 "Although we cannot demonstrate that the production of a species by modification is a thing impossible to nature, the number of contrary probabilities is so enormous that, even philosophically, we can scarcely doubt it; for if any species has been produced by the modification of another, if the species of ass has been derived from that of the horse, this could have been done only successively and by gradual steps: there would have been between the horse and ass a great number of intermediate animals, the first of which would gradually differ from the nature of the horse, and the last would gradually approach that of the ass; and why do we not see to-day the representatives, the descendants of those intermediate species? Why are only the two extremes living?" (tome iv. , p.  390). "If we once admit that the ass belongs to the horse family, and that it only differs from it because it has been modified (_dégénéré_), we may likewise say that the monkey is of the same family as man, that it is a modified man, that man and the monkey have had a common origin like the horse and ass, that each family has had but a single source, and even that all the animals have come from a single animal, which in the succession of ages has produced, while perfecting and modifying itself, all the races of other animals" (tome iv. , p.  382). "If it were known that in the animals there had been, I do not say several species, but a single one which had been produced by modification from another species; if it were true that the ass is only a modified horse, there would be no limit to the power of nature, and we would not be wrong in supposing that from a single being she has known how to derive, with time, all the other organized beings" (_ibid. _, p.  382). 

The next sentence, however, translated, reads as follows:

 "But no. It is certain from revelation that all animals have alike been favored with the grace of an act of direct creation, and that the first pair of every species issued fully formed from the hands of the Creator" (tome iv. , p.  383). 

In which of these views did Buffon really believe? Yet they appear inthe same volume, and not at different periods of his life. 

He actually does say in the same volume (iv. , p.  358): "It is notimpossible that all species may be derivations (_issues_). " In the samevolume also (p.  215) he remarks:

 "There is in nature a general prototype in each species on which each individual is modelled, but which seems, in being realized, to change or become perfected by circumstances; so that, relatively to certain qualities, there is a singular (_bizarre_) variation in appearance in the succession of individuals, and at the same time a constancy in the entire species which appears to be admirable. "

And yet we find him saying at the same period of his life, in theprevious volume, that species "are the only beings in nature, beingsperpetual, as ancient, as permanent as she. "[144] A few pages farther onin the same volume of the same work, apparently written at the sametime, he is strongly and stoutly anti-evolutional, affirming: "Theimprint of each species is a type whose principal features are graven incharacters forever ineffaceable and permanent. "[145]

In this volume (iv. , p.  55) he remarks that the senses, whether in manor in animals, may be greatly developed by exercise. 

The impression left on the mind, after reading Buffon, is that even ifhe threw out these suggestions and then retracted them, from fear ofannoyance or even persecution from the bigots of his time, he did nothimself always take them seriously, but rather jotted them down aspassing thoughts. Certainly he did not present them in the formal, forcible, and scientific way that Erasmus Darwin did. The result is thatthe tentative views of Buffon, which have to be with much researchextracted from the forty-four volumes of his works, would now beregarded as in a degree superficial and valueless. But they appearedthirty-four years before Lamarck's theory, and though not epoch-making, they are such as will render the name of Buffon memorable for all time. 

ÉTIENNE GEOFFROY ST.  HILAIRE. 

Étienne Geoffroy St.  Hilaire was born at Étampes, April 15, 1772. Hedied in Paris in 1844. He was destined for the church, but his tasteswere for a scientific career. His acquaintance with the Abbé Haüy andDaubenton led him to study mineralogy. He was the means of liberatingHaüy from a political prison; the Abbé, as the result of the events ofAugust, 1792, being promptly set free at the request of the Academy ofSciences. The young Geoffroy was in his turn aided by the illustriousHaüy, who obtained for him the position of sub-guardian and demonstratorof mineralogy in the Cabinet of Natural History. At the early age oftwenty-one years, as we have seen, he was elected professor of zoölogyin the museum, in charge of the department of mammals and birds. He wasthe means of securing for Cuvier, then of his own age, a position in themuseum as professor-adjunct of comparative anatomy. For two years (1795and 1796) the two youthful savants were inseparable, sharing the sameapartments, the same table, the same amusements, the same studies, andtheir scientific papers were prepared in company and signed in common. 

[Illustration: É. GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE]

Geoffroy became a member of the great scientific commission sent toEgypt by Napoleon (1789-1802). By his boldness and presence of mind he, with Savigny and the botanist Delille, saved the treasures which atAlexandria had fallen into the hands of the English general in command. In 1808 he was charged by Napoleon with the duty of organizing publicinstruction in Portugal. Here again, by his address and firmness, hesaved the collections and exchanges made there from the hands of theEnglish. When thirty-six years old he was elected a member of theInstitute. 

In 1818 he began to discuss philosophical anatomy, the doctrine ofhomologies; he also studied the embryology of the mammals, and was thefounder of teratology. It was he who discovered the vestigial teeth ofthe baleen whale and those of embryo birds, and the bearing of this onthe doctrine of descent must have been obvious to him. 

As early as 1795, before Lamarck had changed his views as to thestability of species, the young Geoffroy, then twenty-three years old, dared to claim that species may be only "_les diverses dégénérationsd'un même type_. " These views he did not abandon, nor, on the otherhand, did he actively promulgate them. It was not until thirty yearslater, in his memoir on the anatomy of the gavials, that he began theseries of his works bearing on the question of species. In 1831 was heldthe famous debates between himself and Cuvier in the Academy ofSciences. But the contest was not so much on the causes of the variationof species as on the doctrine of homologies and the unity oforganization in the animal kingdom. 

In fact, Geoffroy did not adopt the views peculiar to his old friendLamarck, but was rather a follower of Buffon. His views were preceded bytwo premises. 

The species is only "_fixé sous la raison du maintien de l'étatconditionnel de son milieu ambiant_. "

It is modified, it changes, if the environment (_milieu ambiant_)varies, and according to the extent (selon la portée) of the variationsof the latter. [146]

As the result, among recent or living beings there are no essentialdifferences as regards them--"_c'est le même cours d'événements_, " or"_la même marche d'excitation_. "[147]

On the other hand, the _monde ambiant_ having undergone more or lessconsiderable change from one geological epoch to another, the atmospherehaving even varied in its chemical composition, and the conditions ofrespiration having been thus modified, [148] the beings then living woulddiffer in structure from their ancestors of ancient times, and woulddiffer from them according "to the degree of the modifying power. "[149]Again, he says, "The animals living to-day have been derived by a seriesof uninterrupted generations from the extinct animals of theantediluvian world. "[150] He gave as an example the crocodiles of thepresent day, which he believed to have descended from the fossil forms. While he admitted the possibility of one type passing into another, separated by characters of more than generic value, he always, accordingto his son Isidore, rejected the view which made all the living speciesdescend "_d'une espèce antediluvienne primitive_. "[151] It will be seenthat Geoffroy St.  Hilaire's views were chiefly based on palæontologicalevidence. He was throughout broad and philosophical, and his eloquentdemonstration in his _Philosophie anatomique_ of the doctrine ofhomologies served to prepare the way for modern morphology, and affordsone of the foundation stones on which rests the theory of descent. Though temporarily vanquished in the debate with Cuvier, who was aforceful debater and represented the views then prevalent, a latergeneration acknowledges that he was in the right, and remembers him asone of the founders of evolution. 

FOOTNOTES:

[125] Mr.  Morley, in his _Rousseau_, gives a startling picture of thehostility of the parliament at the period (1762) when Buffon's worksappeared. Not only was Rousseau hunted out of France, and his booksburnt by the public executioner, but there was "hardly a single man ofletters of that time who escaped arbitrary imprisonment" (p.  270); amongothers thus imprisoned was Diderot. At this time (1750-1765) Malesherbes(born 1721, guillotined 1794), one of the "best instructed and mostenlightened men of the century, " was Directeur de la Libraire. "Theprocess was this: a book was submitted to him; he named a censor for it;on the censor's report the director gave or refused permission to printor required alterations. Even after these formalities were compliedwith, the book was liable to a decree of the royal council, a decree ofthe parliament, or else a lettre-de-cachet might send the author to theBastille" (Morley's _Rousseau_, p.  266). 

[126] _Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière. _ 1st edition. Imprimerie royale. Paris: 1749-1804, 44 vols. 4to. Tome iv. , p.  357. This is the best of all the editions of Buffon, says Flourens, fromwhose _Histoire des Travaux et des Idées de Buffon_, 1st edition (Paris, 1844), we take some of the quotations and references, which, however, wehave verified. We have also quoted some passages from Buffon translatedby Butler in his "Evolution, Old and New" (London, 1879). 

[127] _L.  c. _, tome iv. , p.  384 (1753). This is the first volume on theanimals below man. 

[128] Tome xi. , p.  369 (1764). 

[129] Tome xii. , p.  3 (1764). 

[130] Tome v. , p.  59 (1755). 

[131] Tome xiii. , p.  vii. (1765). 

[132] Osborn adopts, without warrant we think, Isidore GeoffroySt.  Hilaire's notion, stating that he "shows clearly that his opinionsmarked three periods. " The writings of Isidore, the son of ÉtienneGeoffroy, have not the vigor, exactness, or depth of those of hisfather. 

[133] Tome xiv. , p.  326 (1766). 

[134] Tome vi. , pp.  59-60 (1756). 

[135] Butler, _l.  c. _, pp.  145-146. 

[136] Tome ix. , p.  127, 1761 (_ex_ Butler). 

[137] Tome ix. , p.  127, 1761 (_ex_ Butler). 

[138] Tome vi. , p.  252, 1756 (quoted from Butler, _l.  c. _, pp.  123-126). 

[139] Quoted from Osborn, who takes it from De Lanessan. 

[140] Butler, _l.  c. _, p.  122 (from Buffon, tome v. , 1755). 

[141] Tome xiv. , p.  335 (1766). 

[142] Tome i. , p.  13. 

[143] Tome xiv. , p.  358. 

[144] Tome xiii. , p.  i. 

[145] Tome xiii. , p.  ix. 

[146] _Études progressives d'un Naturaliste_, etc. , 1835, p.  107. 

[147] _Ibid. _

[148] _Sur l'Influence du Monde ambiant pour modifier les Formes animaux(Mémoires Acad. Sciences_, xii. , 1833, pp.  63, 75). 

[149] _Recherches sur l'Organisation des Gavials (Mémoires du Muséumd'Histoire naturelle_), xii. , p.  97 (1825). 

[150] _Sur l'Influence du Monde ambiant_, p.  74. 

[151] _Dictionnaire de la Conversation_, xxxi. , p.  487, 1836 (quoted byI. Geoffroy St.  Hilaire); _Histoire nat. Gén. Des Règnes organiques_, ii. , 2^e partie; also _Résumé_, p.  30 (1859). 

CHAPTER XIV

THE VIEWS OF ERASMUS DARWIN

Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles Darwin, was born in 1731, ortwenty-four years after Buffon. He was an English country physician witha large practice, and not only interested in philosophy, mechanics, andnatural science, but given to didactic rhyming, as evinced by _TheBotanical Garden_ and _The Loves of the Plants_, the latter of which wastranslated into French in 1800, and into Italian in 1805. His "shrewdand homely mind, " his powers of keen observation and strong common sensewere revealed in his celebrated work _Zoonomia_, which was published intwo volumes in 1794, and translated into German in 1795-99. He was not azoölogist, published no separate scientific articles, and his strikingand original views on evolution, which were so far in advance of histime, appear mostly in the section on "Generation, " comprising 173 pagesof his _Zoonomia_, [152] which was mainly a medical work. The book waswidely read, excited much discussion, and his views decided opposition. Samuel Butler in his _Evolution, Old and New_ (1879) remarks: "Paley's_Natural Theology_ is written throughout at the _Zoonomia_, though heis careful, _moro suo_, never to mention this work by name. Paley'ssuccess was probably one of the chief causes of the neglect into whichthe Buffonian and Darwinian systems fell in this country. " Dr.  Darwindied in the same year (1802) as that in which the _Natural Theology_ waspublished. 

Krause also writes of the reception given by his contemporaries to his"physio-philosophical ideas. " "They spoke of his wild and eccentricfancies, and the expression 'Darwinising' (as employed, for example, bythe poet Coleridge when writing on Stillingfleet) was accepted inEngland nearly as the antithesis of sober biological investigation. "[153]

The grandson of Erasmus Darwin had little appreciation of the views ofhim of whom, through atavic heredity, he was the intellectual andscientific child. "It is curious, " he says in the 'Historical Sketch' ofthe _Origin of Species_--"it is curious how largely my grandfather, Dr.  Erasmus Darwin, anticipated the views and erroneous grounds ofopinion of Lamarck in his _Zoonomia_ (vol.  i. , pp.  500-510), publishedin 1794. " It seems a little strange that Charles Darwin did not devote afew lines to stating just what his ancestor's views were, for certain ofthem, as we shall see, are anticipations of his own. 

The views of Erasmus Darwin may thus be summarily stated:

1. All animals have originated "from a single living filament" (p.  230), or, stated in other words, referring to the warm-blooded animals alone, "one is led to conclude that they have alike been produced from asimilar living filament" (p.  236); and again he expresses the conjecturethat one and the same kind of living filament is and has been the causeof all organic life (p.  244). It does not follow that he was a"spermist, " since he strongly argued against the incasement or"evolution" theory of Bonnet. 

2. Changes produced by differences of climate and even seasons. Thus"the sheep of warm climates are covered with hair instead of wool, andthe hares and partridges of the latitudes which are long buried in snowbecome white during the winter months" (p.  234). Only a passingreference is made to this factor, and the effects of domestication arebut cursorily referred to. In this respect Darwin's views differed muchfrom Buffon's, with whom they were the primary causes in themodification of animals. 

The other factors or agencies are not referred to by Buffon, showingthat Darwin was not indebted to Buffon, but thought out the matter inhis own independent way. 

3. "Fifthly, from their first rudiment or primordium to the terminationof their lives, all animals undergo perpetual transformations, which arein part produced by their own exertions in consequence of their desiresand aversions, of their pleasures and their pains, or of irritations orof associations; and many of these acquired forms or propensities aretransmitted to their posterity" (p.  237). The three great objects ofdesire are, he says, "lust, hunger, and security" (p.  237). 

4. Contests of the males for the possession of the females, or law ofbattle. Under the head of desire he dwells on the desire of the male forthe exclusive possession of the female; and "these have acquired weaponsto combat each other for this purpose, " as the very thick, shield-likehorny skin on the shoulders of the boar, and his tusks, the horns of thestag, the spurs of cocks and quails. "The final cause, " he says, "ofthis contest among the males seems to be that the strongest and mostactive animal should propagate the species, which should thence becomeimproved" (p.  238). This savors so strongly of sexual selection that wewonder very much that Charles Darwin repudiated it as "erroneous. " It isnot mentioned by Lamarck, nor is Dr.  Darwin's statement of the exertionsand desires of animals at all similar to Lamarck's, who could not haveborrowed his ideas on appetency from Darwin or any other predecessor. 

5. The transmission of characters acquired during the lifetime of theparent. This is suggested in the following crude way:

 "Thirdly, when we enumerate the great changes produced in the species of animals before their maturity, as, for example, when the offspring reproduces the effects produced upon the parent by accident or cultivation; or the changes produced by the mixture of species, as in mules; or the changes produced probably by the exuberance of nourishment supplied to the fetus, as in monstrous births with additional limbs, many of these enormities of shape are propagated and continued as a variety, at least, if not as a new species of animal. I have seen a breed of cats with an additional claw on every foot; of poultry also with an additional claw, and with wings to their feet, and of others without rumps. Mr.  Buffon mentions a breed of dogs without tails, which are common at Rome and Naples, which he supposes to have been produced by a custom, long established, of cutting their tails close off. There are many kinds of pigeons admired for their peculiarities which are more or less thus produced and propagated. "[154]

6. The means of procuring food has, he says, "diversified the forms ofall species of animals. Thus the nose of the swine has become hard forthe purpose of turning up the soil in search of insects and of roots. The trunk of the elephant is an elongation of the nose for the purposeof pulling down the branches of trees for his food, and for taking upwater without bending his knees. Beasts of prey have acquired strongjaws or talons. Cattle have acquired a rough tongue and a rough palateto pull off the blades of grass, as cows and sheep. Some birds haveacquired harder beaks to crack nuts, as the parrot. Others have acquiredbeaks to break the harder seeds, as sparrows. Others for the softerkinds of flowers, or the buds of trees, as the finches. Other birds haveacquired long beaks to penetrate the moister soils in search of insectsor roots, as woodcocks, and others broad ones to filtrate the water oflakes and to retain aquatic insects. All which seem to have beengradually produced during many generations by the perpetual endeavors ofthe creature to supply the want of food, and to have been delivered totheir posterity with constant improvement of them for the purposerequired" (p.  238). 

7. The third great want among animals is that of security, which seemsto have diversified the forms of their bodies and the color of them;these consist in the means of escaping other animals more powerful thanthemselves. [155] Hence some animals have acquired wings instead of legs, as the smaller birds, for purposes of escape. Others, great length offin or of membrane, as the flying-fish and the bat. Others have acquiredhard or armed shells, as the tortoise and the Echinus marinus (p.  239). 

 "The colors of insects, " he says, "and many smaller animals contribute to conceal them from the dangers which prey upon them. Caterpillars which feed on leaves are generally green; earthworms the color of the earth which they inhabit; butterflies, which frequent flowers, are colored like them; small birds which frequent hedges have greenish backs like the leaves, and light-colored bellies like the sky, and are hence less visible to the hawk, who passes under them or over them. Those birds which are much amongst flowers, as the goldfinch (_Fringilla carduelis_), are furnished with vivid colors. The lark, partridge, hare, are the color of dry vegetables or earth on which they rest. And frogs vary their color with the mud of the streams which they frequent; and those which live on trees are green. Fish, which are generally suspended in water, and swallows, which are generally suspended in air, have their backs the color of the distant ground, and their bellies of the sky. In the colder climates many of these become white during the existence of the snows. Hence there is apparent design in the colors of animals, whilst those of vegetables seem consequent to the other properties of the materials which possess them" (_The Loves of the Plants_, p.  38, note). 

In his _Zoonomia_ (§ xxxix. , vi. ) Darwin also speaks of the efficientcause of the various colors of the eggs of birds and of the hair andfeathers of animals which are adapted to the purpose of concealment. "Thus the snake, and wild cat, and leopard are so colored as to resembledark leaves and their light interstices" (p.  248). The eggs ofhedge-birds are greenish, with dark spots; those of crows and magpies, which are seen from beneath through wicker nests, are white, with darkspots; and those of larks and partridges are russet or brown, like theirnests or situations. He adds: "The final cause of their colors is easilyunderstood, as they serve some purpose of the animal, but the efficientcause would seem almost beyond conjecture. " Of all this subject ofprotective mimicry thus sketched out by the older Darwin, we find nohint or trace in any of Lamarck's writings. 

8. Great length of time. He speaks of the "great length of time sincethe earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before thecommencement of the history of mankind" (p.  240). 

In this connection it may be observed that Dr.  Darwin emphaticallyopposes the preformation views of Haller and Bonnet in these words:

 "Many ingenious philosophers have found so great difficulty in conceiving the manner of the reproduction of animals that they have supposed all the numerous progeny to have existed in miniature in the animal originally created, and that these infinitely minute forms are only evolved or distended as the embryon increases in the womb. This idea, besides being unsupported by any analogy we are acquainted with, ascribes a greater tenuity to organized matter than we can readily admit" (p.  317); and in another place he claims that "we cannot but be convinced that the fetus or embryon is formed by apposition of new parts, and not by the distention of a primordial nest of germs included one within another like the cups of a conjurer" (p.  235). 

9. To explain instinct he suggests that the young simply imitate theacts or example of their parents. He says that wild birds choose springas their building time "from the acquired knowledge that the mildtemperature of the air is more convenient for hatching their eggs;" andfurther on, referring to the fact that seed-eating animals generallyproduce their young in spring, he suggests that it is "part of thetraditional knowledge which they learn from the example of theirparents. "[156]

10. Hybridity. He refers in a cursory way to the changes produced by themixture of species, as in mules. 

Of these ten factors or principles, and other views of Dr.  Darwin, someare similar to those of Lamarck, while others are directly opposed. There are therefore no good grounds for supposing that Lamarck wasindebted to Darwin for his views. Thus Erasmus Darwin supposes that theformation of organs precedes their use. As he says, "The lungs must bepreviously formed before their exertions to obtain fresh air can exist;the throat or oesophagus must be formed previous to the sensation orappetites of hunger and thirst" (_Zoonomia_, p.  222). Again (_Zoonomia_, i. , p.  498), "From hence I conclude that with the acquisition of newparts, new sensations and new desires, as well as new powers, areproduced" (p.  226). Lamarck does not carry his doctrine ofuse-inheritance so far as Erasmus Darwin, who claimed, what some stillmaintain at the present day, that the offspring reproduces "the effectsproduced upon the parent by accident or cultivation. "

The idea that all animals have descended from a similar living filamentis expressed in a more modern and scientific way by Lamarck, who derivedthem from monads. 

The Erasmus Darwin way of stating that the transformations of animalsare in part produced by their own exertions in consequence of theirdesires and aversions, etc. , is stated in a quite different way byLamarck. 

Finally the principle of law of battle, or the combat between the malesfor the possession of the females, with the result "that the strongestand most active animal should propagate the species, " is not hinted atby Lamarck. This view, on the contrary, is one of the fundamentalprinciples of the doctrine of natural selection, and was made use of byCharles Darwin and others. So also Erasmus anticipated Charles Darwin inthe third great want of "security, " in seeking which the forms andcolors of animals have been modified. This is an anticipation of theprinciple of protective mimicry, so much discussed in these days byDarwin, Wallace, and others, and which was not even mentioned byLamarck. From the internal evidence of Lamarck's writings we thereforeinfer that he was in no way indebted to Erasmus Darwin for any hints orideas. [157]

FOOTNOTES:

[152] Vol.  ii. , 3d edition. Our references are to this edition. 

[153] Krause, _The Scientific Works of Erasmus Darwin_, footnote onp.  134: "See 'Athenæum, ' March, 1875, p.  423. "

[154] _Zoonomia_, i. , p.  505 (3d edition, p.  335). 

[155] The subject of protective mimicry is more explicitly stated byDr.  Darwin in his earlier book, _The Loves of the Plants_, and, asKrause states, though Rösel von Rosenhof in his _Insekten-Belustigungen_(Nurnberg, 1746) describes the resemblance which geometric caterpillars, and also certain moths when in repose, present to dry twigs, and thusconceal themselves, "this group of phenomena seems to have been firstregarded from a more general point of view by Dr.  Darwin. "

[156] _Zoonomia_, vol.  i. , p.  170. 

[157] Mr.  Samuel Butler, in his _Evolution, Old and New_, taking it forgranted that Lamarck was "a partisan of immutability till 1801, "intimates that "the secret of this sudden conversion must be found in aFrench translation by M.  Deleuze of Dr.  Darwin's poem, _The Loves of thePlants_, which appeared in 1800. Lamarck--the most eminent botanist ofhis time--was sure to have heard of and seen this, and would probablyknow the translator, who would be able to give him a fair idea of the_Zoonomia_" (p.  258). 

But this notion seems disproved by the fact that Lamarck delivered hisfamous lecture, published in 1801, during the last of April or in thefirst half of May, 1800. The views then presented must have been formedin his mind at least for some time--perhaps a year or more--previous, and were the result of no sudden inspiration, least of all from anyinformation given him by Deleuze, whom he probably never met. If Lamarckhad actually seen and read the _Zoonomia_ he would have been manlyenough to have given him credit for any novel ideas. Besides that, as wehave already seen, the internal evidence shows that Lamarck's views werein some important points entirely different from those of ErasmusDarwin, and were conceptions original with the French zoölogist. 

Krause in his excellent essay on the scientific works of Erasmus Darwin(1879) refers to Lamarck as "evidently a disciple of Darwin, " statingthat Lamarck worked out "in all directions" Erasmus Darwin's principlesof "will and active efforts" (p.  212). 

CHAPTER XV

WHEN DID LAMARCK CHANGE HIS VIEWS REGARDING THE MUTABILITY OF SPECIES?

Lamarck's mind was essentially philosophical. He was given to inquiringinto the causes and origin of things. When thirty-two years old he wrotehis "Researches on the Causes of the Principal Physical Facts, " thoughthis work did not appear from the press until 1794, when he was fiftyyears of age. In this treatise he inquires into the origin of compoundsand of minerals; also he conceived that all the rocks as well as allchemical compounds and minerals originated from organic life. Theseinquiries were reiterated in his "Memoirs on Physics and NaturalHistory, " which appeared in 1797, when he was fifty-three years old. 

The atmosphere of philosophic France, as well as of England and Germanyin the eighteenth century, was charged with inquiries into the origin ofthings material, though more especially of things immaterial. It was aperiod of energetic thinking. Whether Lamarck had read the works ofthese philosophers or not we have no means of knowing. Buffon, we know, was influenced by Leibnitz. 

Did Buffon's guarded suggestions have no influence on the young Lamarck?He enjoyed his friendship and patronage in early life, frequenting hishouse, and was for a time the travelling companion of Buffon's son. Itshould seem most natural that he would have been personally influencedby his great predecessor, but we see no indubitable trace of suchinfluence in his writings. Lamarckism is not Buffonism. It comprises inthe main quite a different, more varied and comprehensive set offactors. [158]

Was Lamarck influenced by the biological writings of Haller, Bonnet, orby the philosophic views of Condillac, whose _Essai sur l'Origine desConnaissances humaines_ appeared in 1786; or of Condorcet, whom he mustpersonally have known, and whose _Esquisse d'un Tableau historique desProgrès de l'Esprit humain_ was published in 1794?[159] In one case onlyin Lamarck's works do we find reference to these thinkers. 

Was Lamarck, as the result of his botanical studies from 1768 to 1793, and being puzzled, as systematic botanists are, by the variations of themore plastic species of plants, led to deny the fixity of species?

We have been unable to find any indications of a change of views in hisbotanical writings, though his papers are prefaced by philosophicalreflections. 

It would indeed be interesting to know what led Lamarck to change hisviews. Without any explanation as to the reason from his own pen, weare led to suppose that his studies on the invertebrates, his perceptionof the gradations in the animal scale from monad to man, together withhis inherent propensity to inquire into the origin of things, also hisstudies on fossils, as well as the broadening nature of his zoölogicalinvestigations and his meditations during the closing years of theeighteenth century, must gradually have led to a change of views. 

It was said by Isidore Geoffroy St.  Hilaire that Lamarck was "long apartisan of the immutability of species, "[160] but the use of the word"partisan" appears to be quite incorrect, as he only in one instanceexpresses such views. 

The only place where we have seen any statement of Lamarck's earlieropinions is in his _Recherches sur les Causes des principaux Faitsphysiques_, which was written, as the "advertisement" states, "abouteighteen years" before its publication in 1794. The treatise wasactually presented April 22, 1780, to the Académie des Sciences. [161] Itwill be seen by the following passages, which we translate, that, asHuxley states, this view presents a striking contrast to those to befound in the _Philosophie zoologique_:

 "685. Although my sole object in this article [article premier, p.  188] has only been to treat of the physical cause of the maintenance of life of organic beings, still I have ventured to urge at the outset that the existence of these astonishing beings by no means depends on nature; that all which is meant by the word nature cannot give life--namely, that all the faculties of matter, added to all possible circumstances, and even to the activity pervading the universe, cannot produce a being endowed with the power of organic movement, capable of reproducing its like, and subject to death. 

 "686. All the individuals of this nature which exist are derived from similar individuals, which, all taken together, constitute the entire species. However, I believe that it is as impossible for man to know the physical origin of the first individual of each species as to assign also physically the cause of the existence of matter or of the whole universe. This is at least what the result of my knowledge and reflection leads me to think. If there exist any varieties produced by the action of circumstances, these varieties do not change the nature of the species (_ces variétés ne dénaturent point les espèces_); but doubtless we are often deceived in indicating as a species what is only a variety; and I perceive that this error may be of consequence in reasoning on this subject" (tome ii. , pp.  213-214). 

It must apparently remain a matter of uncertainty whether this opinion, so decisively stated, was that of Lamarck at thirty-two years of age, and which he allowed to remain, as then stated, for eighteen years, orwhether he inserted it when reading the proofs in 1794. It would seem asif it were the expression of his views when a botanist and a young man. 

In his _Mémoires de Physique et d'Histoire naturelle_, which waspublished in 1797, there is nothing said bearing on the stability ofspecies, and though his work is largely a repetition of the_Recherches_, the author omits the passages quoted above. Was thisperiod of six years, between 1794 and 1800, given to a reconsiderationof the subject resulting in favor of the doctrine of descent?

Huxley quotes these passages, and then in a footnote (p.  211), afterstating that Lamarck's _Recherches_ was not published before 1794, andstating that at that time it presumably expressed Lamarck's matureviews, adds: "It would be interesting to know what brought about thechange of opinion manifested in the _Recherches sur l'Organisation desCorps vivans_, published only seven years later. "

In the appendix to this book (1802) he thus refers to his change ofviews: "I have for a long time thought that _species_ were constant innature, and that they were constituted by the individuals which belongto each of them. I am now convinced that I was in error in this respect, and that in reality only individuals exist in nature" (p.  141). 

Some clew in answer to the question as to when Lamarck changed his viewsis afforded by an almost casual statement by Lamarck in the additionentitled _Sur les Fossiles_ to his _Système des Animaux sans Vertèbres_(1801), where, after speaking of fossils as extremely valuable monumentsfor the study of the revolutions the earth has passed through atdifferent regions on its surface, and of the changes living beings havethere themselves successively undergone, he adds in parenthesis: "_Dansmes leçons j'ai toujours insiste sur ces considérations. _" Are we toinfer from this that these evolutionary views were expressed in hisfirst course, or in one of the earlier courses of zoölogicallectures--_i. E. _, soon after his appointment in 1793--and if not then, at least one or two, or perhaps several, years before the year 1800? Foreven if the change in his views were comparatively sudden, he must havemeditated upon the subject for months and even, perhaps, years, beforefinally committing himself to these views in print. So strong and bold athinker as Lamarck had already shown himself in these fields of thought, and one so inflexible and unyielding in holding to an opinion onceformed as he, must have arrived at such views only after longreflection. There is also every reason to suppose that Lamarck's theoryof descent was conceived by himself alone, from the evidence which laybefore him in the plants and animals he had so well studied for thepreceding thirty years, and that his inspiration came directly fromnature and not from Buffon, and least of all from the writings ofErasmus Darwin. 

FOOTNOTES:

[158] See the comparative summary of the views of the founders ofevolution at the end of Chapter XVII. 

[159] While Rousseau was living at Montmorency "his thought wanderedconfusedly round the notion of a treatise to be called 'SensitiveMorality or the Materialism of the Age, ' the object of which was toexamine the influence of external agencies, such as light, darkness, sound, seasons, food, noise, silence, motion, rest, on our corporealmachine, and thus, indirectly, upon the soul also. "--_Rousseau_, by JohnMorley (p.  164). 

[160] Butler's _Evolution, Old and New_ (p.  244), and Isidore GeoffroySt.  Hilaire's _Histoire naturelle générale_, tome ii. , p.  404 (1859). 

[161] After looking in vain through both volumes of the _Recherches_ forsome expression of Lamarck's earlier views, I found a mention of it inOsborn's _From the Greeks to Darwin_, p.  152, and reference to Huxley's_Evolution in Biology_, 1878 ("Darwiniana, " p.  210), where theparagraphs translated above are quoted in the original. 

CHAPTER XVI

THE STEPS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LAMARCK'S VIEWS ON EVOLUTION BEFORE THEPUBLICATION OF HIS _PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE_

I. _From the Système des Animaux sans Vertèbres_ (1801). 

The first occasion on which, so far as his published writings show, Lamarck expressed his evolutional views was in the opening lecture[162]of his course on the invertebrate animals delivered in the spring of1800, and published in 1801 as a preface to his _Système des Animauxsans Vertèbres_, this being the first sketch or prodromus of his latergreat work on the invertebrate animals. In the preface of this book, referring to the opening lecture, he says: "I have glanced at someimportant and philosophic views that the nature and limits of this workdo not permit me to develop, but which I propose to take up elsewherewith the details necessary to show on what facts they are based, andwith certain explanations which would prevent any one frommisunderstanding them. " It may be inferred from this that he had forsome time previous meditated on this theme. It will now be interestingto see what factors of evolution Lamarck employed in this first sketchof his theory. 

After stating the distinctions existing between the vertebrate andinvertebrate animals, and referring to the great diversity of animalforms, he goes on to say that Nature began with the most simplyorganized, and having formed them, "then with the aid of much time andof favorable circumstances she formed all the others. "

 "It appears, as I have already said, that _time_ and _favorable conditions_ are the two principal means which nature has employed in giving existence to all her productions. We know that for her time has no limit, and that consequently she has it always at her disposal. 

 "As to the circumstances of which she has had need and of which she makes use every day in order to cause her productions to vary, we can say that they are in a manner inexhaustible. 

 "The essential ones arise from the influence and from all the environing media (_milieux_), from the diversity of local causes (_diversité des lieux_), of habits, of movements, of action, finally of means of living, of preserving their lives, of defending themselves, of multiplying themselves, etc. Moreover, as the result of these different influences the faculties, developed and strengthened by use (_usage_), became diversified by the new habits maintained for long ages, and by slow degrees the structure, the consistence, in a word the nature, the condition of the parts and of the organs consequently participating in all these influences, became preserved and were propagated by generation. [163]

 "The bird which necessity (_besoin_) drives to the water to find there the prey needed for its subsistence separates the toes of its feet when it wishes to strike the water[164] and move on its surface. The skin, which unites these toes at their base, contracts in this way the habit of extending itself. Thus in time the broad membranes which connect the toes of ducks, geese, etc. , are formed in the way indicated. 

 "But one accustomed to live perched on trees has necessarily the end of the toes lengthened and shaped in another way. Its claws are elongated, sharpened, and are curved and bent so as to seize the branches on which it so often rests. 

 "Likewise we perceive that the shore bird, which does not care to swim, but which, however, is obliged (a _besoin_) to approach the water to obtain its prey, will be continually in danger of sinking in the mud, but wishing to act so that its body shall not fall into the liquid, it will contract the habit of extending and lengthening its feet. Hence it will result in the generations of these birds which continue to live in this manner, that the individuals will find themselves raised as if on stilts, on long naked feet; namely, denuded of feathers up to and often above the thighs. 

 "I could here pass in review all the classes, all the orders, all the genera and species of animals which exist, and make it apparent that the conformation of individuals and of their parts, their organs, their faculties, etc. , is entirely the result of circumstances to which the race of each species has been subjected by nature. 

 "I could prove that it is not the form either of the body or of its parts which gives rise to habits, to the mode of life of animals, but, on the contrary, it is the habits, the mode of life, and all the influential circumstances which have, with time, made up the form of the body and of the parts of animals. With the new forms new faculties have been acquired, and gradually nature has reached the state in which we actually see her" (pp.  12-15). 

He then points out the gradation which exists from the most simpleanimal up to the most composite, since from the monad, which, so tospeak, is only an animated point, up to the mammals, and from them up toman, there is evidently a shaded gradation in the structure of all theanimals. So also among the plants there is a graduated series from thesimplest, such as _Mucor viridescens_, up to the most complicated plant. But he hastens to say that by this regular gradation in the complicationof the organization he does not mean to infer the existence of a linearseries, with regular intervals between the species and genera:

 "Such a series does not exist; but I speak of a series almost regularly graduated in the principal groups (_masses_) such as the great families; series most assuredly existing, both among animals and among plants, but which, as regards genera and especially species, form in many places lateral ramifications, whose extremities offer truly isolated points. "

This is the first time in the history of biological science that we havestated in so scientific, broad, and modern form the essentialprinciples of evolution. Lamarck insists that time without limit andfavorable conditions are the two principal means or factors in theproduction of plants and animals. Under the head of favorable conditionshe enumerates variations in climate, temperature, the action of theenvironment, the diversity of local causes, change of habits, movement, action, variation in means of living, of preservation of life, of meansof defence, and varying modes of reproduction. As the result of theaction of these different factors, the faculties of animals, developedand strengthened by use, become diversified by the new habits, so thatby slow degrees the new structures and organs thus arising becomepreserved and transmitted by heredity. 

In this address it should be noticed that nothing is said of willing andof internal feeling, which have been so much misunderstood andridiculed, or of the direct or indirect action of the environment. Hedoes speak of the bird as wishing to strike the water, but this, liberally interpreted, is as much a physiological impulse as a mentaldesire. No reference also is made to geographical isolation, a factorwhich he afterwards briefly mentioned. 

Although Lamarck does not mention the principle of selection, he refersin the following way to competition, or at least to the checks on thetoo rapid multiplication of the lower invertebrates:

 "So were it not for the immense consumption as food which is made in nature of animals which compose the lower orders of the animal kingdom, these animals would soon overpower and perhaps destroy, by their enormous numbers, the more highly organized and perfect animals which compose the first classes and the first orders of this kingdom, so great is the difference in the means and facility of multiplying between the two. 

 "But nature has anticipated the dangerous effects of this vast power of reproduction and multiplication. She has prevented it on the one hand by considerably limiting the duration of life of these beings so simply organized which compose the lower classes, and especially the lowest orders of the animal kingdom. On the other hand, both by making these animals the prey of each other, thus incessantly reducing their numbers, and also by determining through the diversity of climates the localities where they could exist, and by the variety of seasons--_i. E. _, by the influences of different atmospheric conditions--the time during which they could maintain their existence. 

 "By means of these wise precautions of nature everything is well balanced and in order. Individuals multiply, propagate, and die in different ways. No species predominates up to the point of effecting the extinction of another, except, perhaps, in the highest classes, where the multiplication of the individuals is slow and difficult; and as the result of this state of things we conceive that in general species are preserved" (p.  22). 

Here we have in anticipation the doctrine of Malthus, which, as will beremembered, so much impressed Charles Darwin, and led him in part towork out his principle of natural selection. 

The author then taking up other subjects, first asserts that among thechanges that animals and plants unceasingly bring about by theirproduction and _débris_, it is not the largest and most perfect animalswhich have caused the most considerable changes, but rather the coralpolyps, etc. [165] He then, after dilating on the value of the study ofthe invertebrate animals, proceeds to define them, and closes hislecture by describing the seven classes into which he divides thisgroup. 

II. _Recherches sur l'Organisation des Corps vivans, 1802 (OpeningDiscourse). _

The following is an abstract with translations of the most importantpassages relating to evolution:

That the portion of the animal kingdom treated in these lecturescomprises more species than all the other groups taken together is, however, the least of those considerations which should interest myhearers. 

 "It is the group containing the most curious forms, the richest in marvels of every kind, the most astonishing, especially from the singular facts of organization that they present, though it is that hitherto the least considered under these grand points of view. 

 "How much better than learning the names and characters of all the species is it to learn of the origin, relation, and mode of existence of all the natural productions with which we are surrounded. 

 "_First Part: Progress in structure of living beings in proportion as circumstances favor them. _

 "When we give continued attention to the examination of the organization of different living beings, to that of different systems which this organization presents in each organic kingdom, finally to certain changes which are seen to be undergone in certain circumstances, we are convinced:

 "1. That the nature of organic movement is not only to develop the organization but also to multiply the organs and to fulfil the functions, and that at the outset this organic movement continually tends to restrict to functions special to certain parts the functions which were at first general--_i. E. _, common to all parts of the body;

 "2. That the result of _nutrition_ is not only to supply to the developing organization what the organic movement tends to form, but besides, also by a forced inequality between the matters which are assimilated and those which are dissipated by losses, this function at a certain term of the duration of life causes a progressive deterioration of the organs, so that as a necessary consequence it inevitably causes death;

 "3. That the property of the movement of the fluids in the parts which contain them is to break out passages, places of deposit, and outlets; to there create canals and consequently different organs; to cause these canals, as well as the organs, to vary on account of the diversity both of the movements and of the nature of the fluids which give rise to them; finally to enlarge, elongate, to gradually divide and solidify [the walls of] these canals and these organs by the matters which form and incessantly separate the fluids which are there in movement, and one part of which is assimilated and added to the organs, while the other is rejected and cast out;

 "4. That the state of organization in each organism has been gradually acquired by the progress of the influences of the movement of fluids, and by those changes that these fluids have there continually undergone in their nature and their condition through the habitual succession of their losses and of their renewals;

 "5. That each organization and each form acquired by this course of things and by the circumstances which there have concurred, were preserved and transmitted successively by generation [heredity] until new modifications of these organizations and of these forms have been acquired by the same means and by new circumstances;

 "6. Finally, that from the uninterrupted concurrence of these causes or from these laws of nature, together with much time and with an almost inconceivable diversity of influential circumstances, organic beings of all the orders have been successively formed. 

 "Considerations so extraordinary, relatively to the ideas that the vulgar have generally formed on the nature and origin of living bodies, will be naturally regarded by you as stretches of the imagination unless I hasten to lay before you some observations and facts which supply the most complete evidence. 

 "From the point of view of knowledge based on observation the philosophic naturalist feels convinced that it is in that which is called the lowest classes of the two organic kingdoms--_i. E. _, in those which comprise the most simply organized beings--that we can collect facts the most luminous and observations the most decisive on the _production_ and the reproduction of the living beings in question; on the causes of the formation of the organs of these wonderful beings; and on those of their developments, of their diversity and their multiplicity, which increase with the concourse of generations, of times, and of influential circumstances. 

 "Hence we may be assured that it is only among the singular beings of these lowest classes, and especially in the lowest orders of these classes, that it is possible to find on both sides the primitive germs of life, and consequently the germs of the most important faculties of animality and vegetality. "

_Modification of the organization from one end to the other of theanimal chain. _

"One is forced, " he says, "to recognize that the totality of existinganimals constitute _a series of groups_ forming a true chain, and thatthere exists from one end to the other of this chain a gradualmodification in the structure of the animals composing it, as also aproportionate diminution in the number of faculties of these animalsfrom the highest to the lowest (the first germs), these being withoutdoubt the form with which nature began, with the aid of much time andfavorable circumstances, to form all the others. "

He then begins with the mammals and descends to molluscs, annelids, andinsects, down to the polyps, "as it is better to proceed from the knownto the unknown;" but farther on (p.  38) he finally remarks:

 "Ascend from the most simple to the most compound, depart from the most imperfect animalcule and ascend along the scale up to the animal richest in structure and faculties; constantly preserve the order of relation in the group, then you will hold the true thread which connects all the productions of nature; you will have a just idea of its progress, and you will be convinced that the most simple of its living productions have successively given existence to all the others. 

 "_The series which constitutes the animal scale resides in the distribution of the groups, and not in that of the individuals and species. _

 "I have already said[166] that by this shaded graduation in the complication of structure I do not mean to speak of the existence of a linear and regular series of species or even genera: such a series does not exist. But I speak of a quite regularly graduated series in the principal groups, _i. E. _, in the principal system of organizations known, which give rise to classes and to great families, series most assuredly existing both among animals and plants, although in the consideration of genera, and especially in that of species, it offers many lateral ramifications whose extremities are truly isolated points. 

 "However, although there has been denied, in a very modern work, the existence in the animal kingdom of a single series, natural and at the same time graduated, in the composition of the organization of beings which it comprehends, series in truth necessarily formed of groups subordinated to each other as regards structure and not of isolated species or genera, I ask where is the well-informed naturalist who would now present a different order in the arrangement of the twelve classes of the animal kingdom of which I have just given an account?

 "I have already stated what I think of this view, which has seemed sublime to some moderns, and indorsed by _Professor Hermann_. "

Each distinct group or mass of forms has, he says, its peculiar systemof essential organs, but each organ considered by itself does not followas regular a course in its degradations (modifications). 

 "Indeed, the least important organs, or those least essential to life, are not always in relation to each other in their improvement or their degradation; and an organ which in one species is atrophied may be very perfect in another. These irregular variations in the perfecting and in the degradation of non-essential organs are due to the fact that these organs are oftener than the others submitted to the influences of external circumstances, and give rise to a diversity of species so considerable and so singularly ordered that instead of being able to arrange them, like the groups, in a single simple linear series under the form of a regular graduated scale, these very species often form around the groups of which they are part lateral ramifications, the extremities of which offer points truly isolated. 

 "There is needed, in order to change each internal system of organization, a combination of more influential circumstances, and of more prolonged duration than to alter and modify the external organs. 

 "I have observed, however, that, when circumstances demand, nature passes from one system to another without making a leap, provided they are allies. It is, indeed, by this faculty that she has come to form them all in succession, in proceeding from the simple to the more complex. 

 "It is so true that she has the power, that she passes from one system to the other, not only in two different families which are allied, but she also passes from one system to the other in the same individual. 

 "The systems of organization which admit as organs of respiration true lungs are nearer to systems which admit gills than those which require tracheæ. Thus not only does nature pass from gills to lungs in allied classes and families, as seen in fishes and reptiles, but in the latter she passes even during the life of the same individual, which successively possesses each system. We know that the frog in the tadpole state respires by gills, while in the more perfect state of frog it respires by lungs. We never see that nature passes from a system with tracheæ to a system with lungs. 

 "_It is not the organs, i. E. , the nature and form of the parts of the body of an animal, which give rise to the special habits and faculties, but, on the contrary, its habits, its mode of life, and the circumstances in which individuals are placed, which have, with time, brought about the form of its body, the number and condition of its organs, finally the faculties which it possesses. _

 * * * * *

 "Time and favorable circumstances are the two principal means which nature employs to give existence to all her productions. We know that time has for her no limit, and that consequently she has it always at her disposition. 

 "As to the circumstances of which she has need (_besoin_) and which she employs every day to bring about variations in all that she continues to produce, we can say that they are in her in some degree inexhaustible. 

 "The principal ones arise from the influence of climate, from that of different temperatures, of the atmosphere, and from all environing surroundings (_milieux_); from that of the diversity of places and their situations; from that of the most ordinary habitual movements, of actions the most frequent; finally from that of the means of preservation, of the mode of life, of defence, of reproduction, etc. 

 "Moreover, as the result of these different influences the faculties increase and strengthen themselves by use, diversify themselves by the new habits preserved through long periods, and insensibly the conformation, the consistence--in a word, the nature and state of the parts and also of the organs--consequently participate in all these influences, are preserved and propagate themselves by generation" (_Système des Animaux sans Vertèbres_, p.  12). 

 * * * * *

 "It is easy for any one to see that the habit of exercising an organ in every living being which has not reached the term of diminution of its faculties not only makes this organ more perfect, but even makes it acquire developments and dimensions which insensibly change it, with the result that with time it renders it very different from the same organ considered in another organism which has not, or has but slightly, exercised it. It is also very easy to prove that the constant lack of exercise of an organ gradually reduces it and ends by atrophying it. "

Then follow the facts regarding the mole, spalax, ant-eater, and thelack of teeth in birds, the origin of shore birds, swimming birds andperching birds, which are stated farther on. 

 "Thus the efforts in any direction, maintained for a long time or made habitually by certain parts of a living body, to satisfy the needs called out (_exigés_) by nature or by circumstances, develop these parts and cause them to acquire dimensions and a form which they never would have obtained if these efforts had not become an habitual action of the animals which have exercised them. Observations made on all the animals known would furnish examples of this. 

 "When the will determines an animal to any kind of action, the organs whose function it is to execute this action are then immediately provoked by the flowing there of subtile fluids, which become the determining cause of movements which perform the action in question. A multitude of observations support this fact, which now no one would doubt. 

 "It results from this that multiplied repetitions of these acts of organization strengthen, extend, develop, and even create the organs which are there needed. It is only necessary to closely observe that which is everywhere happening in this respect to firmly convince ourselves of this cause of developments and organic changes. 

 "However, each change acquired in an organ by habitual use sufficient to have formed (_opéré_) it is preserved by generation, if it is common to the individuals which unite in the reproduction of their kind. Finally, this change propagates itself and is then handed down (_se passe_) to all the individuals which succeed and which are submitted to the same circumstances, without their having been obliged to acquire it by the means which have really created it. 

 "Besides, in the unions between the sexes the intermixtures between individuals which have different qualities or forms are necessarily opposed to the constant propagation of these qualities and forms. We see that which in man, who is exposed to such different circumstances which influence individuals, prevents the qualities of accidental defects which they have happened to acquire from being preserved and propagated by heredity (_génération_). 

 "You can now understand how, by such means and an inexhaustible diversity of circumstances, nature, with sufficient length of time, has been able to and should produce all these results. 

 "If I should choose here to pass in review all the classes, orders, genera, and species of animals in existence I could make you see that the structure of individuals and their organs, faculties, etc. , is solely the result of circumstances to which each species and all its races have been subjected by nature, and of habits that the individuals of this species have been obliged to contract. 

 "The influences of localities and of temperatures are so striking that naturalists have not hesitated to recognize the effects on the structure, the developments, and the faculties of the living bodies subject to them. 

 "We have long known that the animals inhabiting the torrid zone are very different from those which live in the other zones. Buffon has remarked that even in latitudes almost the same the animals of the new continent are not the same as those of the old. 

 "Finally the Count Lacépède, wishing to give to this well-founded fact the precision which he believed it susceptible, has traced twenty-six zoölogical divisions on the dry parts of the globe, and eighteen over the ocean; but there are many other influences than those which depend on localities and temperatures. 

 "Everything tends, then, to prove my assertion--namely, that it is not the form either of the body or of its parts which has given rise to habits and to the mode of life of animals, but, on the contrary, it is the habits, the mode of life, and all the other influential circumstances which have with time produced the form of the bodies and organs of animals. With new forms new faculties have been acquired, and gradually nature has arrived at the state where we actually see it. 

 * * * * *

 "Finally as it is only at that extremity of the animal kingdom where occur the most simply organized animals that we meet those which may be regarded as the true germs of animality, and it is the same at the same end of the vegetable series; is it not at this end of the scale, both animal and vegetable, that nature has commenced and recommenced without ceasing the first germ of her living production? Who is there, in a word, who does not see that the process of perfection of those of these first germs which circumstances have favored will gradually and after the lapse of time give rise to all the degrees of perfection and of the composition of the organization, from which will result this multiplicity and this diversity of living beings of all orders with which the exterior surface of our globe is almost everywhere filled or covered?

 "Indeed, if the manner (_usage_) of life tends to develop the organization, and even to form and multiply the organs, as the state of an animal which has just been born proves it, compared to that where it finds itself when it has reached the term where its organs (beginning to deteriorate) cease to make new developments; if, then, each particular organ undergoes remarkable changes, according as it is exercised and according to the manner of which I have shown you some examples, you will understand that in carrying you to the end of the animal chain where are found the most simple organizations, and that in considering among these organizations those whose simplicity is so great that they lie at the very door of the creative power of nature, then this same nature--that is to say, the state of things which exist--has been to form directly the first beginnings of organization; she has been able, consequently, by the manner of life and the aid of circumstances which favor its duration, to progressively render perfect its work, and to carry it to the point where we now see it. 

 "Time is wanting to present to you the series of results of my researches on this interesting subject, and to develop--

 "1. What really is life. 

 "2. How nature herself creates the first traces of organization in appropriate groups where it had not existed. 

 "3. How the organic or vital movement is excited by it and held together with the aid of a stimulating and active cause which she has at her disposal in abundance in certain climates and in certain seasons of the year. 

 "4. Finally, how this organic movement, by the influence of its duration and by that of the multitude of circumstances which modify its effects, develops, arranges, and gradually complicates the organs of the living body which possesses them. 

 "Such has been without doubt the will of the infinite wisdom which reigns throughout nature; and such is effectively the order of things clearly indicated by the observation of all the facts which relate to them. " (End of the opening discourse. )

 APPENDIX (p.  141). 

 _On Species in Living Bodies. _

 "I have for a long time thought that _species_ were constant in nature, and that they were constituted by the individuals which belong to each of them. 

 "I am now convinced that I was in error in this respect, and that in reality only individuals exist in nature. 

 "The origin of this error, which I have shared with many naturalists who still hold it, arises from _the long duration_, in relation to us, _of the same state of things_ in each place which each organism inhabits; but this duration of the same state of things for each place has its limits, and with much time it makes changes in each point of the surface of the globe, which produces changes in every kind of circumstances for the organisms which inhabit it. 

 "Indeed, we may now be assured that nothing on the surface of the terrestrial globe remains in the same state. Everything, after a while, undergoes different changes, more or less prompt, according to the nature of the objects and of circumstances. Elevated areas are constantly being lowered, and the loose material carried down to the lowlands. The beds of rivers, of streams, of even the sea, are gradually removed and changed, as also the climate;[167] in a word, the whole surface of the earth gradually undergoes a change in situation, form, nature, and aspect. We see on every hand what ascertained facts prove; it is only necessary to observe and to give one's attention to be convinced of it. 

 "However, if, relatively to living beings, the diversity of circumstances brings about for them a diversity of habits, a different mode of existence, and, as the result, modifications in their organs and in the shape of their parts, one should believe that very gradually every living body whatever would vary in its organization and its form. 

 "All the modifications that each living being will have undergone as the result of change of circumstances which have influenced its nature will doubtless be propagated by heredity (_génération_). But as new modifications will necessarily continue to operate, however slowly, not only will there continually be found new species, new genera, and even new orders, but each species will vary in some part of its structure and its form. 

 "I very well know that to our eyes there seems in this respect a _stability_ which we believe to be constant, although it is not so truly; for a very great number of centuries may form a period insufficient for the changes of which I speak to be marked enough for us to appreciate them. Thus we say that the flamingo (_Phoenicopterus_) has always had as long legs and as long a neck as have those with which we are familiar; finally, it is said that all animals whose history has been transmitted for 2, 000 or 3, 000 years are always the same, and have lost or acquired nothing in the process of perfection of their organs and in the form of their different parts. We may be assured that this appearance of _stability_ of things in nature will always be taken for reality by the average of mankind, because in general it judges everything only relatively to itself. 

 "But, I repeat, this consideration which has given rise to the admitted error owes its source to the very great slowness of the changes which have gone on. A little attention given to the facts which I am about to cite will afford the strongest proof of my assertion. 

 "What nature does after a great length of time we do every day by suddenly changing, as regards a living being, the circumstances in which it and all the individuals of its species are placed. 

 "All botanists know that the plants which they transplant from their natal spot into gardens for cultivation there gradually undergo changes which in the end render them unrecognizable. Many plants naturally very hairy, there become glabrous or nearly so; a quantity of those which were procumbent or trailing there have erect stems; others lose their spines or their thorns; finally, the dimensions of parts undergo changes which the circumstances of their new situation infallibly produce. This is so well known that botanists prefer not to describe them, at least unless they are newly cultivated. Is not wheat (_Triticum sativum_) a plant brought by man to the state wherein we actually see it, which otherwise I could not believe? Who can now say in what place its like lives in nature?

 "To these known facts I will add others still more remarkable, and which confirm the view that change of circumstances operates to change the parts of living organisms. 

 "When _Ranunculus aquatilis_ lives in deep water, all it can do while growing is to make the end of its stalks reach the surface of the water where they flourish. Then all the leaves of the plant are finely cut or pinked. [168] If the same plant grows in shallower water the growth of its stalks may give them sufficient extent for the upper leaves to develop out of the water; then its lower leaves only will be divided into hair-like joints, while the upper ones will be simple, rounded, and a little lobed. [169] This is not all: when the seeds of the same plant fall into some ditch where there is only water or moisture sufficient to make them germinate, the plant develops all its leaves in the air, and then none of them is divided into capillary points, which gives rise to _Ranunculus hederaceus_, which botanists regard as a species. 

 "Another very striking proof of the effect of a change of circumstances on a plant submitted to it is the following:

 "It is observed that when a tuft of _Juncus bufonius_ grows very near the edge of the water in a ditch or marsh this rush then pushes out filiform stems which lie in the water, are there deformed, becoming disturbed (_traçantes_), proliferous, and very different from that of _Juncus bufonius_ which grows out of water. This plant, modified by the circumstances I have just indicated, has been regarded as a distinct species; it is the _Juncus supinus_ of Rotte. [170]

 "I could also give citations to prove that the changes of circumstances relative to organisms necessarily change the influences which they undergo on the part of all that which environs them or which acts on them, and so necessarily bring about changes in their size, their shape, their different organs. 

 "Then among living beings nature seems to me to offer in an absolute manner only individuals which succeed one another by generation. 

 "However, in order to facilitate the study and recognition of these organisms, I give the name of _species_ to every collection of individuals which during a long period resemble each other so much in all their parts that these individuals only present small accidental differences which, in plants, reproduction by seeds causes to disappear. 

 "But, besides that at the end of a long period the totality of individuals of such a species change as the circumstances which act on them, those of these individuals which from special causes are transported into very different situations from those where the others occur, and then constantly submitted to other influences--the former, I say, assume new forms as the result of a long habit of this other mode of existence, and then they constitute a new _species_, which comprehends all the individuals which occur in the same condition of existence. We see, then, the faithful picture of that which happened in this respect in nature, and of that which the observation of its acts can alone discover to us. "

III. _Lamarck's Views on Species, as published in 1803. _

In the opening lecture[171] of his course at the Museum of NaturalHistory, delivered in prairial (May 20-June 18), 1803, we have afurther statement of the theoretical views of Lamarck on species andtheir origin. He addresses his audience as "Citoyens, " France stillbeing under the _régime_ of the Republic. 

The brochure containing this address is exceedingly rare, the only copyexisting, as far as we know, being in the library of the Museum ofNatural History in Paris. The author's name is not even given, and thereis no imprint. Lamarck's name, however, is written on the outside of thecover of the copy we have translated. At the end of the otherwise blankpage succeeding the last page (p.  46) is printed the words: _Esquissed'un Philosophie zoologique_, the preliminary sketch, however, neverhaving been added. 

He begins by telling his hearers that they should not desire to burdentheir memories with the infinite details and immense nomenclature ofthe prodigious quantity of animals among which we distinguish anillimitable number of species, "but what is more worthy of you, and ofmore educational value, you should seek to know the course of nature. ""You may enter upon the study of classes, orders, genera, and even ofthe most interesting species, because this would be useful to you; butyou should never forget that all these subdivisions, which could not, however, be well spared, are artificial, and that nature does notrecognize any of them. "

 "In the opening lecture of my last year's course I tried to convince you that it is only in the organization of animals that we find the foundation of the natural relations between the different groups, where they diverge and where they approach each other. Finally, I tried to show you that the enormous series of animals which nature has produced presents, from that of its extremities where are placed the most perfect animals, down to that which comprises the most imperfect, or the most simple, an evident modification, though irregularly defined (_nuancé_), in the structure of the organization. 

 "To-day, after having recalled some of the essential considerations which form the base of this great truth; after having shown you the principal means by which nature is enabled to create (_opérer_) her innumerable productions and to vary them infinitely; finally, after having made you see that in the use she has made of her power of generating and multiplying living beings she has necessarily proceeded from the more simple to the more complex, gradually complicating the organization of these bodies, as also the composition of their substance, while also in that which she has done on non-living bodies she has occupied herself unremittingly in the destruction of all preëxistent combinations, I shall undertake to examine under your eyes the great question in natural history--What is a _species_ among organized beings?

 "When we consider the series of animals, beginning at the end comprising the most perfect and complicated, and passing down through all the degrees of this series to the other end, we see a very evident modification in structure and faculties. On the contrary, if we begin with the end which comprises animals the most simple in organization, the poorest in faculties and in organs--in a word, the most imperfect in all respects--we necessarily remark, as we gradually ascend in the series, a truly progressive complication in the organization of these different animals, and we see the organs and faculties of these beings successively multiplying and diversifying in a most remarkable manner. 

 "These facts once known present truths which are, to some extent, eternal; for nothing here is the product of our imagination or of our arbitrary principles; that which I have just explained rests neither on systems nor on any hypothesis: it is only the very simple result of the observation of nature; hence I do not fear to advance the view that all that one can imagine, from any motives whatever, to contradict these great verities will always be destroyed by the evidence of the facts with which it deals. 

 "To these facts it is necessary to add these very important considerations, which observation has led me to perceive, and the basis of which will always be recognized by those who pay attention to them; they are as follows:

 "Firstly, the exercise of life, and consequently of organic movement, constitutes its activity, tends, without ceasing, not only to develop and to extend the organization, but it tends besides to multiply the organs and to isolate them in special centres (_foyers_). To make sure whether the exercise of life tends to extend and develop the organization, it suffices to consider the state of the organs of any animal which has just been born, and to compare them in this condition with what they are when the animal has attained the period when its organs cease to receive any new development. Then we will see on what this organic law is based, which I have published in my _Recherches sur les Corps vivans_ (p.  8), _i. E. _, that--

 "'The special property of movement of fluids in the supple parts of the living body which contain them is to open (_frayer_) there routes, places of deposit and tissues; to create there canals, and consequently different organs; to cause these canals and these organs to vary there by reason of the diversity both of the movements as well as the nature of the fluids which occur there; finally to enlarge, to elongate, to divide and to gradually strengthen (_affermir_) these canals and their organs by the matters which are formed in the fluids in motion, which incessantly separate themselves, and a part of which is assimilated and united with organs while the rest is rejected. '

 "Secondly, the continual employment of an organ, especially if it is strongly exercised, strengthens this organ, develops it, increases its dimensions, enlarges and extends its faculties. 

 "This second law of effects of exercise of life has been understood for a long time by those observers who have paid attention to the phenomena of organization. 

 "Indeed, we know that all the time that an organ, or a system of organs, is rigorously exercised throughout a long time, not only its power, and the parts which form it, grow and strengthen themselves, but there are proofs that this organ, or system of organs, at that time attracts to itself the principal active forces of the life of the individual, because it becomes the cause which, under these conditions, makes the functions of other organs to be diminished in power. 

 "Thus not only every organ or every part of the body, whether of man or of animals, being for a long period and more vigorously exercised than the others, has acquired a power and facility of action that the same organ could not have had before, and that it has never had in individuals which have exercised less, but also we consequently remark that the excessive employment of this organ diminishes the functions of the others and proportionately enfeebles them. 

 "The man who habitually and vigorously exercises the organ of his intelligence develops and acquires a great facility of attention, of aptitude for thought, etc. , but he has a feeble stomach and strongly limited muscular powers. He, on the contrary, who thinks little does not easily, and then only momentarily fixes his attention, while habitually giving much exercise to his muscular organs, has much vigor, possesses an excellent digestion, and is not given to the abstemiousness of the savant and man of letters. 

 "Moreover, when one exercises long and vigorously an organ or system of organs, the active forces of life (in my opinion, the nervous fluid) have taken such a habit of acting (_porter_) towards this organ that they have formed in the individual an inclination to continue to exercise which it is difficult for it to overcome. 

 "Hence it happens that the more we exercise an organ, the more we use it with facility, the more does it result that we perceive the need (_besoin_) of continuing to use it at the times when it is placed in action. So we remark that the habit of study, of application, of work, or of any other exercise of our organs or of any one of our organs, becomes with time an indispensable need to the individual, and often a passion which it does not know how to overcome. 

 "Thirdly, finally, the effort made by necessity to obtain new faculties is aided by the concurrence of favorable circumstances; they create (_créent_) with time the new organs which are adapted (_propres_) to their faculties, and which as the result develop after long use (_qu'en suite un long emploi développe_). 

 "How important is this consideration, and what light it spreads on the state of organization of the different animals now living!

 "Assuredly it will not be those who have long been in the habit of observing nature, and who have followed attentively that which happens to living individuals (to animals and to plants), who will deny that a great change in the circumstances of their situation and of their means of existence forces them and their race to adopt new habits; it will not be those, I say, who attempt to contest the foundation of the consideration which I have just exposed. 

 "They can readily convince themselves of the solidity of that which I have already published in this respect. [172]

 "I have felt obliged to recall to you these great considerations, a sketch of which I traced for you last year, and which I have stated for the most part in my different works, because they serve, as you have seen, as a solution of the problem which interests so many naturalists, and which concerns the determination of _species_ among living bodies. 

 "Indeed, if in ascending in the series of animals from the most simply organized animalcule, as from the monad, which seems to be only an animated point, up to the animals the most perfect, or whose structure is the most complicated--in a word, up to animals with mammæ--you observe in the different orders which comprise this great series a gradation, shaded (_nuancé_), although irregular, in the composition of the organization and in the increasing number of faculties, is it not evident that in the case where nature would exert some active power on the existence of these organized bodies she has been able to make them exist only by beginning with the most simple, and that she has been able to form directly among the animals only that which I call the rough sketches or germs (_ébauches_) of animality--that is to say, only these animalcules, almost invisible and to some extent without consistence, that we see develop spontaneously and in an astonishing abundance in certain places and under certain circumstances, while only in contrary circumstances are they totally destroyed?

 "Do we not therefore perceive that by the action of the laws of organization, which I have just now indicated, and by that of different means of multiplication which are due to them (_qui en dérivent_), nature has in favorable times, places, and climates multiplied her first germs (_ébauches_) of animality, given place to developments of their organizations, rendered gradually greater the duration of those which have originally descended from them, and increased and diversified their organs? Then always preserving the progress acquired by the reproductions of individuals and the succession of generations, and aided by much time and by a slow but constant diversity of circumstances, she has gradually brought about in this respect the state of things which we now observe. 

 "How grand is this consideration, and especially how remote is it from all that is generally thought on this subject! Moreover, the astonishment which its novelty and its singularity may excite in you requires that at first you should suspend your judgment in regard to it. But the observation which establishes it is now on record (_consignée_), and the facts which support it exist and are incessantly renewed; however, as they open a vast field to your studies and to your own researches, it is to you yourselves that I appeal to pronounce on this great subject when you have sufficiently examined and followed all the facts which relate to it. 

 "If among living bodies there are any the consideration of whose organization and of the phenomena which they produce can enlighten us as to the power of nature and its course relatively to the existence of these bodies, also as to the variations which they undergo, we certainly have to seek for them in the lowest classes of the two organic kingdoms (the animals and the plants). It is in the classes which comprise the living bodies whose organization is the least complex that we can observe and bring together facts the most luminous, observations the most decisive on the origin of these bodies, on their reproduction and their admirable diversification, finally on the formation and the development of their different organs, the whole process being aided by the concurrence of generations, of time, and of circumstances. 

 "It is, indeed, among living bodies the most multiplied, the most numerous in nature, the most prompt and easy to regenerate themselves, that we should seek the most instructive facts bearing on the course of nature and on the means she has employed to create her innumerable productions. In this case we perceive that, relatively to the animal kingdom, we should chiefly give our attention to the invertebrate animals, because their enormous multiplicity in nature, the singular diversity of their systems of organization and of their means of multiplication, their increasing simplification, and the extreme fugacity of those which compose the lowest orders of these animals, show us much better than the others the true course of nature, and the means which she has used and which she is still incessantly employing to give existence to all the living bodies of which we have knowledge. 

 "Her course and her means are without doubt the same for the production of the different plants which exist. And, indeed, though it is not believed, as some naturalists have wrongly held, but without proof, that plants are bodies more simple in organization than the most simple animals, it is a veritable error which observation plainly denies. 

 "Truly, vegetable substance is less surcharged with constituent principles than any animal substance whatever, or at least most of them, but the substance of a living body and the organization of these bodies are two very different things. But there is in plants, as in animals, a true gradation in organization from the plant simplest in organization and parts up to plants the most complex in structure and with the most diversified organs. 

 "If there is some approach, or at least some comparison to make between vegetables and animals, this can only be by opposing plants the most simply organized, like fungi and algæ, to the most imperfect animals like the polyps, and especially the amorphous polyps, which occur in the lowest order. 

 "At present we clearly see that in order to bring about the existence of animals of all the classes, of all the orders, and of all the genera, nature has had to begin by giving existence to those which are the most simple in organization and lacking most in organs and faculties, the frailest in constituency, the most ephemeral, the quickest and easiest to multiply; and we shall find in the _amorphous_ or _microscopic polyps_ the most striking examples of this simplification of organization, and the indication that it is solely among them that occur the astonishing germs of animality. 

 "At present we only know the principal law of the organization, the power of the exercise of the functions of life, the influence of the movement of fluids in the supple parts of organic bodies, and the power which the regenerations have of conserving the progress acquired in the composition of organs. 

 "At present, finally, relying on numerous observations, seeing that with the aid of much time, of changes in local circumstances, in climates, and consequently in the habits of animals, the progression in the complication of their organization and in the diversity of their parts has gradually operated (_a dû s'opérer_) in a way that all the animals now known have been successively formed such as we now see them, it becomes possible to find the solution of the following question:

 "What is a _species_ among living beings?

 "All those who have much to do with the study of natural history know that naturalists at the present day are extremely embarrassed in defining what they mean by the word species. 

 "In truth, observation for a long time has shown us, and shows us still in a great number of cases, collections of individuals which resemble each other so much in their organization and by the _ensemble_ of their parts that we do not hesitate to regard these collections of similar individuals as constituting so many species. 

 "From this consideration we call _species_ every collection of individuals which are alike or almost so, and we remark that the regeneration of these individuals conserves the species and propagates it in continuing successively to reproduce similar individuals. 

 "Formerly it was supposed that each species was immutable, as old as nature, and that she had caused its special creation by the Supreme Author of all which exists. 

 "But we can impose on him laws in the execution of his will, and determine the mode which he has been pleased to follow in this respect, so it is only in this way that he permits us to recognize it by the aid of observation. Has not his infinite power created an order of things which successively gives existence to all that we see as well as to all that which exists and which we do not know?

 "Assuredly, whatever has been his will, the omnipotence of his power is always the same; and in whatever way this supreme will has been manifested, nothing can diminish its greatness. As regards, then, the decrees of this infinite wisdom, I confine myself to the limits of a simple observer of nature. Then, if I discover anything in the course that nature follows in her creations, I shall say, without fear of deceiving myself, that it has pleased its author that she possesses this power. 

 "The idea that was held as to species among living bodies was quite simple, easy to grasp, and seemed confirmed by the constancy in the similar form of the individuals which reproduction or generation perpetuated. There still occur among us a very great number of these pretended species which we see every day. 

 "However, the farther we advance in the knowledge of the different organized bodies with which almost every part of the surface of the globe is covered, the more does our embarrassment increase in determining what should be regarded as species, and the greater is the reason for limiting and distinguishing the genera. 

 "As we gradually gather the productions of nature, as our collections gradually grow richer, we see almost all the gaps filled up, and our lines of demarcation effaced. We find ourselves compelled to make an arbitrary determination, which sometimes leads us to seize upon the slightest differences between varieties to form of them the character of that which we call species, and sometimes one person designates as a variety of such a species individuals a little different, which others regard as constituting a particular species. 

 "I repeat, the richer our collections become, the more numerous are the proofs that all is more or less shaded (_nuancé_), that the remarkable differences become obliterated, and that the more often nature leaves it at our disposal to establish distinctions only minute, and in some degree trivial peculiarities. 

 "But some genera among animals and plants are of such an extent, from the number of species they contain, that the study and the determination of these species are now almost impossible. The species of these genera, arranged in series and placed together according to their natural relations, present, with those allied to them, differences so slight that they shade into each other; and because these species are in some degree confounded with one another they leave almost no means of determining, by expression in words, the small differences which distinguish them. 

 "There are also those who have been for a long time, and strongly, occupied with the determination of the species, and who have consulted rich collections, who can understand up to what point species, among living bodies, merge one into another (_fondent les unes dans les autres_), and who have been able to convince themselves, in the regions (_parties_) where we see isolated species, that this is only because there are wanting other species which are more nearly related, and which we have not yet collected. 

 "I do not mean to say by this that the existing animals form a very simple series, one everywhere equally graduated; but I say that they form a branching series, irregularly graduated, and which has no discontinuity in its parts, or which at best has not always had, if it is true that it is to be found anywhere (_s'il est vrai qu'il s'en trouve quelque part_). It results from this that the species which terminates each branch of the general series holds a place at least on one side apart from the other allied species which intergrade with them. Behold this state of things, so well known, which I am now compelled to demonstrate. 

 "I have no need (_besoin_) of any hypothesis or any supposition for this: I call to witness all observing naturalists. 

 "Not only many genera, but entire orders, and some classes even, already present us with portions almost complete of the state of things which I have just indicated. 

 "However, when in this case we have arranged the species in series, and they are all well placed according to their natural relations, if you select one of them, and it results in making a leap (_saut pardessus_) over to several others, you take another one of them a little less remote; these two species, placed in comparison, will then present the greatest differences from each other. It is thus that we had begun to regard most of the productions of nature which occur at our door. Then the generic and specific distinctions were very easy to establish. But now that our collections are very much richer, if you follow the series that I have cited above, from the species that you first chose up to that which you took in the second place, and which is very different from the first, you have passed from shade to shade without having remarked any differences worth noticing. 

 "I ask what experienced zoölogist or botanist is there who has not thoroughly realized that which I have just explained to you?

 "Or how can one study, or how can one be able to determine in a thorough way the species, among the multitude of known polyps of all orders of radiates, worms, and especially of insects, where the simple genera of Papilio, Phalæna, Noctua, Tinea, Musca, Ichneumon, Curculio, Capricorn, Scarabæus, Cetonia, etc. , etc. , already contain so many closely allied species which shade into each other, are almost confounded one with another? What a host of molluscan shells exist in every country and in all seas which elude our means of distinction, and exhaust our resources in this respect! Ascend to the fishes, to the reptiles, to the birds, even to the mammals, and you will see, except the lacunæ which are still to be filled, everywhere shadings which take place between allied species, even the genera, and where after the most industrious study we fail to establish good distinctions. Does not botany, which considers the other series, comprising the plants, offer us, in its different parts, a state of things perfectly similar? In short, what difficulties do not arise in the study and in the determination of species in the genera Lichena, Fucus, Carex, Poa, Piper, Euphorbia, Erica, Hieracium, Solanum, Geranium, Mimosa, etc. , etc. ?

 "When these genera were established but a small number of species were known, and then it was easy to distinguish them; but at present almost all the gaps between them are filled, and our specific differences are necessarily minute and very often insufficient. 

 "From this state of things well established we see what are the causes which have given rise to them; we see whether nature possesses the means for this, and if observation has been able to give us our explanation of it. 

 "A great many facts teach us that gradually as the individuals of one of our species change their situation, climate, mode of life, or habits, they thus receive influences which gradually change the consistence and the proportions of their parts, their form, their faculties, even their organization; so that all of them participate eventually in the changes which they have undergone. 

 "In the same climate, very different situations and exposures at first cause simple variations in the individuals which are found exposed there; but, as time goes on, the continual differences of situation of individuals of which I have spoken, which live and successively reproduce in the same circumstances, give rise among them to differences which are, in some degree, essential to their being, in such a way that at the end of many successive generations these individuals, which originally belonged to another species, are at the end transformed into a new species, distinct from the other. 

 "For example, if the seeds of a grass, or of every other plant natural to a humid field, should be transplanted, by an accident, at first to the slope of a neighboring hill, where the soil, although more elevated, would yet be quite cool (_frais_) so as to allow the plant to live, and then after having lived there, and passed through many generations there, it should gradually reach the poor and almost arid soil of a mountain side--if the plant should thrive and live there and perpetuate itself during a series of generations, it would then be so changed that the botanists who should find it there would describe it as a separate species. 

 "The same thing happens to animals which circumstances have forced to change their climate, manner of living, and habits; but for these the influences of the causes which I have just cited need still more time than in the case of plants to produce the notable changes in the individuals, though in the long run, however, they always succeed in bringing them about. 

 "The idea of defining under the word _species_ a collection of similar individuals which perpetuate the same by generation, and which have existed thus as anciently as nature, implies the necessity that the individuals of one and the same species cannot mix, in their acts of generation, with the individuals of a different species. Unfortunately observation has proved, and still proves every day, that this consideration has no basis; for the hybrids, very common among plants, and the unions which are often observed between the individuals of very different species among animals, have made us perceive that the limits between these species, supposed to be constant, are not so rigid as is supposed. 

 "In truth, nothing often results from these singular unions, especially when they are very incongruous, as the individuals which result from them are usually sterile; but also, when the disparities are less great, it is known that the drawbacks (_défauts_) with which it has to do no longer exist. However, this means alone suffices to gradually create the varieties which have afterwards arisen from races, and which, with time, constitute that which we call _species_. 

 "To judge whether the idea which is formed of species has any real foundation, let us return to the considerations which I have already stated; they are, namely--

 "1. That all the organic bodies of our globe are veritable productions of nature, which she has created in succession at the end of much time. 

 "2. That in her course nature has begun, and begins anew every day, by forming the simplest organic bodies, and that she directly forms only these--that is to say, only these first primitive germs (_ébauches_) of organization, which have been badly characterized by the expression of "spontaneous generations" (_qu'on a désignées mal-à-propos par l'expression de Générations spontanées_). 

 "3. That the first germs (_ébauches_) of the animals and plants were formed in favorable places and circumstances. The functions of life beginning and an organic movement established, these have necessarily gradually developed the organs, so that after a time and under suitable circumstances they have been differentiated, as also the different parts (_elles les ont diversifiés ainsi qui les parties_). 

 "4. That the power of increase in each portion of organic bodies being inherited at the first production (_effets_) of life, it has given rise to different modes of multiplication and of regeneration of individuals; and in that way the progress acquired in the composition of the organization and in the forms and the diversity of the parts has been preserved. 

 "5. That with the aid of sufficient time, of circumstances which have been necessarily favorable, of changes that all parts of the surface of the globe have successively undergone in their condition--in a word, with the power that new situations and new habits have in modifying the organs of bodies endowed with life--all those which now exist have been imperceptibly formed such as we see them. 

 "6. Finally, that according to a similar order of things, living beings, having undergone each of the more or less great changes in the condition of their organization and of their parts, that which is designated as a species among them has been insensibly and successively so formed, can have only a relative constancy in its condition, and cannot be as ancient as nature. 

 "But, it will be said, when it is necessary to suppose that, with the aid of much time and of an infinite variation in circumstances, nature has gradually formed the different animals that we know, would we not be stopped in this supposition by the sole consideration of the admirable diversity which we observe in the instinct of different animals, and by that of the marvels of all sorts which their different kinds of industry present?

 "Will one dare to carry the spirit of system (_porter l'esprit de système_) to the point of saying that it is nature, and she alone, which creates this astonishing diversity of means, of ruses, of skill, of precautions, of patience, of which the industry of animals offers us so many examples! What we observe in this respect in the class of insects alone, is it not a thousand times more than is necessary to compel us to perceive that the limits of the power of nature by no means permit her herself to produce so many marvels, and to force the most obstinate philosophy to recognize that here the will of the supreme author of all things has been necessary, and has alone sufficed to cause the existence of so many admirable things?

 "Without doubt one would be rash, or rather wholly unreasonable, to pretend to assign limits to the power of the first author of all things; and by that alone no one can dare to say that this infinite power has not been able to will that which nature herself shows us she has willed. 

 "This being so, if I discover that nature herself brings about or causes all the wonders just cited; that she creates the organization, the life, even feeling; that she multiplies and diversifies, within limits which are not known to us, the organs and faculties of organic bodies the existence of which she sustains or propagates; that she has created in animals by the single way of _need_, which establishes and directs the habits, the source of all actions, from the most simple up to those which constitute _instinct_, industry, finally reason, should I not recognize in this power of nature--that is to say, of existing things--the execution of the will of its sublime author, who has been able to will that it should have this power? Shall I any the less wonder at the omnipotence of the power of the first cause of all things, if it has pleased itself that things should be thus, than if by so many (separate) acts of his omnipotent will he should be occupied and occupy himself still continually with details of all the special creations, all the variations, and all the developments and perfections, all the destructions and all the renewals--in a word, with all the changes which are in general produced in things which exist?

 "But I intend to prove in my 'Biologie' that nature possesses in her _faculties_ all that is necessary to have to be able herself to produce that which we admire in her works; and regarding this subject I shall then enter into sufficient details which I am here obliged to omit. [173]

 "However, it is still objected that all we see stated regarding the state of living bodies are unalterable conditions in the preservation of their form, and it is thought that all the animals whom history has transmitted to us for two or three thousand years have always remained the same, and have lost nothing nor acquired anything in the perfecting of their organs and in the form of their parts. 

 "While this apparent stability has for a long time been accepted as true, it has just been attempted to establish special proofs in a report on the collections of natural history brought from Egypt by the citizen Geoffroy. "

Quotes three paragraphs in which the reporters (Cuvier and GeoffroySt.  Hilaire) say that the mummied animals of Thebes and Memphis areperfectly similar to those of to-day. Then he goes on to say:

 "I have seen them, these animals, and I believe in the conformity of their resemblance with the individuals of the same species which live to-day. Thus the animals which the Egyptians worshipped and embalmed two or three thousand years ago are still in every respect similar to those which actually live in that country. 

 "But it would be assuredly very singular that this should be otherwise; for the position of Egypt and its climate are still or very nearly the same as at former times. Therefore the animals which live there have not been compelled to change their habits. 

 "There is, then, nothing in the observation which has just been reported which should be contrary to the considerations which I have expressed on this subject; and which especially proves that the animals of which it treats have existed during the whole period of nature. It only proves that they have existed for two or three thousand years; and every one who is accustomed to reflect, and at the same time to observe that which nature shows us of the monuments of its antiquity, readily appreciates the value of a duration of two or three thousand years in comparison with it. 

 "Hence, as I have elsewhere said, it is sure that this appearance of the stability of things in nature will always be mistaken by the average of mankind for the reality; because in general people only judge of everything relatively to themselves. 

 "For the man who observes, and who in this respect only judges from the changes which he himself perceives, the intervals of these changes are _stationary conditions_ (_états_) which should appear to be limitless, because of the brevity of life of the individuals of his species. Thus, as the records of his observations and the notes of facts which he has consigned to his registers only extend and mount up to several thousands of years (three to five thousand years), which is an infinitely small period of time relatively to those which have sufficed to bring about the great changes which the surface of the globe has undergone, everything seems _stable_ to him in the planet which he inhabits, and he is inclined to reject the monuments heaped up around him or buried in the earth which he treads under his feet, and which surrounds him on all sides. [174]

 * * * * *

 "It seems to me [as mistaken as] to expect some small creatures which only live a year, which inhabit some corner of a building, and which we may suppose are occupied with consulting among themselves as to the tradition, to pronounce on the duration of the edifice where they occur: and that going back in their paltry history to the twenty-fifth generation, they should unanimously decide that the building which serves to shelter them is eternal, or at least that it has always existed; because it has always appeared the same to them; and since they have never heard it said that it had a beginning. Great things (_grandeurs_) in extent and in duration are relative. [175]

 "When man wishes to clearly represent this truth he will be reserved in his decisions in regard to stability, which he attributes in nature to the state of things which he observes there. [176]

 "To admit the insensible change of species, and the modifications which individuals undergo as they are gradually forced to vary their habits or to contract new ones, we are not reduced to the unique consideration of too small spaces of time which our observations can embrace to permit us to perceive these changes; for, besides this induction, a quantity of facts collected for many years throws sufficient light on the question that I examine, so that does not remain undecided; and I can say now that our sciences of observation are too advanced not to have the solution sought for made evident. 

 "Indeed, besides what we know of the influences and the results of heteroclite fecundations, we know positively to-day that a forced and long-sustained change, both in the habits and mode of life of animals, and in the situation, soil, and climate of plants, brings about, after a sufficient time has elapsed, a very remarkable change in the individuals which are exposed to them. 

 "The animal which lives a free, wandering life on plains, where it habitually exercises itself in running swiftly; the birds whose needs (_besoins_) require them unceasingly to traverse great spaces in the air, finding themselves enclosed, some in the compartments of our menageries or in our stables, and others in our cages or in our poultry yards, are submitted there in time to striking influences, especially after a series of regenerations under the conditions which have made them contract new habits. The first loses in large part its nimbleness, its agility; its body becomes stouter, its limbs diminish in power and suppleness, and its faculties are no longer the same. The second become clumsy; they are unable to fly, and grow more fleshy in all parts of their bodies. 

 "Behold in our stout and clumsy horses, habituated to draw heavy loads, and which constitute a special race by always being kept together--behold, I say, the difference in their form compared with those of English horses, which are all slender, with long necks, because for a long period they have been trained to run swiftly: behold in them the influence of a difference of habit, and judge for yourselves. You find them, then, such as they are in some degree in nature. You find there our cock and our hen in the condition we have [made] them, as also the mixed races that we have formed by mixed breeding between the varieties produced in different countries, or where they were so in the state of domesticity. You find there likewise our different races of domestic pigeons, our different dogs, etc. What are our cultivated fruits, our wheat, our cabbage, our lettuce, etc. , etc. , if they are not the result of changes which we ourselves have effected in these plants, in changing by our culture the conditions of their situation? Are they now found in this condition in nature? To these incontestable facts add the considerations which I have discussed in my _Recherches sur les Corps vivans_ (p.  56 _et suiv. _), and decide for yourselves. 

 "Thus, among living bodies, nature, as I have already said, offers only in an absolute way individuals which succeed each other genetically, and which descend one from the other. So the _species_ among them are only relative, and only temporary. 

 "Nevertheless, to facilitate the study and the knowledge of so many different bodies it is useful to give the name of _species_ to the entire collection of individuals which are alike, which reproduction perpetuates in the same condition as long as the conditions of their situation do not change enough to make their habits, their character, and their form vary. 

 "Such is, citizens, the exact sketch of that which goes on in nature since she has existed, and of that which the observation of her acts has alone enabled us to discover. I have fulfilled my object if, in presenting to you the results of my researches and of my experience, I have been able to disclose to you that which in your studies of this kind deserves your special attention. 

 "You now doubtless conceive how important are the considerations which I have just exposed to you, and how wrong you would be if, in devoting yourself to the study of animals or of plants, you should seek to see among them only the multiplied distinctions that we have been obliged to establish; in a word, if you should confine yourselves to fixing in your memory the variable and indefinite nomenclature which is applied to so many different bodies, instead of studying Nature herself--her course, her means, and the constant results that she knows how to attain. "

On the next fly page are the following words: _Esquisse d'unePhilosophie zoologique_. 

IV. _Lamarck's Views as published in 1806. _[177]

 "Those who have observed much and have consulted the great collections, have been able to convince themselves that as gradually as the circumstances of their habitat, of exposure to their surroundings, of climate, food, mode of living, etc. , have changed, the characters of size, form, of proportion between the parts, of color, of consistence, of duration, of agility, and of industry have proportionately changed. 

 "They have been able to see, as regards the animals, that the more frequent and longer sustained use of any organ gradually strengthens this organ, develops it, enlarges it, and gives it a power proportional to the length of time it has been used; while the constant lack of use of such an organ insensibly weakens it, causes it to deteriorate, progressively diminishes its faculties, and tends to make it waste away. [178]

 "Finally, it has been remarked that all that nature has made individuals to acquire or lose by the sustained influence of circumstances where their race has existed for a long time, she has preserved by heredity in the new individuals which have originated from them (_elle le conserve par la génération aux nouveaux individus qui en proviennent_). These verities are firmly grounded, and can only be misunderstood by those who have never observed and followed nature in her operations. 

 "Thus we are assured that that which is taken for _species_ among living bodies, and that all the specific differences which distinguish these natural productions, have no absolute _stability_, but that they enjoy only a relative _stability_; which it is very important to consider in order to fix the limits which we must establish in the determination of that which we must call _species_. 

 "It is known that different places change in nature and character by reason of their position, their 'composition' [we should say geological structure or features], and their climate; that which is easily perceived in passing over different places distinguished by special characteristics; behold already a cause of variation for the natural productions which inhabit these different places. But that which is not sufficiently known, and even that which people refuse to believe, is that each place itself changes after a time, in exposure, in climate, in nature, and in character, although with a slowness so great in relation to our period of time that we attribute to it a perfect _stability_. 

 "Now, in either case, these changed places proportionately change the circumstances relative to the living bodies which inhabit them, and these produce again other influences on those same bodies. 

 "We see from this that if there are extremes in these changes there are also gradations (_nuances_), that is to say, steps which are intermediate, and which fill up the interval; consequently there are also gradations in the differences which distinguish that which we call _species_. 

 "Indeed, as we constantly meet with such shades (or intermediate steps) between these so-called _species_, we find ourselves forced to descend to the minutest details to find any distinctions; the slightest peculiarities of form, of color, of size, and often even of differences only perceived in the aspect of the individual compared with other individuals which are related to it the more by their relations, are seized upon by naturalists to establish specific differences; so that, the slightest varieties being reckoned as species, our catalogues of species grow infinitely great, and the name of the productions of nature of the most interest to us are, so to speak, buried in these enormous lists, become very difficult to find, because now the objects are mostly only determined by characters which our senses can scarcely enable us to perceive. 

 "Meanwhile we should remember that nothing of all this exists in nature; that she knows neither classes, orders, genera, nor species, in spite of all the foundation which the portion of the natural series which our collection contains has seemed to afford them; and that of organic or living bodies there are, in reality, only individuals, and among different races which gradually pass (_nuancent_) into all degrees of organization" (p.  14). 

On p.  70 he speaks of the animal chain from monad to man, ascending fromthe most simple to the most complex. The monad is the most simple, themost like a germ of living bodies, and from its nature passes to thevolvoces, proteus, vibrios; from them nature arrives at the productionof "polypes rotifères"--and then at "Radiaires, " worms, Arachnida, Crustacea, and Cirrhipedes. 

FOOTNOTES:

[162] _Discours d'ouverture du Cours de Zoologie donné dans le Muséumnational d'Histoire naturelle, le 21 floréal, an 8 de la République_(1800). Floréal is the name adopted by the National Convention for theeighth month of the year. In the years of the Republic 1 to 7 itextended from April 20 to May 19 inclusive, and in the years 8 to 13from April 21 to May 20 (_Century Cyclopedia of Names_). The lecture, then, in which Lamarck first presented his views was delivered on someday between April 21 and May 20, 1800. 

[163] Lamarck by the word _génération_ implies heredity. He nowhere usesthe word _hérédité_. 

[164] "L'oiseau que le besoin attire sur l'eau pour y trouver la proiequi le fait vivre, écarte les doigts de ses pieds lorsqu'il veut frapperl'eau et se mouvoir à sa surface" (p.  13). If the word _veut_ hassuggested the doctrine of appetency in meaning has been pushed too farby the critics of Lamarck. 

[165] This he already touched upon in his _Mémoires de Physique etd'Histoire naturelle_ (p.  342). 

[166] _Système des Animaux sans Vertèbres_, pp.  16 and 17. 

[167] I have cited the incontestable proofs in my _Hydrogéologie_, and Ihave the conviction that one day all will be compelled to accept thesegreat truths. 

[168] _Ranunculus aquaticus capillaceus_ (Tournef. , p.  291). 

[169] _Ranunculus aquaticus_ (folio rotundo et capillaceo, Tournef. , p.  291). 

[170] _Gramen junceum_, etc. (Moris, hist. 3, sec.  8, t.  9, f.  4). 

[171] _Discours d'ouverture d'un Cours de Zoologie, prononcé enprairial, an XI, au Muséum d'Histoire naturelle, sur la question, Qu'est-ce que l'espèce parmi les corps vivans?_ (1803). 

[172] _Recherches sur l'Organisation des Corps vivans_, p.  9. 

[173] "See at the end of this discourse the sketch of a _Philosophiezoologique_ relative to this subject. " [This sketch was not added--onlythe title at the end of the book. ]

[174] See the _Annales du Muséum d'Hist. Nat. _, IV^e cahier. 1. , 1802, pp.  302, 303: _Mémoires sur les Fossiles des Environs de Paris_, etc. Herepeats in his _Discours_ what he wrote in 1802 in the _Annales_. 

[175] _Ibid. _ This is repeated from the article in the _Annales_. 

[176] _Ibid. _ "See my _Recherches sur les Corps vivans_" (Appendix, p.  141). 

[177] _Discours d'Ouverture du Cours des Animaux sans Vertèbres, prononcé dans le Muséum d'Histoire naturelle en mai 1806. _ (No imprint. 8^o, pp.  108. ) Only the most important passages are here translated. 

[178] "We know that all the forms of organs compared to the uses ofthese same organs are always perfectly adapted. But there is a commonerror in this connection, since it is thought that the forms of organshave caused their functions (_en ont amené l'emploi_), whereas it iseasy to demonstrate by observation that it is the uses (_usages_) whichhave given origin to the forms of organs. "

CHAPTER XVII

THE "PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE"

Lamarck's mature views on the theory of descent comprise a portion ofhis celebrated _Philosophie zoologique_. We will let him tell the storyof creation by natural causes so far as possible in his own words. 

In the _avertissement_, or preface, he says that his experience has ledhim to realize that a body of precepts and of principles relating to thestudy of animals and even applicable to other parts of the naturalsciences would now be useful, our knowledge of zoölogical facts having, for about thirty years, made considerable progress. 

After referring to the differences in structure and facultiescharacterizing animals of different groups, he proceeds to outline histheory, and begins by asking:

 "How, indeed, can I consider the singular modification in the structure of animals, as we glance over the series from the most perfect to the least perfect, without asking how we can account for a fact so positive and so remarkable--a fact attested to me by so many proofs? Should I not think that nature has successively produced the different living beings by proceeding from the most simple to the most compound; because in ascending the animal scale from the most imperfect up to the most perfect, the organization perfects itself and becomes gradually complicated in a most remarkable way?"

This leads him to consider what is life, and he remarks (p.  xv. ) that itdoes not exist without external stimuli. The conditions necessary forthe existence of life are found completely developed in the simplestorganization. We are then led to inquire how this organization, byreason of certain changes, can give rise to other organisms less simple, and finally originate creatures becoming gradually more complicated, aswe see in ascending the animal scale. Then employing the two followingconsiderations, he believes he perceives the solution of the problemwhich has occupied his thoughts. 

He then cites as factors (1) use and disuse; (2) the movement ofinternal fluids by which passages are opened through the cellular tissuein which they move, and finally create different organs. Hence the_movement of fluids in the interior of animals_, and the _influence ofnew circumstances_ as animals gradually expose themselves to them inspreading into every inhabitable place, are the two general causes whichhave produced the different animals in the condition we now see them. Meanwhile he perceived the importance of the preservation by heredity, though he nowhere uses that word, in the new individuals reproduced ofeverything which the results of the life and influencing circumstanceshad caused to be acquired in the organization of those which havetransmitted existence to them. 

In the _Discours préliminaire_, referring to the _progression_ inorganization of animals from the simplest to man, as also to thesuccessive acquisition of different special organs, and consequently ofas many faculties as new organs obtained, he remarks:

 "Then we can perceive how needs (_besoins_), at the outset reduced to nullity, and of which the number gradually increases, have produced the inclination (_penchant_) to actions fitted to satisfy it; how the actions, becoming habitual and energetic, have caused the development of the organs which execute them; how the force which excites the organic movements may, in the simplest animals, be outside of them and yet animate them; how, then, this force has been transported and fixed in the animal itself; finally, how it then has become the source of sensibility, and in the end that of acts of intelligence. 

 "I shall add that if this method had been followed, then _sensation_ would not have been regarded as the general and immediate cause of organic movements, and it would not have been said that life is a series of movements which are executed in virtue of sensations received by different organs; or, in other words, that all the vital movements are the product of impressions received by the sensitive parts. [179]

 "This cause seems, up to a certain point, established as regards the most perfect animals; but had it been so relatively to all living beings, they should all be endowed with the power of sensation. But it cannot be proved that this is the case with plants, and it cannot likewise be proved that it is so with all the animals known. 

 "But nature in creating her organisms has not begun by suddenly establishing a faculty so eminent as that of sensation: she has had the means of producing this faculty in the imperfect animals of the first classes of the animal kingdom, " referring to the Protozoa. But she has accomplished this gradually and successively. "Nature has progressively created the different special organs, also the faculties which animals enjoy. "

He remarks that though it is indispensable to classify living forms, yetthat our classifications are all artificial; that species, genera, families, orders, and classes do not exist in nature--only theindividuals really exist. In the third chapter he gives the olddefinition of species, that they are fixed and immutable, and thenspeaks of the animal series, saying:

 "I do not mean by this to say that the existing animals form a very simple series, and especially evenly graduated; but I claim that they form a branched series, [180] irregularly graduated, and which has no discontinuity in its parts, or which, at least, has not always had, if it is true that, owing to the extinction of some species, there are some breaks. It follows that the _species_ which terminates each branch of the general series is connected at least on one side with other _species_ which intergrade with it" (p.  59). 

He then points out the difficulty of determining what are species incertain large genera, such as Papilio, Ichneumon, etc. How new speciesarise is shown by observation. 

 "A number of facts teaches us that in proportion as the individuals of one of our species are subjected to changes in situation, climate, mode of life or habits, they thereby receive influences which gradually change the consistence and the proportions of their parts, their form, their faculties, even their structure; so that it follows that all of them after a time participate in the changes to which they have been subjected. 

 "In the same climate very different situations and exposures cause simple variations in the individuals occurring there; but, after the lapse of time, the continual differences of situation of the individuals of which I speak, which live and successively reproduce under the same circumstances, produce differences in them which become, in some degree, essential to their existence, so that at the end of many successive generations these individuals, which originally belonged to another species, became finally transformed into a new species distinct from the other. 

 "For example, should the seeds of a grass or of any other plant natural to a moist field be carried by any means at first to the slope of a neighboring hill, where the soil, although more elevated, will yet be sufficiently moist to allow the plant to live there, and if it results, after having lived there and having passed through several generations, that it gradually reaches the dry and almost arid soil of a mountain side; if the plant succeeds in living there, and perpetuates itself there during a series of generations, it will then be so changed that any botanists who should find it there would make a distinct species of it. 

 "The same thing happens in the case of animals which circumstances have forced to change in climate, mode of life, and habits; but in their case the influences of the causes which I have just cited need still more time than the plants to bring about notable changes in the individuals. 

 "The idea of embracing, under the name of _species_, a collection of like individuals which are perpetuated by generation, and which have remained the same as long as nature has endured, implies the necessity that the individuals of one and the same species should not cross with individuals of a different species. 

 "Unfortunately observation has proved, and still proves every day, that this consideration is unfounded; for hybrids, very common among plants, and the pairings which we often observe between the individuals of very different _species_ of animals, have led us to see that the limits between these supposed constant species are not so fixed as has been imagined. 

 "In truth, nothing often results from these singular unions, especially if they are very ill-assorted, and then the individuals which do result from them are usually infertile; but also, when the disparities are less great, we know that the default in question does not occur. 

 "But this cause only suffices to create, step by step, varieties which finally become races, and which, with time, constitute what we call _species_. 

 "To decide whether the idea which is formed of the _species_ has any real foundation, let us return to the considerations which I have already explained; they lead us to see:

 "1. That all the organized bodies of our globe are true productions of Nature, which she has successively formed after the lapse of much time;

 "2. That, in her course. Nature has begun, and begins over again every day, to form the simplest organisms, and that she directly creates only those, namely, which are the first germs (_ébauches_) of organization, which are designated by the expression of _spontaneous generations_;

 "3. That the first germs of the animal and plant having been formed in appropriate places and circumstances, the faculties of a beginning life and of an organic movement established, have necessarily gradually developed the organs, and that with time they have diversified them, as also the parts;

 "4. That the power of growth in each part of the organized body being inherent in the first created forms of life, it has given rise to different modes of multiplication and of regeneration of individuals; and that consequently the progress acquired in the composition of the organization and in the shape and diversity of the parts has been preserved;

 "5. That with the aid of sufficient time, of circumstances which have been necessarily favorable, of changes of condition that every part of the earth's surface has successively undergone--in a word, by the power which new situations and new habits have of modifying the organs of living beings, all those which now exist have been gradually formed such as we now see them;

 "6. Finally, that, according to a similar order of things, living beings having undergone each of the more or less great changes in the condition of their structure and parts, that which we call a _species_ among them has been gradually and successively so formed, having only a relative constancy in its condition, and not being as old as Nature herself. 

 "But, it will be said, when it is supposed that by the aid of much time and of an infinite variation in circumstances, Nature has gradually formed the different animals known to us, shall we not be stopped in this supposition by the simple consideration of the admirable diversity which we observe in the _instincts_ of different animals, and by that of the marvels of every kind presented by their different kinds of _industry_?

 "Shall we dare to extend the spirit of system so far as to say that it is Nature who has herself alone created this astonishing diversity of means, of contrivances, of skill, of precautions, of patience, of which the _industry_ of animals offers us so many examples? What we observe in this respect in the simple class of _insects_, is it not a thousand times more than sufficient to make us realize that the limit to the power of Nature in nowise permits her to herself produce so many marvels, but to force the most obstinate philosopher to recognize that here the will of the Supreme Author of all things has been necessary, and has alone sufficed to create so many admirable things?

 "Without doubt, one would be rash or, rather, wholly insensate, to pretend to assign limits to the power of the first Author of all things; but, aside from that, no one could dare to say that this infinite power could not will that which Nature even shows us it has willed"[181] (p.  67). 

Referring to the alleged proof of the fixity of species brought forwardby Cuvier in the _Annales du Muséum d'Histoire naturelle_ (i. , pp.  235and 236) that the mummied birds, crocodiles, and other animals of Egyptpresent no differences from those now living, Lamarck says:

 "It would assuredly be very singular if it were otherwise, because the position of Egypt and its climate are still almost exactly what they were at that epoch. Moreover, the birds which live there still exist under the same circumstances as they were then, not having been obliged to change their habits. 

 "Moreover, who does not perceive that birds, which can so easily change their situation and seek places which suit them are less subject than many other animals to the variations of local circumstances, and hence less restricted in their habits. "

He adds the fact that the animals in question have inhabited Egypt fortwo or three thousand years, and not necessarily from all time, and thatthis is not time enough for marked changes. He then gives the followingdefinition of species, which is the best ever offered: "Species, then, have only a relative stability, and are invariable only temporarily. "

 "Yet, to facilitate the study and knowledge of so many different organisms it is useful to give the name of _species_ to every similar collection of similar individuals which are perpetuated by heredity (_génération_) in the same condition, so long as the circumstances of their situation do not change enough to render variable their habits, character, and form. "

He then discusses fossil species in the way already described inChapter III. (p.  75). 

The subject of the checks upon over-population by the smaller and weakeranimals, or the struggle for existence, is thus discussed inChapter IV. :

 "Owing to the extreme multiplication of the small species, and especially of the most imperfect animals, the multiplicity of individuals might be prejudicial to the preservation of the species, to that of the progress acquired in the improvement of the organization--in a word, to the general order, if nature had not taken precautions to keep this multiplication within due limits over which she would never pass. 

 "Animals devour one another, except those which live only on plants; but the latter are exposed to being devoured by the carnivorous animals. 

 "We know that it is the strongest and the best armed which devour the weaker, and that the larger kinds devour the smaller. Nevertheless, the individuals of a single species rarely devour each other: they war upon other races. [182]

 "The multiplication of the small species of animals is so considerable, and the renewals of their generations are so prompt, that these small species would render the earth uninhabitable to the others if nature had not set a limit to their prodigious multiplication. But since they serve as prey for a multitude of other animals, as the length of their life is very limited, and as the lowering of the temperature kills them, their numbers are always maintained in proper proportions for the preservation of their races and that of others. 

 "As to the larger and stronger animals, they would be too dominant and injure the preservation of other races if they should multiply in too great proportions. But their races devouring each other, they would only multiply slowly and in a small number at a time; this would maintain in this respect the kind of equilibrium which should exist. 

 "Finally, only man, considered separately from all which is characteristic of him, seems capable of multiplying indefinitely, because his intelligence and his resources secure him from seeing his increase arrested by the voracity of any animals. He exercises over them such a supremacy that, instead of fearing the larger and stronger races of animals, he is thus rather capable of destroying them, and he continually checks their increase. 

 "But nature has given him numerous passions, which, unfortunately, developing with his intelligence, thus place a great obstacle to the extreme multiplication of the individuals of his species. 

 "Indeed, it seems as if man had taken it upon himself unceasingly to reduce the number of his fellow-creatures; for never, I do not hesitate to say, will the earth be covered with the population that it could maintain. Several of its habitable parts would always be alternately very sparsely populated, although the time for these alternate changes would be to us measureless. 

 "Thus by these wise precautions everything is preserved in the established order; the changes and perpetual renewals which are observable in this order are maintained within limits over which they cannot pass; the races of living beings all subsist in spite of their variations; the progress acquired in the improvement of the organization is not lost; everything which appears to be disordered, overturned, anomalous, reënters unceasingly into the general order, and even coöperates with it; and especially and always the will of the sublime Author of nature and of all existing things is invariably executed" (pp.  98-101). 

In the sixth chapter the author treats of the degradation andsimplification of the structure from one end to the other of the animalseries, proceeding, as he says, inversely to the general order ofnature, from the compound to the more simple. Why he thus works out thisidea of a general degradation is not very apparent, since it is out oftune with his views, so often elsewhere expressed, of a progressiveevolution from the simple to the complex, and to his own classificationof the animal kingdom, beginning as it does with the simplest forms andending with man. Perhaps, however, he temporarily adopts the prevailingmethod of beginning with the highest forms in order to bring outclearly the successive steps in inferiority or degradation presented indescending the animal scale. 

We will glean some passages of this chapter which bear on his theory ofdescent. Speaking of the different kinds of aquatic surroundings heremarks:

 "In the first place it should be observed that in the waters themselves she [Nature] presents considerably diversified circumstances; the fresh waters, marine waters, calm or stagnant waters, running waters or streams, the waters of warm climates, those of cold regions, finally those which are shallow and those which are very deep, offer many special circumstances, each of which acts differently on the animals living in them. Now, in a degree equal to the make-up of the organization, the races of animals which are exposed to either of these circumstances have been submitted to special influences and have been diversified by them. "

He then, after referring to the general degradation of the Batrachians, touches upon the atrophy of legs which has taken place in the snakes:

 "If we should consider as a result of _degradation_ the loss of legs seen in the snakes, the _Ophidia_ should be regarded as constituting the lowest order of reptiles; but it would be an error to admit this consideration. Indeed, the serpents being animals which, in order to hide themselves, have adopted the habit of gliding directly along the ground, their body has lengthened very considerably and disproportionately to its thickness. Now, elongated legs proving disadvantageous to their necessity of gliding and hiding, very short legs, being only four in number, since they are vertebrate animals, would be incapable of moving their bodies. Thus the habits of these animals have been the cause of the disappearance of their legs, and yet the _batrachians_, which have them, offer a more degraded organization, and are nearer the fishes" (p.  155). 

Referring on the next page to the fishes, he remarks:--

 "Without doubt their general form, their lack of a constriction between the head and the body to form a neck, and the different fins which support them in place of legs, are the results of the influence of the dense medium which they inhabit, and not that of the _dégradation_ of their organization. But this modification (_dégradation_) is not less real and very great, as we can convince ourselves by examining their internal organs; it is such as to compel us to assign to the fishes a rank lower than that of the reptiles. "

He then states that the series from the lamprey and fishes to themammals is not a regularly gradated one, and accounts for this "becausethe work of nature has been often changed, hindered, and diverted indirection by the influences which singularly different, even contrasted, circumstances have exercised on the animals which are there foundexposed in the course of a long series of their renewed generations. "

Lamarck thus accounts for the production of the radial symmetry of themedusæ and echinoderms, his _Radiaires_. At the present day thissymmetry is attributed perhaps more correctly to their more or lessfixed mode of life. 

 "It is without doubt by the result of this means which nature employs, at first with a feeble energy with _polyps_, and then with greater developments in the _Radiata_, that the radial form has been acquired; because the subtile ambient fluids, penetrating by the alimentary canal, and being expansive, have been able, by an incessantly renewed repulsion from the centre towards every point of the circumference, to give rise to this radiated arrangement of parts. 

 "It is by this cause that, in the Radiata, the intestinal canal, although still very imperfect, since more often it has only a single opening, is yet complicated with numerous radiating vasculiform, often ramified, appendages. 

 "It is, doubtless, also by this cause that in the soft Radiates, as the medusæ, etc. , we observe a constant isochronic movement, movement very probably resulting from the successive intermissions between the masses of subtile fluids which penetrate into the interior of these animals and those of the same fluids which escape from it, often being spread throughout all their parts. 

 "We cannot say that the isochronic movements of the soft Radiates are the result of their respiration; for below the vertebrate animals nature does not offer, in that of any animal, these alternate and measured movements of inspiration and expiration. Whatever may be the respiration of Radiates, it is extremely slow, and is executed without perceptible movements" (p.  200). 

_The Influence of Circumstances on the Actions and Habits of Animals. _

It is in Chapter VII. That the views of Lamarck are more fully presentedthan elsewhere, and we therefore translate all of it as literally aspossible, so as to preserve the exact sense of the author. 

 "We do not here have to do with a line of argument, but with the examination of a positive fact, which is more general than is supposed, and which has not received the attention it deserves, doubtless because, very often, it is quite difficult to discover. This fact consists in the influence which circumstances exert on the different organisms subjected to them. 

 "In truth, for a long time there has been noticed the influence of different states of our organization on our character, our propensities (_penchants_), our actions, and even our ideas; but it seems to me that no one has yet recognized that of our actions and of our habits on our organization itself. Now, as these actions and these habits entirely depend on the circumstances in which we habitually find ourselves, I shall try to show how great is the influence which these circumstances exercise on the general form, on the condition of the parts, and even on the organization of living bodies. It is therefore this very positive fact which is to be the subject of this chapter. 

 "If we have not had numerous occasions to plainly recognize the effects of this influence on certain organisms which we have transported under entirely new and different circumstances, and if we had not seen these effects and the changes resulting from them produced, in a way, under our very eyes, the important fact in question would have always remained unknown. 

 "The influence of circumstances is really continuously and everywhere active on living beings, but what renders it difficult for us to appreciate this influence is that its effects only become sensible or recognizable (especially in the animals) at the end of a long period. 

 "Before stating and examining the proofs of this fact, which deserves our attention, and which is very important for a zoölogical philosophy, let us resume the thread of the considerations we had begun to discuss. 

 "In the preceding paragraph we have seen that it is now an incontrovertible fact that, in considering the animal scale in a sense the inverse of that of nature, we find that there exists in the groups composing this scale a continuous but irregular modification (_dégradation_) in the organization of animals which they comprise, an increasing simplification in the organization of these organisms; finally, a proportionate diminution in the number of faculties of these beings. 

 "This fact once recognized may throw the greatest light on the very order which nature has followed in the production of all the existing animals; but it does not show why the structure of animals in its increasing complexity from the more imperfect up to the most perfect offers only an irregular gradation, whose extent presents a number of anomalies or digressions which have no appearance of order in their diversity. 

 "Now, in seeking for the reason of this singular irregularity in the increasing complexity of organization of animals, if we should consider the outcome of the influences that the infinitely diversified circumstances in all parts of the globe exercise on the general form, the parts, and the very organization of these animals, everything will be clearly explained. 

 "It will, indeed, be evident that the condition in which we find all animals is, on one side, the result of the increasing complexity of the organization which tends to form a regular gradation, and, on the other, that it is that of the influences of a multitude of very different circumstances which continually tend to destroy the regularity in the gradations of the increasing complexity of the organization. 

 "Here it becomes necessary for me to explain the meaning I attach to the expression _circumstances influencing the form and structure of animals_--namely, that in becoming very different they change, with time, both their form and organization by proportionate modifications. 

 "Assuredly, if these expressions should be taken literally, I should be accused of an error; for whatever may be the circumstances, they do not directly cause any modification in the form and structure of animals. 

 "But the great changes in the circumstances bring about in animals great changes in their needs, and such changes in their needs necessarily cause changes in their actions. Now, if the new needs become constant or very permanent, the animals then assume new _habits_, which are as durable as the needs which gave origin to them. We see that this is easily demonstrated and even does not need any explanation to make it clearer. 

 "It is then evident that a great change in circumstances having become constant in a race of animals leads these animals into new habits. 

 "Now, if new circumstances, having become permanent in a race of animals, have given to these animals new _habits_--that is to say, have led them to perform new actions which have become habitual--there will from this result the use of such a part by preference to that of another, and in certain cases the total lack of use of any part which has become useless. 

 "Nothing of all this should be considered as a hypothesis or as a mere peculiar opinion; they are, on the contrary, truths which require, in order to be made evident, only attention to and the observation of facts. 

 "We shall see presently by the citation of known facts which prove it, on one side that the new wants, having rendered such a part necessary, have really by the result of efforts given origin to this part, and that as the result of its sustained use it has gradually strengthened it, developed, and has ended in considerably increasing its size; on the other side we shall see that, in certain cases, the new circumstances and new wants having rendered such a part wholly useless, the total lack of use of this part has led to the result that it has gradually ceased to receive the development which the other parts of the animal obtain; that it gradually becomes emaciated and thin; and that finally, when this lack of use has been total during a long time, the part in question ends in disappearing. All this is a positive fact; I propose to give the most convincing proofs. 

 "In the plants, where there are no movements, and, consequently, no habits properly so called, great changes in circumstances do not bring about less great differences in the development of their parts; so that these differences originate and develop certain of them, while they reduce and cause several others to disappear. But here everything operates by the changes occurring in the nutrition of the plant, in its absorptions and transpirations, in the amount of heat, light, air, and humidity which it habitually receives; finally, in the superiority that certain of the different vital movements may assume over others. 

 "Between individuals of the same species, some of which are constantly well nourished, and in circumstances favorable to their entire development, while the others live under reversed circumstances, there is brought about a difference in the condition of these individuals which gradually becomes very remarkable. How many examples could I not cite regarding animals and plants, which would confirm the grounds for this view! Now, if the circumstances remain the same, rendering habitual and constant the condition of individuals badly fed, diseased, or languishing, their internal organization becomes finally modified, and reproduction between the individuals in question preserves the acquired modifications, and ends in giving rise to a race very distinct from that of the individuals which unceasingly meet with circumstances favorable to their development. 

 "A very dry spring-time is the cause of the grass of a field growing very slowly, remaining scraggy and puny, flowering and fruiting without growing much. 

 "A spring interspersed with warm days and rainy days makes the same grass grow rapidly, and the harvest of hay is then excellent. 

 "But if any cause perpetuates the unfavorable circumstances surrounding these plants, they vary proportionally, at first in their appearance and general condition, and finally in several particulars of their characters. 

 "For example, if some seed of any of the grasses referred to should be carried into an elevated place, on a dry and stony greensward much exposed to the winds, and should germinate there, the plant which should be able to live in this place would always be badly nourished, and the individuals reproduced there continuing to exist under these depressing circumstances, there would result a race truly different from that living in the field, though originating from it. The individuals of this new race would be small, scraggy, and some of their organs, having developed more than others, would then offer special proportions. 

 "Those who have observed much, and who have consulted the great collections, have become convinced that in proportion as the circumstances of habitat, exposure, climate, food, mode of life, etc. , come to change, the characters of size, form, proportion between the parts, color, consistence, agility, and industry in the animals change proportionally. 

 "What nature accomplishes after a long time, we bring about every day by suddenly changing, in the case of a living plant, the circumstances under which it and all the individuals of its species exist. 

 "All botanists know that the plants which they transplant from their birthplace into gardens for cultivation gradually undergo changes which at last render them unrecognizable. Many plants naturally very hairy then become glabrous, or almost so; many of those which were creeping and trailing, then become erect; others lose their spines or their prickles; others still, from the woody and perennial condition which their stem possesses in a warm climate, pass, in our climate, into an herbaceous condition, and among these several are nothing more than annual plants; finally, the dimensions of their parts themselves undergo very considerable changes. These effects of changes of circumstances are so well known that botanists prefer not to describe garden plants, at least only those which have been newly cultivated. 

 "Is not cultivated wheat (_Triticum sativum_) only a plant brought by man into the condition in which we actually see it? Who can tell me in what country such a plant lives in a state of nature--that is to say, without being there the result of its culture in some neighboring region?

 "Where occur in nature our cabbage, lettuce, etc. , in the condition in which we see them in our kitchen-gardens? Is it not the same as regards a number of animals which domestication has changed or considerably modified?

 "What very different races among our fowls and domestic pigeons, which we have obtained by raising them in different circumstances and in different countries, and how vainly do we now endeavor to rediscover them in nature!

 "Those which are the least changed, without doubt by a more recent process of domestication, and because they do not live in a climate which is foreign to them, do not the less possess, in the condition of some of their parts, great differences produced by the habits which we have made them contract. Thus our ducks and our domestic geese trace back their type to the wild ducks and geese; but ours have lost the power of rising into the high regions of the air, and of flying over extensive regions; finally, a decided change has been wrought in the state of their parts compared with that of animals of the race from which they have descended. 

 "Who does not know that such a native bird, which we raise in a cage and which lives there five or six years in succession, and after that replaced in nature--namely, set free--is then unable to fly like its fellows which have always been free? The slight change of circumstance operating on this individual has only diminished its power of flight, and doubtless has not produced any change in the shape of its parts. But if a numerous series of generations of individuals of the same race should have been kept in captivity for a considerable time, there is no doubt but that even the form of the parts of these individuals would gradually undergo notable changes. For a much stronger reason, if, instead of a simple captivity constantly maintained over them, this circumstance had been at the same time accompanied by a change to a very different climate, and if these individuals by degrees had been habituated to other kinds of food, and to other kinds of movements to obtain it; certainly these circumstances, united and becoming constant, would insensibly form a new and special race. 

 "Where do we find, in nature, this multitude of races of _dogs_, which, as the result of domesticity to which we have reduced these animals, have been brought into their present condition? Where do we find these bull-dogs, greyhounds, water spaniels, spaniels, pug-dogs, etc. , etc. , races which present among themselves much greater differences than those which we admit to be specific in wild animals of the same genus?

 "Without doubt, a primitive single race, very near the wolf, if it is not itself the true type, has been submitted by man, at some period, to the process of domestication. This race, which then offered no difference between its individuals, has been gradually dispersed by man into different countries, with different climates; and after a time these same individuals, having undergone the influences of their habitats, and of the different habits they were obliged to contract in each country, have undergone remarkable changes, and have formed different special races. Now, the man who, for commercial reasons or from interests of any other kind, travels a very great distance, having carried into a densely populated place, as for example a great capital, different races of dogs originated in some very distant country, then the increase of these races by heredity (_génération_) has given rise successively to all those we now know. 

 "The following fact proves, as regards plants, how a change in any important circumstance leads to a change in the parts of their organisms. 

 "So long as _Ranunculus aquatilis_ is submerged in the water, its leaves are all finely incised and the divisions hair-like; but when the stalks of this plant reach the surface of the water, the leaves which grow out in the air are wider, rounded, and simply lobed. If some feet from the same plant the roots succeed in pushing into a soil only damp, without being submerged, their stalks then are short, none of their leaves are divided into capillary divisions, which gives rise to _Ranunculus hederaceus_, which the botanists regard as a species whenever they meet with it. 

 "There is no doubt that as regards animals important changes in the circumstances under which they are accustomed to live do not produce alteration in their organs; for here the changes are much slower in operating than in plants, and, consequently, are to us less marked, and their cause less recognizable. 

 "As to the circumstances which have so much power in modifying the organs of living beings, the most influential are, doubtless, the diversity of the surroundings in which they live; but besides this there are many others which, in addition, have a considerable influence in the production of the effects in question. 

 "It is known that different localities change in nature and quality owing to their position, their nature, and their climate, as is easily seen in passing over different places distinguished by special features; hence we see a cause of variation for the animals and plants which live in these different places. But what we do not sufficiently know, and even what we generally refuse to believe, is that each place itself changes with time in exposure, in climate, in nature, and quality, although with a slowness so great in relation to our own continuance that we attribute to it a perfect stability. 

 "Now, in either case, these changed localities proportionally change the circumstances relative to the organisms which inhabit them, and the latter then give rise to other influences bearing on these same beings. 

 "We perceive from this that, if there are extremes in these changes, there are also gradations--namely, degrees which are intermediate and which fill the interval. Consequently there are also gradations in the differences which distinguish what we call _species_. 

 "It is then evident that the whole surface of the earth offers, in the nature and situation of the matters which occupy its different points, a diversity of circumstances which is throughout in relation with that of the forms and parts of animals, independent of the special diversity which necessarily results from the progress of the composition of organization in each animal. 

 "In each locality where animals can live, the circumstances which establish there an order of things remain for a long time the same, and really change there only with a slowness so great that man cannot directly notice them. He is obliged to consult monuments to recognize that in each one of these places the order of things that he discovers there has not always been the same, and to perceive that it will change more. 

 "The races of animals which live in each of these places should, then, retain their customary habits there also for a long time; hence to us seems an apparent constancy of races which we call _species_--constancy which has originated among us the idea that these races are as ancient as nature. 

 "But in the different points of the earth's surface which can be inhabited, nature and the situation of the places and climates constitute there, for the animals as for the plants, _different circumstances_ of all sorts of degrees. The animals which inhabit these different places should then differ from each other, not only on account of the state of nature of the organization in each race, but, besides, by reason of the habits that the individuals of each race there are forced to have; so, in proportion as he traverses the larger parts of the earth's surface the observing naturalist sees circumstances changing in a manner somewhat noticeable; he constantly sees that the species change proportionately in their characters. 

 "Now, the true order of things necessary to consider in all this consists in recognizing:

 "1. That every slight change maintained under the circumstances where occur each race of animals, brings about in them a real change in their wants. 

 "2. That every change in the wants of animals necessitates in them other movements (_actions_) to satisfy the new needs, and consequently other habits. 

 "3. That every new want necessitating new actions to satisfy it, demands of the animal which feels it both the more frequent use of such of its parts of which before it made less use, which develops and considerably enlarges them, and the use of new parts which necessity has caused to insensibly develop in it by the effects of its inner feelings; which I shall constantly prove by known facts. 

 "Thus, to arrive at a knowledge of the true causes of so many different forms and so many different habits of which the known animals offer us examples, it is necessary to consider that circumstances infinitely diversified, but all slowly changing, into which the animals of each race are successively thrown, have caused, for each of them, new wants and necessarily changes in their habits. Moreover, this truth, which cannot be denied, being once recognized, it will be easy to see how the new needs have been able to be satisfied, and the new habits formed, if any attention be given to the two following laws of nature, which observation always confirms:

 "_First Law. _

 "In every animal which has not exceeded the term of its development, the more frequent and sustained use of any organ gradually strengthens this organ, develops and enlarges it, and gives it a strength proportioned to the length of time of such use; while the constant lack of use of such an organ imperceptibly weakens it, causes it to become reduced, progressively diminishes its faculties, and ends in its disappearance. 

 "_Second Law. _

 "Everything which nature has caused individuals to acquire or lose by the influence of the circumstances to which their race may be for a long time exposed, and consequently by the influence of the predominant use of such an organ, or by that of the constant lack of use of such part, it preserves by heredity (_génération_) and passes on to the new individuals which descend from it, provided that the changes thus acquired are common to both sexes, or to those which have given origin to these new individuals. 

 "These are the two fundamental truths which can be misunderstood only by those who have never observed or followed nature in its operations, or only by those who allow themselves to fall into the error which I have combated. 

 "Naturalists having observed that the forms of the parts of animals compared with the uses of these parts are always in perfect accord, have thought that the forms and conditions of parts have caused the function; but this is a mistake, for it is easy to demonstrate by observation that it is, on the contrary, the needs and uses of organs which have developed these same parts, which have even given origin to them where they did not exist, and which consequently have given rise to the condition in which we observe them in each animal. 

 "If this were not so, it would have been necessary for nature to have created for the parts of animals as many forms as the diversity of circumstances in which they have to live had required, and that these forms and also the circumstances had never varied. 

 "This is certainly not the existing order of things, and if it were really such, we should not have the race-horses of England; we should not have our great draft horses, so clumsy and so different from the first named, for nature herself has not produced their like; we should not, for the same reason, have terrier dogs with bow legs, greyhounds so swift in running, water-spaniels, etc. ; we should not have tailless fowls, fantail pigeons, etc. ; finally, we could cultivate the wild plants as much as we pleased in the rich and fertile soil of our gardens without fearing to see them change by long culture. 

 "For a long time we have felt the force of the saying which has passed into the well-known proverb--_habits form a second nature_. 

 "Assuredly, if the habits and nature of each animal can never vary, the proverb is false, has no foundation, and does not apply to the instances which led to its being spoken. 

 "If we should seriously consider all that I have just stated, it might be thought that I had good reason when in my work entitled _Recherches sur les Corps vivans_ (p.  50) I established the following proposition:

 "'It is not the organs--that is to say, the nature and form of the parts of the body of an animal--which have given rise to its habits and its special faculties; but it is, on the contrary, its habits, its manner of life, and the circumstances in which are placed the individuals from which it originates, which have, with time, brought about the form of its body, the number and condition of its organs, finally, the faculties which it enjoys. '

 "If we weigh this proposition, and if we recall all the observations which nature and the state of things continually lead us to do, then its importance and its solidity will become more evident. 

 "Time and favorable circumstances are, as I have already said, the two principal means which nature employs to give existence to all her productions: we know that time for her has no limits, and that consequently it is ever at her disposal. 

 "As to the circumstances of which she has need, and which she uses still daily to cause variations in all that she continues to produce, we can say that they are, in some degree, for her inexhaustible. 

 "The principal circumstances arise from the influence of climate; from those of different temperatures of the atmosphere, and from all the environing media; from that of the diversity of different localities and their situation; from that of habits, the ordinary movements, the most frequent actions; finally, from that of means of preservation, of mode of living, of defence, of reproduction, etc. 

 "Moreover, owing to these diverse influences, the faculties increase and become stronger by use, become differentiated by the new habits preserved for long ages, and insensibly the organization, the consistence--in a word, the nature and condition of parts, as also of the organs--participate in the results of all these influences, become preserved, and are propagated by generation. 

 "These truths, which are only the results of the two natural laws above stated, are in every case completely confirmed by facts; they clearly indicate the course of nature in all the diversity of its products. 

 "But instead of contenting ourselves with generalities which might be considered as hypothetical, let us directly examine the facts, and consider, in the animals, the result of the use or disuse of their organs on the organs themselves, according to the habits that each race has been compelled to contract. 

 "I shall now attempt to prove that the constant lack of exercise of organs at first diminishes their faculties, gradually impoverishes them, and ends by making them disappear, or even causing them to be atrophied, if this lack of use is perpetuated for a very long time through successive generations of animals of the same race. 

 "I shall next prove that, on the contrary, the habit of exercising an organ, in every animal which has not attained the limit of the diminution of its faculties, not only perfects and increases the faculties of this organ, but, besides, enables it to acquire developments and dimensions which insensibly change it; so that with time it renders it very different from the same organ in another animal which exercises it much less. 

 "_The lack of use of an organ, become constant by the habits formed, gradually impoverishes this organ, and ends by causing it to disappear and even to destroy it. _

 "As such a proposition can only be admitted on proof, and not by its simple announcement, let us prove it by the citation of the leading known facts on which it is based. 

 "The vertebrate animals, whose plan of organization is in all nearly the same, although they offer much diversity in their parts, have jaws armed with _teeth_; moreover, those among them which circumstances have placed in the habit of swallowing their food without previous _mastication_ are exposed to the result that their teeth become undeveloped. These teeth, then, either remain concealed between the bony edges of the jaws, without appearing above, or even their gums are found to have been atrophied. 

 "In the baleen whales, which have been supposed to be completely deprived of teeth, M.  Geoffroy has found them concealed in the jaws of the _foetus_ of this animal. This professor has also found in the birds the groove where the teeth should be situated; but they are no longer to be seen there. 

 "In the class even of mammals, which comprises the most perfect animals, and chiefly those in which the vertebrate plan of organization is most perfectly carried out, not only the baleen has no usable teeth, but the ant-eater (_Myrmecophaga_) is also in the same condition, whose habit of not masticating its food has been for a long time established and preserved in its race. 

 "The presence of eyes in the head is a characteristic of a great number of different animals, and becomes an essential part of the plan of organization of vertebrates. 

 "Nevertheless the mole, which owing to its habits makes very little use of vision, has only very small eyes, which are scarcely visible, since they exercise these organs to a very slight extent. 

 "The _Aspalax_ of Olivier (_Voyage en Egypte et en Perse_, ii. Pl.  28 f.  2), which lives under ground like the mole, and which probably exposes itself still less than that animal to the light of day, has totally lost the power of sight; also it possesses only vestiges of the organ of which it is the seat; and yet these vestiges are wholly concealed under the skin and other parts which cover them, and do not permit the least access to the light. 

 "The _Proteus_, an aquatic reptile allied to the salamander in its structure, and which lives in the dark subterranean waters of deep caves, has, like the _Aspalax_, only vestiges of the organs of sight--vestiges which are covered and concealed in the same manner. 

 "We turn to a decisive consideration relative to this question. 

 "Light does not penetrate everywhere; consequently animals which habitually live in situations where it does not penetrate lack the occasion of exercising the organs of sight, if nature has provided them with them. Moreover, the animals which make part of the plan of organization in which _eyes_ are necessarily present, have originally had them. However, since we find them among those which are deprived of the use of this organ, and which have only vestiges concealed and covered over, it should be evident that the impoverishment and even the disappearance of these organs are the result of a constant lack of exercise. 

 "What proves it is that the organ of _hearing_ is never in this condition, and that we always find it in the animals when the nature of their organization should require its existence; the reason is as follows. 

 "The _cause of sound_, that which, moved by the shock or the vibrations of bodies, transmits to the organ of hearing the impression which it receives, penetrates everywhere, traverses all the media, and even the mass of the densest bodies: from this it results that every animal which makes a part of a plan of organization to which _hearing_ is essential, has always occasion to exercise this organ in whatever situation it lives. So, among the _vertebrate animals_ we see none deprived of their organs of hearing; but in the groups below them, when the same organs are once wanting, we do not again find them. 

 "It is not so with the organ of sight, for we see this organ disappear, reappear, and again disappear, in proportion to the possibility or impossibility of the animal's exercising it. 

 "In the _acephalous molluscs_, the great development of the mantle of these molluscs has rendered their eyes and even their head entirely useless. These organs, also forming a part of a plan of organization which should comprise them, have disappeared and atrophied from constant lack of use. 

 "Finally, it is a part of the plan of organization of _reptiles_, as in other vertebrate animals, to have four legs appended to their skeleton. The serpents should consequently have four, though they do not form the lowest order of reptiles, and are not so near the fishes as the batrachians (the frogs, the salamanders, etc. ). 

 "However, the serpents having taken up the habit of gliding along the ground, and of concealing themselves in the grass, their body, owing to continually repeated efforts to elongate itself so as to pass through narrow spaces, has acquired a considerable length disproportionate to its size. Moreover, limbs would have been very useless to these animals, and consequently would not have been employed: because long legs would have interfered with their need of gliding, and very short legs, not being more than four in number, would have been incapable of moving their body. Hence the lack of use of these parts having been constant in the races of these animals, has caused the total disappearance of these same parts, although really included in the plan of organization of the animals of their class. 

 "Many insects which by the natural character of their order, and even of their genus, should have wings, lack them more or less completely from disuse. A quantity of Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Hymenoptera, and of Hemiptera, etc. , afford examples; the habits of these animals do not require them to make use of their wings. 

 "But it is not sufficient to give the explanation of the cause which has brought about the condition of the organs of different animals--a condition which we see to be always the same in those of the same species; we must besides observe the changes of condition produced in the organs of one and the same individual during its life, by the single result of a great change in the special habits in the individuals of its species. The following fact, which is one of the most remarkable, will serve to prove the influence of habits on the condition of organs, and show how changes wrought in the habits of an individual, produce the condition of the organs which are brought into action during the exercise of these habits. 

 "M.  Tenon, member of the Institute, has given an account to the Class of Sciences, that having examined the intestinal canal of several men who had been hard drinkers all their lives, he had constantly found it to be shortened to an extraordinary extent, compared with the same organ in those not given to such a habit. 

 "We know that hard drinkers, or those who are addicted to drunkenness, take very little solid food, that they eat very lightly, and that the beverage which they take in excess frequently suffices to nourish them. 

 "Moreover, as fluid aliments, especially spirituous liquors, do not remain a long time either in the stomach or in the intestines, the stomach and the remainder of the intestinal canal lose the habit of being distended in intemperate persons, so also in sedentary persons and those engaged in mental labor, who are habituated to take but little food. Gradually and at length their stomach becomes contracted, and their intestines shortened. 

 "We are not concerned here with the shrinkage and shortening produced by a puckering of the parts, which permit ordinary extension, if instead of a continued emptiness these viscera should be filled; the shrinkage and shortening in question are real, considerable, and such that these organs would burst open rather than yield suddenly to the causes which would require ordinary extension. 

 "In circumstances of persons of the same age, compare a man who, in order to devote himself to habitual study and mental work, which have rendered his digestion more difficult, has contracted the habit of eating lightly, with another who habitually takes a good deal of exercise, walks out often, and eats heartily; the stomach of the first will be weakened, and a small quantity of food will fill it, while that of the second will be not only maintained in its ordinary health but even strengthened. 

 "We have here the case of an organ much modified in its dimensions and in its faculties by the single cause of a change in habits during the life of the individual. 

 "_The frequent use of an organ become constant by habit increases the faculties of this organ, even develops it, and enables it to acquire dimensions and a power of action which it does not possess in animals which exercise less. _

 "We have just said that the lack of employment of an organ which necessarily exists modifies it, impoverishes it, and ends by its disappearing entirely. 

 "I shall now demonstrate that the continued employment of an organ, with the efforts made to draw out its powers under circumstances where it would be of service, strengthens, extends, and enlarges this organ, or creates a new one which can exercise the necessary functions. 

 "The bird which necessity drives to the water to find there prey fitted for its sustenance, opens the digits of its feet when it wishes to strike the water and propel itself along its surface. The skin which unites these digits at their base, by these acts of spreading apart being unceasingly repeated contracts the habit of extending; so that after a while the broad membranes which connect the digits of ducks, geese, etc. , are formed as we see them. The same efforts made in swimming--_i. E. _, in pushing back the water, in order to advance and to move in this liquid--have likewise extended the membrane situated between the digits of the frogs, the sea-turtles, the otter, beaver, etc. 

 "On the contrary, the bird whose mode of life habituates it to perch on trees, and which is born of individuals who have all contracted this habit, has necessarily the digits of the feet longer and shaped in another way than those of the aquatic animals which I have just mentioned. Its claws, after a while, became elongated, pointed, and curved or hook-like in order to grasp the branches on which the animal often rests. 

 "Likewise we see that the shore bird, which is not inclined to swim, and which moreover has need of approaching the edge of the water to find there its prey, is in continual danger of sinking in the mud. Now, this bird, wishing to act so that its body shall not fall into the water, makes every effort to extend and elongate its legs. It results from this that the long-continued habit that this bird and the others of its race contract, of extending and continually elongating their legs, is the _cause_ of the individuals of this race being raised as if on stilts, having gradually acquired long, naked legs, which are denuded of feathers up to the thighs and often above them (_Système des Animaux sans Vertèbres_, p.  16). 

 "We also perceive that the same bird, wishing to catch fish without wetting its body, is obliged to make continual efforts to lengthen its neck. Now, the results of these habitual efforts in this individual and in those of its race have enabled them, after a time, to singularly elongate them--as, indeed, is proved by the long neck of all shore birds. 

 "If any swimming birds, such as the swan and the goose, whose legs are short, nevertheless have a very long neck, it is because these birds in swimming on the surface of the water have the habit of plunging their head down as far as they can, to catch aquatic larvæ and different animalcules for food, and because they make no effort to lengthen their legs. 

 "When an animal to satisfy its wants makes repeated efforts to elongate its tongue, it will acquire a considerable length (the ant-eater, green wood-pecker); when it is obliged to seize anything with this same organ, then its tongue will divide and become forked. That of the humming-birds, which seize with their tongue, and that of the lizard and serpents, which use it to feel and examine objects in front of them, are proofs of what I advocate. 

 "Wants, always occasioned by circumstances, and followed by sustained efforts to satisfy them, are not limited in results, in modifying--that is to say, in increasing or diminishing--the extent and the faculties of organs; but they also come to displace these same organs when certain of these wants become a necessity. 

 "The fishes which habitually swim in large bodies of water, having need of seeing laterally, have, in fact, their eyes placed on the sides of the head. Their bodies, more or less flattened according to the _species_, have their sides perpendicular to the plane of the water, and their eyes are placed in such a way that there is an eye on each flattened side. But those fishes whose habits place them under the necessity of constantly approaching the shores, and especially the shelving banks or where the slope is slight, have been forced to swim on their flattened faces, so as to be able to approach nearer the edge of the water. In this situation, receiving more light from above than from beneath, and having a special need of being always attentive to what is going on above them, this need has forced one of their eyes to undergo a kind of displacement, and to assume the very singular situation which is familiar to us in the _soles_, _turbots_, _dabs_, etc. (_Pleuronectes_ and _Achirus_). The situation of these eyes is asymmetrical, because this results from an incomplete change. Now, this change is entirely completed in the rays, where the transverse flattening of the body is entirely horizontal, as also the head. Also the eyes of the rays, both situated on the upper side, have become symmetrical. 

 "The serpents which glide along the surface of the ground are obliged chiefly to see elevated objects, or what are above their eyes. This necessity has brought an influence to bear on the situation of the organs of vision in these animals; and, in fact, they have the eyes placed in the lateral and upper parts of the head, so as to easily perceive what is above or at their sides; but they only see for a short distance what is in front of them. Moreover, forced to supply the lack of ability to see and recognize what is in front of their head, and which might injure them, they need only to feel such objects with the aid of their tongue, which they are obliged to dart out with all their power. This habit has not only contributed to render the tongue slender, very long and retractile, but has also led in a great number of species to its division, so as to enable them to feel several objects at once; it has likewise allowed them to form an opening at the end of their head, to enable the tongue to dart out without their being obliged to open their jaws. 

 "Nothing is more remarkable than the result of habits in the herbivorous mammals. 

 "The quadruped to whom circumstances and the wants which they have created have given for a long period, as also to others of its race, the habit of browsing on grass, only walks on the ground, and is obliged to rest there on its four feet the greater part of its life, moving about very little, or only to a moderate extent. The considerable time which this sort of creature is obliged to spend each day to fill itself with the only kind of food which it requires, leads it to move about very little, so that it uses its legs only to stand on the ground, to walk, or run, and they never serve to seize hold of or to climb trees. 

 "From this habit of daily consuming great amounts of food which distend the organs which receive it, and of only moving about to a limited extent, it has resulted that the bodies of these animals are thick, clumsy, and massive, and have acquired a very great volume, as we see in elephants, rhinoceroses, oxen, buffaloes, horses, etc. 

 "The habit of standing upright on their four feet during the greater part of the day to browse has given origin to a thick hoof which envelops the extremity of the digits of their feet; and as their toes are not trained to make any movement, and because they have served no other use than as supports, as also the rest of the leg, the most of them are short, are reduced in size, and even have ended by totally disappearing. Thus in the _pachyderms_, some have five toes enveloped in horn, and consequently their foot is divided into five parts; others have only four, and still others only three. But in the _ruminants_, which seem to be the most ancient of mammals, which are limited only to standing on the ground, there are only two digits on each foot, and only a single one is to be found in the _solipedes_ (the horse, the ass). 

 "Moreover, among these herbivorous animals, and especially among the ruminants, it has been found that from the circumstances of the desert countries they inhabit they are incessantly exposed to be the prey of carnivorous animals, and find safety only in precipitous flight. Necessity has forced them to run swiftly; and from the habit they have thus acquired their body has become slenderer and their limbs much more delicate: we see examples in the antelopes, the gazelles, etc. 

 "Other dangers in our climate to which are continually exposed the deer, the roebuck, the fallow-deer, of perishing from the chase made by man, have reduced them to the same necessity, restrained them to similar habits, and have given rise to the same results. 

 "The ruminating animals only using their legs as supports, and not having strong jaws, which are only exercised in cutting and browsing on grass, can only fight by striking with the head, by directing against each other the _vertex_ of this part. 

 "In their moments of anger, which are frequent, especially among the males, their internal feelings, by their efforts, more strongly urge the fluids toward this part of their head, and it there secretes the corneous matter in some, and osseous matter mixed with corneous matter in others, which gives origin to solid protuberances; hence the origin of horns and antlers, with which most of these animals have the head armed. 

 "As regards habits, it is curious to observe the results in the special form and height of the giraffe (_camelopardalis_); we know that this animal, the tallest of mammals, inhabits the interior of Africa, and that it lives in localities where the earth, almost always arid and destitute of herbage, obliges it to browse on the foliage of trees, and to make continual efforts to reach it. It has resulted from this habit, maintained for a long period in all the individuals of its race, that its forelegs have become longer than the hinder ones, and that its neck is so elongated that the giraffe, without standing on its hind legs, raises its head and reaches six meters in height (almost twenty feet). 

 "Among the birds, the ostriches, deprived of the power of flight, and raised on very long legs, probably owe their singular conformation to analogous circumstances. 

 "The result of habits is as remarkable in the carnivorous mammals as it is in the herbivorous, but it presents effects of another kind. 

 "Indeed, those of these mammals which are habituated, as their race, both to climb as well as to scratch or dig in the ground, or to tear open and kill other animals for food, have been obliged to use the digits of their feet; moreover, this habit has favored the separation of their digits, and has formed the claws with which they are armed. 

 "But among the carnivores there are some which are obliged to run in order to overtake their prey; moreover, since these need and consequently have the habit of daily tearing with their claws and burying them deeply in the body of another animal, to seize and then to tear the flesh, and have been enabled by their repeated efforts to procure for these claws a size and curvature which would greatly interfere in walking or running on stony soil, it has resulted in this case that the animal has been obliged to make other efforts to draw back these too salient and curved claws which would impede it, and hence there has resulted the gradual formation of those special sheaths in which the cats, tigers, lions, etc. , withdraw their claws when not in action. 

 "Thus the efforts in any direction whatever, maintained for a long time or made habitually by certain parts of a living body to satisfy necessities called out by nature or by circumstances, develop these parts and make them acquire dimensions and a shape which they never would have attained if these efforts had not become the habitual action of the animals which have exercised them. The observations made on all the animals known will everywhere furnish examples. 

 "Can any of them be more striking than that which the _kangaroo_ offers us? This animal, which carries its young in its abdominal pouch, has adopted the habit of holding itself erect, standing only on its hind feet and tail, and only changing its position by a series of leaps, in which it preserves its erect attitude so as not to injure its young. 

 "Let us see the result:

 "1. Its fore legs, of which it makes little use, and on which it rests only during the instant when it leaves its erect attitude, have never reached a development proportionate to that of the other parts, and have remained thin, very small, and weak;

 "2. The hind legs, almost continually in action, both for supporting the body and for leaping, have, on the contrary, obtained a considerable development, and have become very large and strong;

 "3. Finally, the tail, which we see is of much use in supporting the animal and in the performance of its principal movements, has acquired at its base a thickness and a strength extremely remarkable. 

 "These well-known facts are assuredly well calculated to prove what results from the habitual use in the animals of any organ or part; and if, when there is observed in an animal an organ especially well developed, strong, and powerful, it is supposed that its habitual use has not produced it, that its continual disuse will make it lose nothing, and, finally, that this organ has always been such since the creation of the species to which this animal belongs, I will ask why our domestic ducks cannot fly like wild ducks--in a word, I might cite a multitude of examples which prove the differences in us resulting from the exercise or lack of use of such of our organs, although these differences might not be maintained in the individuals which follow them genetically, for then their products would be still more considerable. 

 "I shall prove, in the second part, that when the will urges an animal to any action, the organs which should execute this action are immediately provoked by the affluence of subtile fluids (the nervous fluid), which then become the determining cause which calls for the action in question. A multitude of observations prove this fact, which is now indisputable. 

 "It results that the multiplied repetitions of these acts of organization strengthen, extend, develop, and even create the organs which are necessary. It is only necessary attentively to observe that which is everywhere occurring to convince ourselves of the well-grounded basis of this cause of organic developments and changes. 

 "Moreover, every change acquired in an organ by a habit of use sufficient to have produced it is then preserved by heredity (_génération_) if it is common to the individuals which, in fecundation, unite in the reproduction of their species. Finally, this change is propagated, and thus is transmitted to all the individuals which succeed and which are submitted to the same circumstances, unless they have been obliged to acquire it by the means which have in reality created it. 

 "Besides, in reproductive unions the crossings between the individuals which have different qualities or forms are necessarily opposed to the continuous propagation of these qualities and these forms. We see that in man, who is exposed to so many diverse circumstances which exert an influence on him, the qualities or the accidental defects which he has been in the way of acquiring, are thus prevented from being preserved and propagated by generation. If, when some particular features of form or any defects are acquired, two individuals under this condition should always pair, they would reproduce the same features, and the successive generations being confined to such unions, a special and distinct race would then be formed. But perpetual unions between individuals which do not have the same peculiarities of form would cause all the characteristics acquired by special circumstances to disappear. 

 "From this we can feel sure that if distances of habitation did not separate men the intermixture by generation would cause the general characteristics which distinguish the different nations to disappear. 

 "If I should choose to pass in review all the classes, all the orders, all the genera, and all the species of animals which exist, I should show that the structure of individuals and their parts, their organs, their faculties, etc. , etc. , are in all cases the sole result of the circumstances in which each species is found to be subjected by nature and by the habits which the individuals which compose it have been obliged to contract, and which are only the product of a power primitively existing, which has forced the animals into their well-known habits. 

 "We know that the animal called the _ai_, or the sloth (_Bradypus tridactylus_), is throughout life in a condition so very feeble that it is very slow and limited in its movements, and that it walks on the ground with much difficulty. Its movements are so slow that it is thought that it cannot walk more than fifty steps in a day. It is also known that the structure of this animal is in direct relation with its feeble state or its inaptitude for walking; and that should it desire to make any other movements than those which it is seen to make, it could not do it. 

 "Therefore, supposing that this animal had received from nature its well-known organization, it is said that this organization has forced it to adopt the habits and the miserable condition it is in. 

 "I am far from thinking so; because I am convinced that the habits which the individuals of the race of the _ai_ were originally compelled to contract have necessarily brought their organization into its actual state. 

 "Since continual exposure to dangers has at some time compelled the individuals of this species to take refuge in trees and to live in them permanently, and then feed on their leaves, it is evident that then they would give up making a multitude of movements that animals which live on the ground perform. 

 "All the needs of the _ai_ would then be reduced to seizing hold of the branches, to creeping along them or to drawing them in so as to reach the leaves, and then to remain on the tree in a kind of inaction, so as to prevent falling. Besides, this kind of sluggishness would be steadily provoked by the heat of the climate; for in warm-blooded animals the heat urges them rather to repose than to activity. 

 "Moreover, during a long period of time the individuals of the race of the _ai_ having preserved the habit of clinging to trees and of making only slow and slightly varied movements, just sufficient for their needs, their organization has gradually become adapted to their new habits, and from this it will result:

 "1. That the arms of these animals making continual efforts readily to embrace the branches of trees, would become elongated;

 "2. That the nails of their digits would acquire much length and a hooked shape, by the continued efforts of the animal to retain its hold;

 "3. That their digits never having been trained to make special movements, would lose all mobility among themselves, would become united, and would only preserve the power of bending or of straightening out all together;

 "4. That their thighs, continually embracing both the trunks and the larger branches of trees, would contract a condition of habitual separation which would tend to widen the pelvis and to cause the cotyloid cavities to be directed backward;

 "5. Finally, that a great number of their bones would become fused, and hence several parts of their skeleton would assume an arrangement and a figure conformed to the habits of these animals, and contrary to what would be necessary for them to have for other habits. 

 "Indeed, this can never be denied, because, in fact, nature on a thousand other occasions shows us, in the power exercised by circumstances on habits, and in that of the influence of habits on forms, dispositions, and the proportion of the parts of animals, truly analogous facts. 

 "A great number of citations being unnecessary, we now see to what the case under discussion is reduced. 

 "The fact is that divers animals have each, according to their genus and their species, special habits, and in all cases an organization which is perfectly adapted to these habits. 

 "From the consideration of this fact, it appears that we should be free to admit either one or the other of the following conclusions, and that only one of them is susceptible of proof. 

 "_Conclusion admitted up to this day_: Nature (or its Author), in creating the animals, has foreseen all the possible kinds of circumstances in which they should live, and has given to each species an unchanging organization, as also a form determinate and invariable in its different parts, which compels each species to live in the places and in the climate where we find it, and has there preserved its known habits. 

 "_My own conclusion_: Nature, in producing in succession every species of animal, and beginning with the least perfect or the simplest to end her work with the most perfect, has gradually complicated their structure; and these animals spreading generally throughout all the inhabitable regions of the globe, each species has received, through the influence of circumstances to which it has been exposed, the habits which we have observed, and the modifications in its organs which observation has shown us it possesses. 

 "The first of these two conclusions is that believed up to the present day--namely, that held by nearly every one; it implies, in each animal, an unchanging organization and parts which have never varied, and which will never vary; it implies also that the circumstances of the places which each species of animal inhabits will never vary in these localities; for should they vary, the same animals could not live there, and the possibility of discovering similar forms elsewhere, and of transporting them there, would be forbidden. 

 "The second conclusion is my own: it implies that, owing to the influence of circumstances on habits, and as the result of that of habits on the condition of the parts and even on that of the organization, each animal may receive in its parts and its organization, modifications susceptible of becoming very considerable, and of giving rise to the condition in which we find all animals. 

 "To maintain that this second conclusion is unfounded, it is necessary at first to prove that each point of the surface of the globe never varies in its nature, its aspect, its situation whether elevated or depressed, its climate, etc. , etc. ; and likewise to prove that any part of animals does not undergo, even at the end of a long period, any modification by changes of circumstances, and by the necessity which directs them to another kind of life and action than that which is habitual to them. 

 "Moreover, if a single fact shows that an animal for a long time under domestication differs from the wild form from which it has descended, and if in such a species in domesticity we find a great difference in conformation between the individuals submitted to such habits and those restricted to different habits, then it will be certain that the first conclusion does not conform to the laws of nature, and that, on the contrary, the second is perfectly in accord with them. 

 "Everything combines then to prove my assertion--namely, that it is not the form, either of the body or of its parts, which gives rise to habits, and to the mode of life among animals; but that it is on the contrary the habits, the manner of living, and all the other influencing circumstances which have, after a time, constituted the form of the body and of the parts of animals. With the new forms, new faculties have been acquired, and gradually nature has come to form the animals as we actually see them. 

 "Can there be in natural history a consideration more important, and to which we should give more attention, than that which I have just stated?

 "We will end this first part with the principles and the exposition of the natural classification of animals. "

In the fourth chapter of the third part (vol.  ii. Pp.  276-301) Lamarcktreats of the internal feelings of certain animals, which provoke wants(_besoins_). This is the subject which has elicited so much adversecriticism and ridicule, and has in many cases led to the wholesalerejection of all of Lamarck's views. It is generally assumed or statedby Lamarck's critics, who evidently did not read his book carefully, that while he claimed that the plants were evolved by the direct actionof the physical factors, that in the case of all the animals the processwas indirect. But this is not correct. He evidently, as we shall see, places the lowest animals, those without (or what he supposed to bewithout) a nervous system, in the same category as the plants. Hedistinctly states at the outset that only certain animals and man areendowed with this singular faculty, "which consists in being able toexperience _internal emotions_ which provoke the wants and differentexternal or internal causes, and which give birth to the power whichenables them to perform different actions. "

"The nervous fluid, " he says, "can, then, undergo movements in certainparts of its mass, as well as in every part at once; moreover, it isthese latter movements which constitute the _general movements_(_ébranlements_) of this fluid, and which we now proceed to consider. 

 "The general movements of the nervous fluid are of two kinds; namely, "1. Partial movements (_ébranlements_), which finally become general and end in a reaction. It is the movements of this sort which produce feeling. We have treated of them in the third chapter. 

 "2. The movements which are general from the time they begin, and which form no reaction. It is these which constitute internal emotions, and it is of them alone of which we shall treat. 

 "But previously, it is necessary to say a word regarding the _feeling of existence_, because this feeling is the source from which the inner emotions originate. 

 "_On the Feeling of Existence. _

 "The feeling of existence (_sentiment d'existence_), which I shall call _inner feeling_, [183] so as to separate from it the idea of a general condition (_généralité_) which it does not possess, since it is not common to all living beings and not even to all animals, is a very obscure feeling, with which are endowed those animals provided with a nervous system sufficiently developed to give them the faculty of feeling. 

 "This sentiment, very obscure as it is, is nevertheless very powerful, for it is the source of inner emotions which test (_éprouvent_) the individuals possessing it, and, as the result, this singular force urges these individuals to themselves produce the movements and the actions which their wants require. Moreover this feeling, considered as a very active _motor_, only acts thus by sending to the muscles which necessarily cause these movements and actions the nervous fluid which excites them. .. . 

 "Indeed, as the result of organic or vital movements which are produced in every animal, that which possesses a nervous system sufficiently developed has physical sensibility and continually receives in every inner and sensitive part impressions which continually affect it, and which it feels in general without being able to distinguish any single one. 

 "The sentiment of existence [consciousness] is general, since almost every sensitive part of the body shares in it. 'It constitutes this _me_ (_moi_) with which all animals, which are only sensitive, are penetrated, without perceiving it, but which those possessing a brain are able to notice, having the power of thought and of giving attention to it. Finally, it is in all the source of a power which is aroused by wants, which acts effectively only by emotion, and through which the movements and actions derive the force which produces them'. .. . 

 "Finally, the inner feeling only manifests its power, and causes movements, when there exists a system for muscular movement, which is always dependent on the nervous system, and cannot take place without it. "

The author then states that these emotions of the organic sense mayoperate in the animals and in man either without or with an act of theirwill. 

 "From what has been said, we cannot doubt but that the inner and general feeling which urges the animals possessing a nervous system fitted for feeling should be susceptible of being aroused by the causes which affect it; moreover, these causes are always the need both of satisfying hunger, of escaping dangers, of avoiding pain, of seeking pleasure, or that which is agreeable to the individual, etc. 

 "The emotions of the inner feeling can only be recognized by man, who alone pays attention to them, but he only perceives those which are strong, which excite his whole being, such as a view from a precipice, a tragic scene, etc. "

Lamarck then divides the emotions into physical and moral, the latterarising from our ideas, thoughts--in short, our intellectual acts--inthe account of which we need not follow him. 

In the succeeding chapter (V. ) the author dilates on the force whichcauses actions in animals. "We know, " he says "that plants can satisfytheir needs without moving, since they find their food in the environing_milieux_. But it is not the same with animals, which are obliged tomove about to procure their sustenance. Moreover, most of them haveother wants to satisfy, which require other kinds of movements andacts. " This matter is discussed in the author's often leisurely andprolix way, with more or less repetition, which we will condense. 

The lowest animals--those destitute of a nervous system--move inresponse to a stimulus from without. Nature has gradually created thedifferent organs of animals, varying the structure and situation ofthese organs according to circumstances, and has progressively improvedtheir powers. She has begun by borrowing from without, so to speak--fromthe environment--the _productive force_, both of organic movements andthose of the external parts. "She has thus transported this force [theresult of heat, electricity, and perhaps others (p.  307)] into theanimal itself, and, finally, in the most perfect animals she has placeda great part of this force at their disposal, as I will soon show. "

This force incessantly introduced into the lowest animals sets in motionthe visible fluids of the body and excites the irritability of theircontained parts, giving rise to different contractile movements which weobserve; hence the appearance of an irresistible propensity (_penchant_)which constrains them to execute those movements which by theircontinuity or their repetition give rise to habits. 

The most imperfect animals, such as the _Infusoria_, especially themonads, are nourished by absorption and by "an internal inhibition ofabsorbed matters. " "They have, " he says, "no power of seeking theirfood, they have not even the power of recognizing it, but they absorb itbecause it comes in contact with every side of them (_avec tous lespoints de leur individu_), and because the water in which they livefurnishes it to them in sufficient abundance. "

"These frail animals, in which the subtile fluids of the environing_milieux_ constitute the stimulating cause of the orgasm, ofirritability and of organic movements, execute, as I have said, contractile movements which, provoked and varied without ceasing by thisstimulating cause, facilitate and hasten the absorptions of which I havejust spoken. " . .. 

_On the Transportation of the force-producing Movements in the Interiorof Animals. _

 "If nature were confined to the employment of its first means--namely, of a force entirely external and foreign to the animal--its work would have remained very important; the animals would have remained machines totally passive, and she would never have given origin in any of these living beings to the admirable phenomena of sensibility, of inmost feelings of existence which result therefrom, of the power of action, finally, of ideas, by which she can create the most wonderful of all, that of thought--in a word, intelligence. 

 "But, wishing to attain these grand results, she has by slow degrees prepared the means, in gradually giving consistence to the internal parts of animals; in differentiating the organs, and in multiplying and farther forming the fluids contained, etc. , after which she has transported into the interior of these animals that force productive of movements and of actions which in truth it would not dominate at first, but which she has come to place, in great part, at their disposition when their organization should become very much more perfect. 

 "Indeed, from the time that the animal organization had sufficiently advanced in its structure to possess a nervous system--even slightly developed, as in insects--the animals provided with this organization were endowed with an intimate sense of their existence, and from that time the force productive of movements was conveyed into the very interior of the animal. 

 "I have already made it evident that this internal force which produces movements and actions should derive its origin in the intimate feeling of existence which animals with a nervous system possess, and that this feeling, solicited or aroused by needs, should then start into motion the subtile fluid contained in the nerves and carry it to the muscles which should act, this producing the actions which the needs require. 

 "Moreover, every want felt produces an emotion in the inner feeling of the individual which experiences it; and from this emotion of the feeling in question arises the force which gives origin to the movement of the parts which are placed in activity. .. . 

 "Thus, in the animals which possess the power of acting--namely, the force productive of movements and actions--the inner feeling, which on each occasion originates this force, being excited by some need, places in action the power or force in question; excites the movement of displacement in the subtile fluid of the nerves--which the ancients called _animal spirits_; directs this fluid towards that of its organs which any want impels to action; finally makes this same fluid flow back into its habitual reservoirs when the needs no longer require the organ to act. 

 "The inner feeling takes the place of the _will_; for it is now important to consider that every animal which does not possess the special organ in which or by which it executes thoughts, judgments, etc. , has in reality no will, does not make a choice, and consequently cannot control the movements which its inner feeling excites. _Instinct_ directs these actions, and we shall see that this direction always results from emotions of the inner feeling, in which intelligence has no part, and from the organization even which the habits have modified, in such a manner that the needs of animals which are in this category, being necessarily limited and always the same in the same species, the inner feeling and, consequently, the power of acting, always produces the same actions. 

 "It is not the same in animals which besides a nervous system have a brain [the author meaning the higher vertebrates], and which make comparisons, judgments, thoughts, etc. These same animals control more or less their power of action according to the degree of perfection of their brain; and although they are still strongly subjected to the results of their habits, which have modified their structure, they enjoy more or less freedom of the will, can choose, and can vary their acts, or at least some of them. "

Lamarck then treats of the consumption and exhaustion of the nervousfluid in the production of animal movements, resulting in fatigue. 

He next occupies himself with the origin of the inclination to the sameactions, and of instinct in animals. 

 "The cause of the well-known phenomenon which constrains almost all animals to always perform the same acts, and that which gives rise in man to a propensity (_penchant_) to repeat every action, becoming habitual, assuredly merits investigation. 

 "The animals which are only 'sensible'[184]--namely, which possess no brain, cannot think, reason, or perform intelligent acts, and their perceptions being often very confused--do not reason and can scarcely vary their actions. They are, then, invariably bound by habits. Thus the insects, which of all animals endowed with feeling have the least perfect nervous system, [185] have perceptions of objects which affect them, and seem to have memory of them when they are repeated. Yet they can vary their actions and change their habits, though they do not possess the organ whose acts could give them the means. 

 "_On the Instincts of Animals. _

 "We define instinct as the sum (_ensemble_) of the decisions (_déterminations_) of animals in their actions; and, indeed, some have thought that these determinations were the product of a rational choice, and consequently the fruit of experience. Others, says Cabanis, may think with the observers of all ages that several of these decisions should not be ascribed to any kind of reasoning, and that, without ceasing as for that to have their source in physical sensibility, they are most often formed without the will of the individuals able to have any other part than in better directing the execution. It should be added, without the will having any part in it; for when it does not act, it does not, of course, direct the execution. 

 "If it had been considered that all the animals which enjoy the power of sensation have their inner feeling susceptible of being aroused by their needs, and that the movements of their nervous fluids, which result from these emotions, are constantly directed by this inner sentiment and by habits, then it has been felt that in all the animals deprived of intelligence all the decisions of action can never be the result of a rational choice, of judgment, of profitable experience--in a word, of will--but that they are subjected to needs which certain sensations excite, and which awaken the inclinations which urge them on. 

 "In the animals even which enjoy the power of performing certain intelligent acts, it is still more often the inner feeling and the inclinations originating from habits which decide, without choice, the acts which animals perform. 

 "Moreover, although the executing power of movements and of actions, as also the cause which directs them, should be entirely internal, it is not well, as has been done, [186] to limit to internal impressions the primary cause or provocation of these acts, with the intention to restrict to external impressions that which provokes intelligent acts; for, from what few facts are known bearing on these considerations, we are convinced that, either way, the causes which arouse and provoke acts are sometimes internal and sometimes external, that these same causes give rise in reality to impressions all of which act internally. 

 "According to the idea generally attached to the word _instinct_ the faculty which this word expresses is considered as a light which illuminates and guides animals in their actions, and which is with them what reason is to us. No one has shown that instinct can be a force which calls into action; that this force acts effectively without any participation of the will, and that it is constantly directed by acquired inclinations. "

There are, the author states, two kinds of causes which can arouse theinner feeling (organic sense)--namely, those which depend onintellectual acts, and those which, without arising from it, immediatelyexcite it and force it to direct its power of acting in the direction ofacquired inclinations. 

 "These are the only causes of this last kind, which constitute all the acts of _instinct_; and as these acts are not the result of deliberation, of choice, of judgment, the actions which arise from them always satisfy, surely and without error, the wants felt and the propensities arising from habits. 

 "Hence, _instinct_ in animals is an inclination which necessitates that from sensations provoked while giving rise to wants the animal is impelled to act without the participation of any thought or any act of the will. 

 "This propensity owes to the organization what the habits have modified in its favor, and it is excited by impressions and wants which arouse the organic sense of the individual and put it in the way of sending the nervous fluid in the direction which the propensity in activity needs to the muscles to be placed in action. 

 "I have already said that the habit of exercising such an organ, or such a part of the body, to satisfy the needs which often spring up, should give to the subtile fluid which changes its place where is to be operated the power which causes action so great a facility in moving towards this organ, where it has been so often employed, that this habit should in a way become inherent in the nature of the individual, which is unable to change it. 

 "Moreover, the wants of animals possessing a nervous system being, in each case, dependent on the Structure of these organisms, are:

 "1. Of obtaining any kind of food;

 "2. Of yielding to sexual fecundation which excites in them certain sensations;

 "3. Of avoiding pain;

 "4. Of seeking pleasure or happiness. 

 "To satisfy these wants they contract different kinds of habits, which are transformed into so many propensities, which they can neither resist nor change. From this originate their habitual actions, and their special propensities to which we give the name of instinct. [187]

 "This propensity of animals to preserve their habits and to renew the actions resulting from them being once acquired, is then propagated by means of reproduction or generation, which preserves the organization and the disposition of parts in the state thus attained, so that this same propensity already exists in the new individuals even before they have exercised it. 

 "It is thus that the same habits and the same _instinct_ are perpetuated from generation to generation in the different species or races of animals, without offering any notable variation, [188] so long as it does not suffer change in the circumstances essential to the mode of life. "

 "_On the Industry of Certain Animals. _

 "In those animals which have no brain that which we call _industry_ as applied to certain of their actions does not deserve such a name, for it is a mistake to attribute to them a faculty which they do not possess. 

 "Propensities transmitted and received by heredity (_génération_); habits of performing complicated actions, and which result from these acquired propensities; finally, different difficulties gradually and habitually overcome by as many emotions of the organic sense (_sentiment intérieur_), constitute the sum of actions which are always the same in the individuals of the same race, to which we inconsiderately give the name of _industry_. 

 "The instinct of animals being formed by the habit of satisfying the four kinds of wants mentioned above, and resulting from the propensities acquired for a long time which urge them on in a way determined for each species, there comes to pass, in the case of some, only a complication in the actions which can satisfy these four kinds of wants, or certain of them, and, indeed, only the different difficulties necessary to be overcome have gradually compelled the animal to extend and make contrivances, and have led it, without choice or any intellectual act, but only by the emotions of the organic sense, to perform such and such acts. 

 "Hence the origin, in certain animals, of different complicated actions, which has been called _industry_, and which are so enthusiastically admired, because it has always been supposed, at least tacitly, that these actions were contrived and deliberately planned, which is plainly erroneous. They are evidently the fruit of a necessity which has expanded and directed the habits of the animals performing them, and which renders them such as we observe. 

 "What I have just said is especially applicable to the invertebrate animals, in which there enters no act of intelligence. None of these can indeed freely vary its actions; none of them has the power of abandoning what we call its _industry_ to adopt any other kind. 

 "There is, then, nothing wonderful in the supposed industry of the ant-lion (_Myrmeleon formica-leo_), which, having thrown up a hillock of movable sand, waits until its booty is thrown down to the bottom of its funnel by the showers of sand to become its victim; also there is none in the manoeuvre of the oyster, which, to satisfy all its wants, does nothing but open and close its shell. So long as their organization is not changed they will always, both of them, do what we see them do, and they will do it neither voluntarily nor rationally. 

 "This is not the case with the vertebrate animals, and it is among them, especially in the birds and mammals, that we observe in their actions traces of a true _industry_; because in difficult cases their intelligence, in spite of their propensity to habits, can aid them in varying their actions. These acts, however, are not common, and are only slightly manifested in certain races which have exercised them more, as we have had frequent occasion to remark. "

Lamarck then (chapter vi. ) examines into the nature of the _will_, whichhe says is really the principle underlying all the actions of animals. The will, he says, is one of the results of thought, the result of areflux of a portion of the nervous fluid towards the parts which are toact. 

He compares the brain to a register on which are imprinted ideas of allkinds acquired by the individual, so that this individual provokes atwill an effusion of the nervous fluid on this register, and directs itto any particular page. The remainder of the second volume(chapter vii. ) is devoted to the understanding, its origin and that ofideas. The following additions relative to chapters vii. And viii. Ofthe first part of this work are from vol.  ii. , pp.  451-466. 

In the last of June, 1809, the menagerie of the Museum of NaturalHistory having received a Phoca (_Phoca vitulina_), Lamarck, as he says, had the opportunity of observing its movements and habits. Afterdescribing its habits in swimming and moving on land and observing itsrelation to the clawed mammals, he says his main object is to remarkthat the seals do not have the hind legs arranged in the same directionas the axis of their body, because these animals are constrained tohabitually use them to form a caudal fin, closing and widening, byspreading their digits, the paddle (_palette_) which results from theirunion. 

 "The morses, on the contrary, which are accustomed to feed on grass near the shore, never use their hind feet as a caudal fin; but their feet are united together with the tail, and cannot separate. Thus in animals of similar origin we see a new proof of the effect of habits on the form and structure of organs. "

He then turns to the flying mammals, such as the flying squirrel(_Sciurus volans_, _ærobates_, _petaurista_, _sagitta_, and_volucella_), and then explains the origin of their adaptation forflying leaps. 

 "These animals, more modern than the seals, having the habit of extending their limbs while leaping to form a sort of _parachute_, can _only_ make a very prolonged leap when they glide down from a tree or spring only a short distance from one tree to another. Now, by frequent repetitions of such leaps, in the individuals of these races the skin of their sides is expanded on each side into a loose membrane, which connects the hind and fore legs, and which, enclosing a volume of air, prevents their sudden falling. These animals are, moreover, without membranes between the fingers and toes. 

 "The Galeopithecus (_Lemur volans_), undoubtedly a more ancient form but with the same habits as the flying squirrel (_Pteromys Geoff. _), has the skin of the _flancs_ more ample, still more developed, connecting not only the hinder with the fore legs, but in addition the fingers and the tail with the hind feet. Moreover, they leap much farther than the flying squirrels, and even make a sort of flight. [189]

 "Finally, the different bats are probably mammals still older than the Galeopithecus, in the habit of extending their membrane and even their fingers to encompass a greater volume of air, so as to sustain their bodies when they fly out into the air. 

 "By these habits, for so long a period contracted and preserved, the bats have obtained not only lateral membranes, but also an extraordinary elongation of the fingers of their fore feet (with the exception of the thumb), between which are these very ample membranes uniting them; so that these membranes of the hands become continuous with those of the flanks, and with those which connect the tail with the two hind feet, forming in these animals great membranous wings with which they fly perfectly, as everybody knows. 

 "Such is then the power of habits, which have a singular influence on the conformation of parts, and which give to the animals which have for a long time contracted certain of them, faculties not found in other animals. 

 "As regards the amphibious animals of which I have often spoken, it gives me pleasure to communicate to my readers the following reflections which have arisen from an examination of all the objects which I have taken into consideration in my studies, and seen more and more to be confirmed. 

 "I do not doubt but that the mammals have in reality originated from them, and that they are the veritable cradle (_berceau_) of the entire animal kingdom. 

 "Indeed, we see that the least perfect animals (and they are the most numerous) live only in the water; hence it is probable, as I have said (vol.  ii. , p.  85), that it is only in the water or in very humid places that nature causes and still forms, under favorable conditions, direct or spontaneous generations which have produced the simplest animalcules and those from which have successively been derived all the other animals. 

 "We know that the Infusoria, the polyps, and the Radiata only live in the water; that the worms even only live some in the water and others in very damp places. 

 "Moreover, regarding the worms, which seem to form an initial branch of the animal scale, since it is evident that the Infusoria form another branch, we may suppose that among those of them which are wholly aquatic--namely, which do not live in the bodies of other animals, such as the Gordius and many others still unknown--there are doubtless a great many different aquatic forms; and that among these aquatic worms, those which afterwards habitually expose themselves to the air have probably produced amphibious insects, such as the mosquitoes, the ephemeras, etc. , etc. , which have successively given origin to all the insects which live solely in the air. But several races of these having changed their habits by the force of circumstances, and having formed habits of a life solitary, retired, or hidden, have given rise to the arachnides, almost all of which also live in the air. 

 "Finally, those of the arachnides which have frequented the water, which have consequently become progressively habituated to live in it, and which finally cease to expose themselves to the air--this indicates the relations which, connecting the Scolopendræ to Julus, this to the Oniscus, and the last to Asellus, shrimps, etc. , have caused the existence of all the Crustacea. 

 "The other aquatic worms which are never exposed to the air, multiplying and diversifying their races with time, and gradually making progress in the complication of their structure, have caused the formation of the Annelida, Cirripedia, and molluscs, which together form an uninterrupted portion of the animal scale. 

 "In spite of the considerable hiatus which we observe between the known molluscs and the fishes, the molluscs, whose origin I have just indicated, have, by the intermediation of those yet remaining unknown, given origin to the fishes, as it is evident that the latter have given rise to the reptiles. 

 "In continuing to consult the probabilities on the origin of different animals, we cannot doubt but that the reptiles, by two distinct branches which circumstances have brought about, have given rise on one side to the formation of birds, and on the other to that of amphibious mammals, which have given in their turn origin to all the other mammals. [190]

 "Indeed, the fishes having caused the formation of Batrachia, and these of the Ophidian reptiles, both having only one auricle in the heart, nature has easily come to give a heart with a double auricle to other reptiles which constitute two special branches; finally, she has easily arrived at the end of forming, in the animals which had originated from each of these branches, a heart with two ventricles. 

 "Thus, among the reptiles whose heart has a double auricle, on the one side, the Chelonians seem to have given origin to the birds; if, independently of several relations which we cannot disregard, I should place the head of a tortoise on the neck of certain birds, I should perceive almost no disparity in the general physiognomy of the factitious animal; and on the other side, the saurians, especially the 'planicaudes, ' such as the crocodiles, seem to have given origin to the amphibious mammals. 

 "If the branch of the Chelonians has given rise to birds, we can yet presume that the palmipede aquatic birds, especially the _brevipennes_, such as the penguins and the _manchots_, have given origin to the monotremes. 

 "Finally, if the branch of saurians has given rise to the amphibious mammals, it will be most probable that this branch is the source whence all the mammals have taken their origin. 

 "I therefore believe myself authorized to think that the terrestrial mammals originally descended from those aquatic mammals that we call Amphibia. Because the latter being divided into three branches by the diversity of the habits which, with the lapse of time, they have adopted, some have caused the formation of the Cetacea, others that of the ungulated mammals, and still others that of the unguiculate mammals. 

 "For example, those of the Amphibia which have preserved the habit of frequenting the shores differ in the manner of taking their food. Some among them accustoming themselves to browse on herbage, such as the morses and lamatines, gradually gave origin to the ungulate mammals, such as the pachyderms, ruminants, etc. ; the others, such as the Phocidæ, contracting the habit of feeding on fishes and marine animals, caused the existence of the unguiculate mammals, by means of races which, while becoming differentiated, became entirely terrestrial. 

 "But those aquatic mammals which would form the habit of never leaving the water, and only rising to breathe at the surface, would probably give origin to the different known cetaceans. Moreover, the ancient and complete habitation of the Cetacea in the ocean has so modified their structure that it is now very difficult to recognize the source whence they have derived their origin. 

 "Indeed, since the enormous length of time during which these animals have lived in the depths of the sea, never using their hind feet in seizing objects, their disused feet have wholly disappeared, as also their skeleton, and even the pelvis serving as their attachment. 

 "The alteration which the cetaceans have undergone in their limbs, owing to the influence of the medium in which they live and the habits which they have there contracted, manifests itself also in their fore limbs, which, entirely enveloped by the skin, no longer show externally the fingers in which they end; so that they only offer on each side a fin which contains concealed within it the skeleton of a hand. 

 "Assuredly, the cetaceans being mammals, it entered into the plan of their structure to have four limbs like the others, and consequently a pelvis to sustain their hind legs. But here, as elsewhere, that which is lacking in them is the result of atrophy brought about, at the end of a long time, by the want of use of the parts which were useless. 

 "If we consider that in the Phocæ, where the pelvis still exists, this pelvis is impoverished, narrowed, and with no projections on the hips, we see that the lessened (_médiocre_) use of the hind feet of these animals must be the cause, and that if this use should entirely cease, the hind limbs and even the pelvis would in the end disappear. 

 "The considerations which I have just presented may doubtless appear as simple conjectures, because it is possible to establish them only on direct and positive proofs. But if we pay any attention to the observations which I have stated in this work, and if then we examine carefully the animals which I have mentioned, as also the result of their habits and their surroundings, we shall find that these conjectures will acquire, after this examination, an eminent probability. 

 "The following _tableau_[191] will facilitate the comprehension of what I have just stated. It will be seen that, in my opinion, the animal scale begins at least by two special branches, and that in the course of its extent some branchlets (_rameaux_) would seem to terminate in certain places. 

 "This series of animals beginning with two branches where are situated the most imperfect, the first of these branches received their existence only by direct or spontaneous generation. 

 "A strong reason prevents our knowing the changes successively brought about which have produced the condition in which we observe them; it is because we are never witnesses of these changes. Thus we see the work when done, but never watching them during the process, we are naturally led to believe that things have always been as we see them, and not as they have progressively been brought about. 

 "Among the changes which nature everywhere incessantly produces in her _ensemble_, and her laws remain always the same, such of these changes as, to bring about, do not need much more time than the duration of human life, are easily understood by the man who observes them; but he cannot perceive those which are accomplished at the end of a considerable time. 

 "If the duration of human life only extended to the length of a _second_, and if there existed one of our actual clocks mounted and in movement, each individual of our species who should look at the hour-hand of this clock would never see it change its place in the course of his life, although this hand would really not be stationary. The observations of thirty generations would never learn anything very evident as to the displacement of this hand, because its movement, only being that made during half a minute, would be too slight to make an impression; and if observations much more ancient should show that this same hand had really moved, those who should see the statement would not believe it, and would suppose there was some error, each one having always seen the hand on the same point of the dial-plate. 

 "I leave to my readers all the applications to be made regarding this supposition. 

 "_Nature_, that immense totality of different beings and bodies, in every part of which exists an eternal circle of movements and changes regulated by law; totality alone unchangeable, so long as it pleases its SUBLIME AUTHOR to make it exist, should be regarded as a whole constituted by its parts, for a purpose which its Author alone knows, and not exclusively for any one of them. 

 "Each part necessarily is obliged to change, and to cease to be one in order to constitute another, with interests opposed to those of all; and if it has the power of reasoning it finds this whole imperfect. In reality, however, this whole is perfect, and completely fulfils the end for which it was designed. "

The last work in which Lamarck discussed the theory of descent was inhis introduction to the _Animaux sans Vertèbres_. But here the onlychanges of importance are his four laws, which we translate, and asomewhat different phylogeny of the animal kingdom. 

The four laws differ from the two given in the _Philosophie zoologique_in his theory (the second law) accounting for the origin of a new organ, the result of a new need. 

 "_First law_: Life, by its proper forces, continually tends to increase the volume of every body which possesses it, and to increase the size of its parts, up to a limit which it brings about. 

 "_Second law_: The production of a new organ in an animal body results from the supervention of a new want (_besoin_) which continues to make itself felt, and of a new movement which this want gives rise to and maintains. 

 "_Third law_: The development of organs and their power of action are constantly in ratio to the employment of these organs. 

 "_Fourth law_: Everything which has been acquired, impressed upon, or changed in the organization of individuals, during the course of their life is preserved by generation and transmitted to the new individuals which have descended from those which have undergone those changes. "

In explaining the second law he says:

 "The foundation of this law derives its proof from the third, in which the facts known allow of no doubt; for, if the forces of action of an organ, by their increase, further develop this organ--namely, increase its size and power, as is constantly proved by facts--we may be assured that the forces by which it acts, just originated by a new want felt, would necessarily give birth to the organ adapted to satisfy this new want, if this organ had not before existed. 

 "In truth, in animals so low as not to be able to _feel_, it cannot be that we should attribute to a felt want the formation of a new organ, this formation being in such a case the product of a mechanical cause, as that of a new movement produced in a part of the fluids of the animal. 

 "It is not the same in animals with a more complicated structure, and which are able to _feel_. They feel wants, and each want felt, exciting their inner feeling, forthwith sets the fluids in motion and forces them towards the point of the body where an action may satisfy the want experienced. Now, if there exists at this point an organ suitable for this action, it is immediately cited to act; and if the organ does not exist, and only the felt want be for instance pressing and continuous, gradually the organ originates, and is developed on account of the continuity and energy of its employment. 

 "If I had not been convinced: 1, that the thought alone of an action which strongly interests it suffices to arouse the _inner feeling_ of an individual; 2, that a felt want can itself arouse the feeling in question; 3, that every emotion of _inner feeling_, resulting from a want which is aroused, directs at the same instant a mass of nervous fluid to the points to be set in activity, that it also creates a flow thither of the fluids of the body, and especially nutrient ones; that, finally, it then places in activity the organs already existing, or makes efforts for the formation of those which would not have existed there, and which a continual want would therefore render necessary--I should have had doubts as to the reality of the law which I have just indicated. 

 "But, although it may be very difficult to verify this law by observation, I have no doubt as to the grounds on which I base it, the necessity of its existence being involved in that of the third law, which is now well established. 

 "I conceive, for example, that a _gasteropod mollusc_, which, as it crawls along, finds the need of feeling the bodies in front of it, makes efforts to touch those bodies with some of the foremost parts of its head, and sends to these every time supplies of nervous fluids, as well as other fluids--I conceive, I say, that it must result from this reiterated afflux towards the points in question that the nerves which abut at these points will, by slow degrees, be extended. Now, as in the same circumstances other fluids of the animal flow also to the same places, and especially nourishing fluids, it must follow that two or more tentacles will appear and develop insensibly under those circumstances on the points referred to. 

 "This is doubtless what has happened to all the races of _Gasteropods_, whose wants have compelled them to adopt the habit of feeling bodies with some part of their head. 

 "But if there occur, among the _Gasteropods_, any races which, by the circumstances which concern their mode of existence or life, do not experience such wants, then their head remains without tentacles; it has even no projection, no traces of tentacles, and this is what has happened in the case of _Bullæa_, _Bulla_, and _Chiton_. "

In the _Supplément à la Distribution générale des Animaux_(Introduction, p.  342), concerning the real order of origin of theinvertebrate classes, Lamarck proposes a new genealogical tree. Hestates that the order of the animal series "is far from simple, that itis branching, and seems even to be composed of several distinct series;"though farther on (p.  456) he adds:

 "Je regarde _l'ordre de la production_ des animaux comme formé de deux séries distinctes. 

 "Ainsi, je soumets à la méditation des zoologistes l'ordre présumé de la _formation_ des animaux, tel que l'exprime le tableau suivant:"

In the matter of the origin of instinct, as in evolution in general, Lamarck appears to have laid the foundation on which Darwin's views, though he throws aside Lamarck's factors, must rest. The "inheritedhabit" theory is thus stated by Lamarck. 

Instinct, he claims, is not common to all animals, since the lowestforms, like plants, are entirely passive under the influences of thesurrounding medium; they have no wants, are automata. 

 "But animals with a nervous system have _wants_, _i. E. _, they feel hunger, sexual desires, they desire to avoid pain or to seek pleasure, etc. To satisfy these wants they contract habits, which are gradually transformed into so many propensities which they can neither resist nor change. Hence arise habitual actions and special _propensities_, to which we give the name of _instinct_. 

 "These propensities are inherited and become innate in the young, so that they act instinctively from the moment of birth. Thus the same habits and instincts are perpetuated from one generation to another, with no _notable_ variations, so long as the species does not suffer change in the circumstances essential to its mode of life. "

The same views are repeated in the introduction to the _Animaux sansVertèbres_ (1815), and again in 1820, in his last work, and do not needto be translated, as they are repetitions of his previously publishedviews in the _Philosophie zoologique_. 

Unfortunately, to illustrate his thoughts on instinct Lamarck does notgive us any examples, nor did he apparently observe to any great extentthe habits of animals. In these days one cannot follow him in drawing aline--as regards the possession of instincts--between the lowestorganisms, or Protozoa, and the groups provided with a nervous system. 

_Lamarck's meaning of the word "besoins, " or wants or needs. _--Lamarck'suse of the word wants or needs (_besoins_) has, we think, been greatlymisunderstood and at times caricatured or pronounced as "absurd. " Thedistinguished French naturalist, Quatrefages, although he was nothimself an evolutionist, has protested against the way Lamarck's viewshave been caricatured. By nearly all authors he is represented asclaiming that by simply "willing" or "desiring" the individual bird orother animal radically and with more or less rapidity changed its shapeor that of some particular organ or part of the body. This is, as wehave seen, by no means what he states. In no instance does he speak ofan animal as simply "desiring" to modify an organ in any way. Thedoctrine of appetency attributed to Lamarck is without foundation. Inall the examples given he intimates that owing to changes inenvironment, leading to isolation in a new area separating a largenumber of individuals from their accustomed habitat, they are driven bynecessity (_besoin_) or new needs to adopt a new or different mode oflife--new habits. These efforts, whatever they may be--such as attemptsto fly, swim, wade, climb, burrow, etc. , continued for a long time "inall the individuals of its species, " or the great number forced bycompetition to migrate and become segregated from the others of theoriginal species--finally, owing to the changed surroundings, affect themass of individuals thus isolated, and their organs thus exercised in aspecial direction undergo a slow modification. 

Even so careful a writer as Dr.  Alfred R. Wallace does not quite fairly, or with exactness, state what Lamarck says, when in his classical essayof 1858 he represents Lamarck as stating that the giraffe acquired itslong neck by _desiring_ to reach the foliage of the more lofty shrubs, and constantly stretching its neck for the purpose. On the contrary, hedoes not use the word "desiring" at all. What Lamarck does say is that--

 "The giraffe lives in dry, desert places, without herbage, so that it is obliged to browse on the leaves of trees, and is continually forced to reach up to them. It results from this habit, continued for a long time in all the individuals of its species, that its fore limbs have become so elongated that the giraffe, without raising itself erect on its hind legs, raises its head and reaches six meters high (almost twenty feet). "[192]

We submit that this mode of evolution of the giraffe is quite asreasonable as the very hypothetical one advanced by Mr.  Wallace;[193]_i. E. _, that a variety occurred with a longer neck than usual, and these"at once secured a fresh range of pasture over the same ground as theirshorter-necked companions, and on the first scarcity of food werethereby enabled to outlive them. " Mr.  Wallace's account also ofLamarck's general theory appears to us to be one-sided, inadequate, andmisleading. He states it thus: "The hypothesis of Lamarck--thatprogressive changes in species have been produced by the attempts ofanimals to increase the development of their own organs, and thus modifytheir structure and habits. " This is a caricature of what Lamarck reallytaught. Wants, needs (_besoins_), volitions, desires, are not mentionedby Lamarck in his two fundamental laws (see p.  303), and when the word_besoins_ is introduced it refers as much to the physiological needs asto the emotions of the animal resulting from some new environment whichforces it to adopt new habits such as means of locomotion or ofacquiring food. 

It will be evident to one who has read the original or the foregoingtranslations of Lamarck's writings that he does not refer so much tomental desires or volitions as to those physiological wants or needsthrust upon the animal by change of circumstances or by competition; andhis _besoins_ may include lust, hunger, as well as the necessity ofmaking muscular exertions such as walking, running, leaping, climbing, swimming, or flying. 

As we understand Lamarck, when he speaks of the incipient giraffe orlong-necked bird as making efforts to reach up or outwards, the effortsmay have been as much physiological, reflex, or instinctive as mental. Arecent writer, Dr.  R.  T. Jackson, curiously and yet naturally enoughuses the same phraseology as Lamarck when he says that the long siphonof the common clam (Mya) "was brought about by the effort to reach thesurface, induced by the habit of deep burial" in its hole. [194]

On the other hand, can we in the higher vertebrates entirely dissociatethe emotional and mental activities from their physiological orinstinctive acts? Mr.  Darwin, in his _Expressions of the Emotions in Manand Animals_, discusses in an interesting and detailed way the effectsof the feelings and passions on some of the higher animals. 

It is curious, also, that Dr.  Erasmus Darwin went at least as far asLamarck in claiming that the transformations of animals "are in partproduced by their own exertions in consequence of their desires andaversions, of their pleasures and their pains, or of irritations or ofassociations. "

Cope, in the final chapter of his _Primary Factors of OrganicEvolution_, entitled "The Functions of Consciousness, " goes to muchfarther extremes than the French philosopher has been accused of doing, and unhesitatingly attributes consciousness to all animals. "Whatever beits nature, " he says, "the preliminary to any animal movement which isnot automatic is an effort. " Hence he regards effort as the immediatesource of all movement, and considers that the control of muscularmovements by consciousness is distinctly observable; in fact, he evengoes to the length of affirming that reflex acts are the product ofconscious acts, whereas it is plain enough that reflex acts are alwaysthe result of some stimulus. 

Another case mentioned by Lamarck in his _Animaux sans Vertèbres_, whichhas been pronounced as absurd and ridiculous, and has aided in throwinghis whole theory into disfavor, is his way of accounting for thedevelopment of the tentacles of the snail, which is quoted on p.  348. 

This account is a very probable and, in fact, the only rationalexplanation. The initial cause of such structures is the intermittentstimulus of occasional contact with surrounding objects, the irritationthus set up causing a flow of the blood to the exposed parts receivingthe stimuli. The general cause is the same as that concerned in theproduction of horns and other hard defensive projections on the heads ofvarious animals. 

In commenting on this case of the snail, Professor Cleland, in his justand discriminating article on Lamarck, says:

 "However absurd this may seem, it must be admitted that, unlimited time having been once granted for organs to be developed in series of generations, the objections to their being formed in the way here imagined are only such as equally apply to the theory of their origin by natural selection. .. . In judging the reasonableness of the second law of Lamarck [referring to new wants, see p.  346] as compared with more modern and now widely received theories, it must be observed that it is only an extension of his third law; and that third law is a fact. The strengthening of the blacksmith's arm by use is proverbially notorious. It is, therefore, only the sufficiency of the Lamarckian hypothesis to explain the first commencement of new organs which is in question, if evolution by the mere operation of forces acting in the organic world be granted; and surely the Darwinian theory is equally helpless to account for the beginning of a new organ, while it demands as imperatively that every stage in the assumed hereditary development of an organ must have been useful. .. . Lamarck gave great importance to the influence of new wants acting indirectly by stimulating growth and use. Darwin has given like importance to the effects of accidental variations acting indirectly by giving advantage in the struggle for existence. The speculative writings of Darwin have, however, been interwoven with a vast number of beautiful experiments and observations bearing on his speculations, though by no means proving his theory of evolution; while the speculations of Lamarck lie apart from his wonderful descriptive labors, unrelieved by intermixture with other matters capable of attracting the numerous class who, provided they have new facts set before them, are not careful to limit themselves to the conclusions strictly deducible therefrom. But those who read the _Philosophie Zoologique_ will find how many truths often supposed to be far more modern are stated with abundant clearness in its pages. " (_Encyc. Brit. _, art. "Lamarck. ")

COMPARATIVE SUMMARY OF THE VIEWS OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE THEORY OFEVOLUTION, WITH DATES OF PUBLICATION. 

 -------------+-------------+------------------------+------------+------------ |Erasmus | |Geoffroy St. |Charles Buffon |Darwin |Lamarck |Hilaire |Darwin (1761-1778). |(1790-1794). |(1801-1809-1815). |(1795-1831). |(1859). -------------+-------------+------------------------+------------+------------ | | | | All animals |All animals |All organisms arose from|Unity of |Universal possibly |derived from |germs. First germ |organization|tendency to derived from |a single |originated by |in animal |fortuitous a single |filament. |spontaneous generation. |kingdom. |variability type. | |Development from the | |assumed. | |simple to the complex. |Change of | Time, its | |Animal series not |"milieu | great length, | |continuous, but |ambiant, " | stated. | |tree-like; graduated |direct. | | |from monad to man; | | Immutability | |constructed the first | | of species | |phylogenetic tree. | | stated and | | |Founded the |Struggle then denied. |Time, great |Time, great length of, |doctrine of |for |length of, |definitely postulated; |homologies. |existence. Nature |definitely |its duration practically| | advances by |demanded. |unlimited. | | gradations, | | | | passing from | |Uniformitarianism of | | one species | |Hutton and of Lyell |Founder of | to another by| |anticipated. |teratology. | imperceptible| | | | degrees. |Effects of |Effects of favorable |His embryo- | |change of |circumstances, such as |logical | Changes in |climate, |changes of environment, |studies | distribution |direct |climate, soil, food, |influenced | of land and |(briefly |temperature; direct in |his | water as |stated). |case of plants and |philosophic | causing | |lowest animals, indirect|views. | variation. | |in case of the higher | | | |animals and man. | | Effects of | | | | changes of | |Conditions of existence | | climate, | |remaining constant, | | direct. | |species do not vary and | |Competition | |vice-versa. | |strongly Effects of | | | |advocated. Changes of | |Struggle for existence; | | food. | |stronger devour the | |Natural |Domesti- |weaker. Competition | |selection. Effects of |cation |stated in case of ai or |Species are | domesti- |briefly |sloth. Balance of |"different |Sexual cation. |referred to. |nature. |modifi- |selection. | | |cations of | Effects of |Effects of |Effects of use and |one and the |Effects of use. (The |use: |disuse, discussed at |same type. " |use and only examples|characters |length. | |disuse (in given are the|produced by | | |some callosities |their own |Vestigial structures the| |cases). On legs of |exertions in |remains of organs | | camel, of |consequence |actively used by | | baboon, and |of their |ancestors of present | | the |desires, |forms. | | thickening by|aversions, | | | use of soles |lust, hunger, |New wants or necessities| | on man's |and security. |induced by changes of | | feet. ) | |climate, habitat, etc. , | | |Sexual |result in production of | | |selection, |new propensities, new | | |law of |habits, and functions. | | |battle. | | | | |Change of habits | | |Protective |originate organs; change| | |mimicry. |of functions create new | | | |organs; formation of new| | |Origin of |habits precede the | | |organs before|origin of new or | | |development |modification of organs | | |of their |already formed. | | |functions. | | | | |Geographical isolation | |Isolation |Inheritance |suggested as a factor in| |"an |of acquired |case of man. | |important |characters | | |element. " |(vaguely |Swamping effects of | | |stated). |crossing. | | | | | | |Instincts |Lamarck's definition of | | |result of |species the most | | |imitation. |satisfactory yet stated. | | | | | | |Opposed |Inheritance of acquired | |Inheritance |preformation |characters. | |of acquired |views of | | |characters. |Haller and |Instinct the result of | | |Bonnet. |inherited habits. | | | | | | | |Opposed preformation | | | |views; epigenesis | | | |definitely stated and | | | |adopted. | | | | | | -------------+-------------+------------------------+------------+------------

FOOTNOTES:

[179] [Cabanis. ] _Rapp. Du Phys. Et du Moral de l'Homme_, pp.  38 à 39, et 85. 

[180] Lamarck's idea of the animal series was that of a branched one, asshown by his genealogical tree on p.  193, and he explains that theseries begins at least by two special branches, these ending inbranchlets. He thus breaks entirely away from the old idea of acontinuous ascending series of his predecessors Bonnet and others. Professor R. Hertwig therefore makes a decided mistake and does Lamarcka great injustice in his "Zoölogy, " where he states: "Lamarck, inagreement with the then prevailing conceptions, regarded the animalkingdom as a series grading from the lowest primitive animal up to man"(p.  26); and again, on the next page, he speaks of "the theory ofGeoffroy St. -Hilaire and Lamarck" as having in it "as a fundamentalerror the doctrine of the serial arrangement of the animal world"(English Trans. ). Hertwig is in error, and could never have carefullyread what Lamarck did say, or have known that he was the first to throwaside the serial arrangement, and to sketch out a genealogical tree. 

[181] The foregoing pages (283-286) are reprinted by the author from the_Discours_ of 1803. See pp.  266-270. 

[182] Perrier thus comments on this passage: "_Ici nous sommes bienprès, semble-t-il, non seulement de la lutte pour la vie telle one laconcevra Darwin, mais même de la sélection naturelle. Malheureusement, au lieu de poursuivre l'idée, Lamarck aussitôt s'engage dans une autrevoie_, " etc. (_La Philosophie zoologique avant Darwin_, p.  81). 

[183] The expression "_sentiment intérieur_" may be nearly equivalent tothe "organic sense" of modern psychologists, but more probablycorresponds to our word consciousness. 

[184] Lamarck's division of _Animaux sensibles_ comprises the insects, arachnids, crustacea, annelids, cirrhipedes, and molluscs. 

[185] Rather a strange view to take, as the brain of insects is nowknown to be nearly as complex as that of mammals. 

[186] Richerand, _Physiologie_. Vol ii. P.  151. 

[187] "As all animals do not have the power of performing voluntaryacts, so in like manner _instinct_ is not common to all animals: forthose lacking the nervous system also want the organic sense, and canperform no instinctive acts. 

"These imperfect animals are entirely passive, they do nothing ofthemselves, they have no wants, and nature as regards them treats themas she does plants. But as they are irritable in their parts, the meanswhich nature employs to maintain their existence enables them to executemovements which we call actions. "

It thus appears that Lamarck practically regards the lowest animals asautomata, but we must remember that the line he draws between animalswith and without a nervous system is an artificial one, as some of theforms which he supposed to be destitute of a nervous system are nowknown to possess one. 

[188] It should be noticed that Lamarck does not absolutely state thatthere are no variations whatever in instinct. His words are much lesspositive: "_Sans offrer de variation notable. _" This dues not excludethe fact, discovered since his time, that instincts are more or lessvariable, thus affording grounds for Darwin's theory of the origin ofnew kinds of instincts from the "accidental variation of instincts. "Professor James' otherwise excellent version of Lamarck's view isinexact and misleading when he makes Lamarck say that instincts are"perpetuated _without variation_ from one generation to another, so longas the outward conditions of existence remain the same" (_The Principlesof Psychology_, vol.  ii. , p.  678, 1890). He leaves out the word notable. The italics are ours. Farther on (p.  337), it will be seen that Lamarckacknowledges that in birds and mammals instinct is variable. 

[189] It is interesting to compare with this Darwin's theory of theorigin of the same animals, the flying squirrels and Galeopithecus(_Origin of Species_, 5th edition, New York, pp.  173-174), and see howhe invokes the Lamarckian factors of change of "climate and vegetation"and "changing conditions of life, " to originate the variations beforenatural selection can act. His account is a mixture of Lamarckism withthe added Darwinian factors of competition and natural selection. Weagree with this view, that the change in environment and competitionsets the ball in motion, the work being finished by the selectiveprocess. The act of springing and the first attempts at flying alsoinvolve strong emotions and mental efforts, and it can hardly be deniedthat these Lamarckian factors came into continual play during theprocess of evolution of these flying creatures. 

[190] This sagacious, though crude suggestion of the origin of birds andmammals from the reptiles is now, after the lapse of nearly a century, being confirmed by modern morphologists and palæontologists. 

[191] Reproduced on page 193. 

[192] This is taken from my article, "Lamarck and Neo-lamarckianism, " inthe _Open Court_, Chicago, February, 1897. Compare also "Darwin Wrong, "etc. , by R.  F. Licorish, M. D. , Barbadoes, 1898, reprinted in _NaturalScience_, April, 1899. 

[193] _Natural Selection_, pp.  41-42. 

[194] _American Naturalist_, 1891, p.  17. 

CHAPTER XVIII

LAMARCK'S THEORY AS TO THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

Lamarck's views on the origin of man are contained in his _Recherchessur l'Organisation des Corps vivans_ (1802) and his _Philosophiezoologique_, published in 1809. We give the following literaltranslation in full of the views he presented in 1802, and which wereprobably first advanced in lectures to his classes. 

 "As to man, his origin, his peculiar nature, I have already stated in this book that I have not kept these subjects in view in making these observations. His extreme superiority over the other living creatures indicates that he is a privileged being who has in common with the animals only that which concerns animal life. 

 "In truth, we observe a sort of gradation in the intelligence of animals, like what exists in the gradual improvement of their organization, and we remark that they have ideas, memory; that they think, choose, love, hate, that they are susceptible of jealousy, and that by different inflexions of their voice and by signs they communicate with and understand each other. It is not less evident that man alone is endowed with reason, and that on this account he is clearly distinguished from all the other productions of nature. 

 "However, were it not for the picture that so many celebrated men have drawn of the weakness and lack of human reason; were it not that, independently of all the freaks into which the passions of man almost constantly allure him, the _ignorance_ which makes him the opinionated slave of custom and the continual dupe of those who wish to deceive him; were it not that his reason has led him into the most revolting errors, since we actually see him so debase himself as to worship animals, even the meanest, of addressing to them his prayers, and of imploring their aid; were it not, I say, for these considerations, should we feel authorized to raise any doubts as to the excellence of this special light which is the attribute of man?

 "An observation which has for a long time struck me is that, having remarked that the habitual use and exercise of an organ proportionally develops its size and functions, as the lack of employment weakens in the same proportion its power, and even more or less completely atrophies it, I am apprised that of all the organs of man's body which is the most strongly submitted to this influence, that is to say, in which the effects of exercise and of habitual use are the most considerable, is it not the organ of thought--in a word, is it not the brain of man?

 "Compare the extraordinary difference existing in the degree of intelligence of a man who rarely exercises his powers of thought, who has always been accustomed to see but a small number of things, only those related to his ordinary wants and to his limited desires; who at no time thinks about these same objects, because he is obliged to occupy himself incessantly with providing for these same wants; finally, who has few ideas, because his attention, continually fixed on the same things, makes him notice nothing, that he makes no comparisons, that he is in the very heart of nature without knowing it, that he looks upon it almost in the same way as do the beasts, and that all that surrounds him is nothing to him: compare, I say, the intelligence of this individual with that of the man who, prepared at the outset by education, has contracted the useful practice of exercising the organ of his thought in devoting himself to the study of the principal branches of knowledge; who observes and compares everything he sees and which affects him; who forgets himself in examining everything he can see, who insensibly accustoms himself to judge of everything for himself, instead of giving a blind assent to the authority of others; finally, who, stimulated by reverses and especially by injustice, quietly rises by reflection to the causes which have produced all that we observe both in nature and in human society; then you will appreciate how enormous is the difference between the intelligence of the two men in question. 

 "If Newton, Bacon, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and so many other men have done honor to the human species by the extent of their intelligence and their genius, how nearly does the mass of brutish, ignorant men approach the animal, becoming a prey to the most absurd prejudices and constantly enslaved by their habits, this mass forming the majority of all nations?

 "Search deeply the facts in the comparison I have just made, you will see how in one part the organ which serves for acts of thought is perfected and acquires greater size and power, owing to sustained and varied exercise, especially if this exercise offers no more interruptions than are necessary to prevent the exhaustion of its powers; and, on the other hand, you will perceive how the circumstances which prevent an individual from exercising this organ, or from exercising it habitually only while considering a small number of objects which are always of the same nature, impede the development of his intellectual faculties. 

 "After what I have just stated as to the results in man of a slight exercise of the organ by which he thinks, we shall no longer be astonished to see that in the nations which have come to be the most distinguished, because there is among them a small number of men who have been able, by observation and reflection, to create or advance the higher sciences, the multitude in these same nations have not been for all that exempted from the most absurd errors, and have not the less always been the dupe of impostors and victims of their prejudices. 

 "Such is, in fact, the fatality attached to the destiny of man that, with the exception of a small number of individuals who live under favorable though special circumstances, the multitude, forced to continually busy itself with providing for its needs, remains permanently deprived of the knowledge which it should acquire; in general, exercises to a very slight extent the organ of its intelligence; preserves and propagates a multitude of prejudices which enslave it, and cannot be as happy as those who, guiding it, are themselves guided by reason and justice. 

 "As to the animals, besides the fact that they in descending order have the brain less developed, they are otherwise proportionally more limited in the means of exercising and of varying their intellectual processes. They each exercise them only on a single or on some special points, on which they become more or less expert according to their species. And while their degree of organization remains the same and the nature of their needs (_besoins_) does not vary, they can never extend the scope of their intelligence, nor apply it to other objects than to those which are related to their ordinary needs. 

 "Some among them, whose structure is a little more perfect than in others, have also greater means of varying and extending their intellectual faculties; but it is always within limits circumscribed by their necessities and habits. 

 "The power of habit which is found to be still so great in man, especially in one who has but slightly exercised the organ of his thought, is among animals almost insurmountable while their physical state remains the same. Nothing compels them to vary their powers, because they suffice for their wants and these require no change. Hence it is constantly the same objects which exercise their degree of intelligence, and it results that these actions are always the same in each species. 

 "The sole acts of variation, _i. E. _, the only acts which rise above the limits of habits, and which we see performed in animals whose organization allows them to, are _acts of imitation_. I only speak of actions which they perform voluntarily or freely (_actions qu'ils font de leur plein gré_). 

 "Birds, very limited in this respect in the powers which their structure furnishes, can only perform acts of imitation with their vocal organ; this organ, by their habitual efforts to render the sounds, and to vary them, becomes in them very perfect. Thus we know that several birds (the parrot, starling, raven, jay, magpie, canary bird, etc. ) imitate the sounds they hear. 

 "The monkeys, which are, next to man, the animals by their structure having the best means to this end, are most excellent imitators, and there is no limit to the things they can mimic. 

 "In man, infants which are still of the age when simple ideas are formed on various subjects, and who think but little, forming no complex ideas, are also very good imitators of everything which they see or hear. 

 "But if each order of things in animals is dependent on the state of organization occurring in each of them, which is not doubted, there is no occasion for thinking that in these same animals the order which is superior to all the others in organization is proportionally so also in extent of means, invariability of actions, and consequently in intellectual powers. 

 "For example, in the mammals which are the most highly organized, the _Quadrumana_, which form a part of them, have, besides the advantages over other mammals, a conformation in several of their organs which considerably increases their powers, which allows of a great variability in their actions, and which extends and even makes predominant their intelligence, enabling them to deal with a greater variety of objects with which to exercise their brain. It will doubtless be said: But although man may be a true mammal in his general structure, and although among the mammals the _Quadrumana_ are most nearly allied to him, this will not be denied, not only that man is strongly distinguished from the _Quadrumana_ by a great superiority of intelligence, but he is also very considerably so in several structural features which characterize him. 

 "First, the occipital foramen being situated entirely at the base of the cranium of man and not carried up behind, as in the other vertebrates, causes his head to be posed at the extremity of the vertebral column as on a pivot, not bowed down forward, his face not looking towards the ground. This position of the head of man, who can easily turn it to different sides, enables him to see better a larger number of objects at one time, than the much inclined position of the head of other mammals allows them to see. 

 "Secondly, the remarkable mobility of the fingers of the hand of man, which he employs either all together or several together, or each separately, according to his pleasure, and besides, the sense of touch highly developed at the extremity of these same fingers, enables him to judge the nature of the bodies which surround him, to recognize them, to make use of them--means which no other animals possess to such a degree. 

 "Thirdly, by the state of his organization man is able to hold himself up and walk erect. He has, for this attitude which is natural to him, large muscles at the lower extremities which are adapted to this end, and it would thus be as difficult to walk habitually on his four extremities as it would be for the other mammals, and even for the _Quadrumana_, to walk so habitually erect on the soles of their feet. 

 "Moreover, man is not truly quadrumanous; for he has not, like the monkeys, an almost equal facility in using the fingers of his feet, and of seizing objects with them. In the feet of man the thumbs are not in opposition to the other fingers to use in grasping, as in monkeys, etc. 

 "I appreciate all these reasons, and I see that man, although near the _Quadrumana_, is so distinct that he alone represents a separate order, belonging to a single genus and species, offering, however, many different varieties. This order may be, if it is desired, that of the _Bimana_. 

 "However, if we consider that all the characteristics which have been cited are only differences in degree of structure, may we not suppose that this special condition of organization of man _has been gradually acquired at the close of a long period of time, with the aid of circumstances which have proved favorable?_[195] What a subject for reflection for those who have the courage to enter into it!

 "If the _Quadrumana_ have not the occipital opening situated directly at the base of the cranium as in man, it is assuredly much less raised posteriorly than in the dog, cat, and all the other mammals. Thus they all may quite often stand erect, although this attitude for them is very irksome. 

 "I have not observed the situation of the occipital opening of the jacko or orang-outang (_Simia satyrus_ L. ); but as I know that this animal almost habitually walks erect, though it has no strength in its legs, I suppose that the occipital foramen is not situated so far from the base of the skull as in the other _Quadrumana_. 

 "The head of the negro, less flattened in front than that of the European man, necessarily has the occipital foramen central. 

 "The more should the jacko contract the habit of walking about, the less mobility would he have in his toes, so that the thumbs of the feet, which are already much shorter than the other digits, would gradually cease to be placed in opposition to the other toes, and to be useful in grasping. The muscles of its lower extremities would acquire proportionally greater thickness and strength. Then the increased or more frequent exercise of the fingers of its hands would develop nervous masses at their extremities, thus rendering the sense of touch more delicate. This is what our train of reasoning indicates from the consideration of a multitude of facts and observations which support it. "[196]

The subject is closed by a quotation from Grandpré on the habits of thechimpanzee. It is not of sufficient importance to be here reproduced. 

Seven years after the publication of these views, Lamarck again returnsto the subject in his _Philosophie zoologique_, which we translate. 

 "_Some Observations Relative to Man_. 

 "If man were distinguished from the animals by his structure alone, it would be easy to show that the structural characters which place him, with his varieties, in a family by himself, are all the product of former changes in his actions, and in the habits which he has adopted and which have become special to the individuals of his species. 

 "Indeed, if any race whatever of _Quadrumana_, especially the most perfect, should lose, by the necessity of circumstances or from any other cause, the habit of climbing trees, and of seizing the branches with the feet, as with the hands, to cling to them; and if the individuals of this race, during a series of generations, should be obliged to use their feet only in walking, and should cease to use their hands as feet, there is no doubt, from the observations made in the preceding chapter, that these _Quadrumana_ would be finally transformed into _Bimana_, and that the thumbs of their feet would cease to be shorter than the fingers, their feet only being of use for walking. 

 "Moreover, if the individuals of which I speak were impelled by the necessity of rising up and of looking far and wide, of endeavoring to stand erect, and of adopting this habit constantly from generation to generation, there is no doubt that their feet would gradually and imperceptibly assume a conformation adapted for an erect posture, that their legs would develop calves, and that these creatures would not afterwards walk as they do now, painfully on both hands and feet. 

 "Also, if these same individuals should cease using their jaws for biting in self-defence, tearing or seizing, or using them like nippers in cutting leaves for food, and should they only be used in chewing food, there is no doubt that their facial angle would become higher, that their muzzle would become shorter and shorter, and that in the end this being entirely effaced, their incisor teeth would become vertical. 

 "Now supposing that a race of _Quadrumana_, as for example the most perfect, had acquired, by habits constant in every individual, the structure I have just described, and the power of standing erect and of walking upright, and that as the result of this it had come to dominate the other races of animals, we should then conceive:

 "1. That this race farther advanced in its faculties, having arrived at the stage when it lords it over the others, will be spread over the surface of the globe in every suitable place;

 "2. That it will hunt the other higher races of animals and will struggle with them for preëminence (_lui disputer les biens de la terre_) and that it will force them to take refuge in regions which it does not occupy;

 "3. That being injured by the great multiplication of closely allied races, and having banished them into forests or other desert places, it will arrest the progress of improvement in their faculties, while its own self, the ruler of the region over which it spreads, will increase in population without hindrance on the part of others, and, living in numerous tribes, will in succession create new needs which should stimulate industry and gradually render still more perfect its means and powers;

 "4. That, finally, this preëminent race having acquired an absolute supremacy over all the others, there arose between it and the highest animals a difference and indeed a considerable interval. 

 "Thus the most perfect race of _Quadrumana_ will have been enabled to become dominant, to change its habits as the result of the absolute dominion which it will have assumed over the others, and with its new needs, by progressively acquiring modifications in its structure and its new and numerous powers, to keep within due limits the most highly developed of the other races in the state to which they had advanced, and to create between it and these last very remarkable distinctions. 

 "The Angola orang (_Simia troglodytes_ Lin. ) is the highest animal; it is much more perfect than the orang of the Indies (_Simia satyrus_ Lin. ), which is called the orang-outang, and, nevertheless, as regards their structure they are both very inferior to man in bodily faculties and intelligence. These animals often stand erect; but this attitude is not habitual, their organization not having been sufficiently modified, so that standing still (_station_) is painful for them. 

 "It is known, from the accounts of travellers, especially in regard to the orang of the Indies, that when immediate danger obliges it to fly, it immediately falls on all fours. This betrays, they tell us, the true origin of this animal, since it is obliged to abandon the alien unaccustomed partially erect attitude which is thrust upon it. 

 "Without doubt this attitude is foreign to it, since in its change of locality it makes less use of it, which shows that its organization is less adapted to it; but though it has become easier for man to stand up straight, is the erect posture wholly natural to him?

 "Although man, who, by his habits, maintained in the individuals of his species during a great series of generations, can stand erect only while changing from one place to another, this attitude is not less in his case a condition of fatigue, during which he is able to maintain himself in an upright position only during a limited time and with the aid of the contraction of several of his muscles. 

 "If the vertebral column of the human body should form the axis of this body, and sustain the head in equilibrium, as also the other parts, the man standing would be in a state of rest. But who does not know that this is not so; that the head is not articulated at its centre of gravity; that the chest and stomach, as also the viscera which these cavities contain, weigh heavily almost entirely on the anterior part of the vertebral column; that the latter rests on an oblique base, etc. ? Also, as M.  Richerand observes, there is needed in standing a force active and watching without ceasing to prevent the body from falling over, the weight and disposition of parts tending to make the body fall forward. 

 "After having developed the considerations regarding the standing posture of man, the same savant then expresses himself: 'The relative weight of the head, of the thoracic and abdominal viscera, tends therefore to throw it in front of the line, according to which all the parts of the body bear down on the ground sustaining it; a line which should be exactly perpendicular to this ground in order that the standing position may be perfect. The following fact supports this assertion: I have observed that infants with a large head, the stomach protruding and the viscera loaded with fat, accustom themselves with difficulty to stand up straight, and it is not until the end of their second year that they dare to surrender themselves to their proper forces; they stand subject to frequent falls and have a natural tendency to revert to the quadrupedal state. ' (_Physiologie_, vol.  ii. , p.  268. )

 "This disposition of the parts which cause the erect position of man, being a state of activity, and consequently fatiguing, instead of being a state of rest, would then betray in him an origin analogous to that of the mammals, if his organization alone should be taken into consideration. 

 "Now in order to follow, in all its particulars, the hypothesis presented in the beginning of these observations, it is fitting to add the following considerations:

 "The individuals of the dominant race previously mentioned, having taken possession of all the inhabitable places which were suitable for them, and having to a very considerable extent multiplied their necessities in proportion as the societies which they formed became more numerous, were able equally to increase their ideas, and consequently to feel the need of communicating them to their fellows. We conceive that there would arise the necessity of increasing and of varying in the same proportion the _signs_ adopted for the communication of these ideas. It is then evident that the members of this race would have to make continual efforts, and to employ every possible means in these efforts, to create, multiply, and render sufficiently varied the _signs_ which their ideas and their numerous wants would render necessary. 

 "It is not so with any other animals; because, although the most perfect among them, such as the _Quadrumana_, live mostly in troops, since the eminent supremacy of the race mentioned they have remained stationary as regards the improvement of their faculties, having been driven out from everywhere and banished to wild, desert, usually restricted regions, whither, miserable and restless, they are incessantly constrained to fly and hide themselves. In this situation these animals no longer contract new needs, they acquire no new ideas; they have but a small number of them, and it is always the same ones which occupy their attention, and among these ideas there are very few which they have need of communicating to the other individuals of their species. There are, then, only very few different _signs_ which they employ among their fellows, so that some movements of the body or of certain of its parts, certain hisses and cries raised by the simple inflexions of the voice, suffice them. 

 "On the contrary, the individuals of the dominant race already mentioned, having had need of multiplying the _signs_ for the rapid communication of their ideas, now become more and more numerous, and, no longer contented either with pantomimic signs or possible inflexions of their voice to represent this multitude of signs now become necessary, would succeed by different efforts in forming _articulated sounds_: at first they would use only a small number, conjointly with the inflexions of their voice; as the result they would multiply, vary, and perfect them, according to their increasing necessities, and according as they would be more accustomed to produce them. Indeed, the habitual exercise of their throat, their tongue, and their lips to make articulate sounds, will have eminently developed in them this faculty. 

 "Hence for this particular race the origin of the wonderful power of _speech_; and as the distance between the regions where the individuals composing it would be spread would favor the corruption of the signs fitted to express each idea, from this arose the origin of languages, which must be everywhere diversified. 

 "Then in this respect necessities alone would have accomplished everything; they would give origin to efforts; and the organs fitted for the articulation of sounds would be developed by their habitual use. 

 "Such would be the reflections which might be made if man, considered here as the preëminent race in question, were distinguished from the animals only by his physical characters, and if his origin were not different from theirs. "

This is certainly, for the time it was written, an original, comprehensive, and bold attempt at explaining in a tentative way, or atleast suggesting, the probable origin of man from some arboreal creatureallied to the apes. It is as regards the actual evolutional stepssupposed to have been taken by the simian ancestors of man, a moredetailed and comprehensive hypothesis than that offered by Darwin in his_Descent of Man_, [197] which Lamarck has anticipated. Darwin does notrefer to this theory of Lamarck, and seems to have entirely overlookedit, as have others since his time. The theory of the change from anarboreal life and climbing posture to an erect one, and thetransformation of the hinder pair of hands into the feet of the erecthuman animal, remind us of the very probable hypothesis of Mr.  HerbertSpencer, as to the modification of the quadrumanous posterior pair ofhands to form the plantigrade feet of man. 

FOOTNOTES:

[195] Author's italics. 

[196] "How much this unclean beast resembles man!"--_Ennius_. 

"Indeed, besides other resemblances the monkey has mammæ, a clitoris, nymphs, uterus, uvula, eye-lobes, nails, as in the human species; italso lacks a suspensory ligament of the neck. Is it not astonishing thatman, endowed with wisdom, differs so little from such a disgustinganimal!"--_Linnæus_. 

[197] Vol.  i. , chapter iv. , pp.  135-151; ii. , p.  372. 

CHAPTER XIX

LAMARCK'S THOUGHTS ON MORALS, AND ON THE RELATION BETWEEN SCIENCE ANDRELIGION

One who has read the writings of the great French naturalist, who may beregarded as the founder of evolution, will readily realize thatLamarck's mind was essentially philosophic, comprehensive, andsynthetic. He looked upon every problem in a large way. His breadth ofview, his moral and intellectual strength, his equably developed nature, generous in its sympathies and aspiring in its tendencies, naturally ledhim to take a conservative position as to the relations between scienceand religion. He should, as may be inferred from his frequent referencesto the Author of nature, be regarded as a deist. 

When a very young man, he was for a time a friend of the erratic andgifted Rousseau, and was afterwards not unknown to Condorcet, thesecretary of the French Academy of Sciences, so liberal in his views andso bitter an enemy of the Church; and though constantly in contact withthe radical views and burning questions of that day, Lamarck throughouthis life preserved his philosophic calm, and maintained his lofty toneand firm temper. We find no trace in his writings of sentiments otherthan the most elevated and inspiring, and we know that in character hewas pure and sweet, self-sacrificing, self-denying, and free fromself-assertion. 

The quotations from his _Philosophie zoologique_, published in 1809, given below, will show what were the results of his meditations on therelations between science and religion. Had his way of looking at thissubject prevailed, how much misunderstanding and ill-feeling betweentheologians and savants would have been avoided! Had his spirit andbreadth of view animated both parties, there would not have been theconstant and needless opposition on the part of the Church to the grandresults of scientific discovery and philosophy, or too hasty dogmatismand scepticism on the part of some scientists. 

In Lamarck, at the opening of the past century, we behold the spectacleof a man devoting over fifty years of his life to scientific research inbiology, and insisting on the doctrine of spontaneous generation; of theimmense length of geological time, so opposed to the views held by theChurch; the evolution of plants and animals from a single germ, and eventhe origin of man from the apes, yet as earnestly claiming that naturehas its Author who in the beginning established the order of things, giving the initial impulse to the laws of the universe. 

As Duval says, after quoting the passage given below: "Deux faits son ànoter dans ce passage: d'une part, les termes dignes et conciliants danslesquels Lamarck établit la part de la science et de la religion; celavaut, mieux, même en tenant compte des différences d'epoques, que lesabjurations de Buffon. "[198]

The passage quoted by M.  Duval is the following one:

 "Surely nothing exists except by the will of the Sublime Author of all things. But can we not assign him laws in the execution of his will, and determine the method which he has followed in this respect? Has not his infinite power enabled him to create an order of things which has successively given existence to all that we see, as well as to that which exists and that of which we have no knowledge? As regards the decrees of this infinite wisdom, I have confined myself to the limits of a simple observer of nature. "[199]

In other places we find the following expressions:

 "There is then, for the animals as for the plants, an order which belongs to nature, and which results, as also the objects which this order makes exist, from the power which it has received from the SUPREME AUTHOR of all things. She is herself only the general and unchangeable order that this Sublime Author has created throughout, and only the totality of the general and special laws to which this order is subject. By these means, whose use it continues without change, it has given and will perpetually give existence to its productions; it varies and renews them unceasingly, and thus everywhere preserves the whole order which is the result of it. "[200]

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 "To regard nature as eternal, and consequently as having existed from all time, is to me an abstract idea, baseless, limitless, improbable, and not satisfactory to my reason. Being unable to know anything positive in this respect, and having no means of reasoning on this subject, I much prefer to think that _all nature_ is only a result: hence, I suppose, and I am glad to admit it, a first cause, in a word, a supreme power which has given existence to nature, and which has made it in all respects what it is. "[201]

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 "Nature, that immense totality of different beings and bodies, in every part of which exists an eternal circle of movements and changes regulated by law; totality alone unchangeable, so long as it pleases its SUBLIME AUTHOR to cause its existence, should be regarded as a whole constituted by its parts, for a purpose which its Author alone knows, and not exclusively for any one of them. 

 "Each part is necessarily obliged to change, and to cease to be one in order to constitute another, with interests opposed to those of all; and if it has the power of reasoning it finds this whole imperfect. In reality, however, this whole is perfect and completely fulfils the end for which it was designed. "[202]

Lamarck's work on general philosophy[203] was written near the end ofhis life, in 1820. He begins his "Discours préliminaire" by referring tothe sudden loss of his eyesight, his work on the invertebrate animalsbeing thereby interrupted. The book was, he says, "rapidly" dictated tohis daughter, and the ease with which he dictated was due, he says, tohis long-continued habit of meditating on the facts he had observed. 

In the "Principes primordiaux" he considers man as the only being whohas the power of observing nature, and the only one who has perceivedthe necessity of recognizing a superior and only cause, creator of theorder of the wonders of the world of life. By this he is led to raisehis thoughts to the _Supreme Author_ of all that exists. 

 "In the creation of his works, and especially those we can observe, this omnipotent Being has undoubtedly been the ruling power in pursuing the method which has pleased him, namely, his will has been:

 "Either to create instantaneously and separately every particular living being observed by us, to personally care for and watch over them in all their changes, their movements, or their actions, to unremittingly care for each one separately, and by the exercise of his supreme will to regulate all their life;

 "Or to reduce his creations to a small number, and among these, to institute an order of things general and continuous, pervaded by ceaseless activity (_mouvement_), especially subject to laws by means of which all the organisms of whatever nature, all the changes they undergo, all the peculiarities they present, and all the phenomena that many of them exhibit, may be produced. 

 "In regard to these two modes of execution, if observation taught us nothing we could not form any opinion which would be well grounded. But it is not so; we distinctly see that there exists an order of things truly created (_véritablement créé_), as unchangeable as its author allows, acting on matter alone, and which possesses the power of producing all visible beings, of executing all the changes, all the modifications, even the extinctions, so also the renewals or recreations that we observe among them. It is to this order of things that we have given the name of _nature_. The Supreme Author of all that exists is, then, the immediate creator of matter as also of nature, but he is only indirectly the creator of what nature can produce. 

 "The end that God has proposed to himself in creating matter, which forms the basis of all bodies, and nature, which divides (_divise_) this matter, forms the bodies, makes them vary, modifies them, changes them, and renews them in different ways, can be easily known to us; for the Supreme Being cannot meet with any obstacle to his will in the execution of his works; the general results of these works are necessarily the object he had in view. Thus this end could be no other than the existence of nature, of which matter alone forms the sphere, and should not be that causing the creation of any special being. 

 "Do we find in the two objects created, _i. E. _, _matter_ and _nature_, the source of the good and evil which have almost always been thought to exist in the events of this world? To this question I shall answer that good and evil are only relative to particular objects, that they never affect by their temporary existence the general result expected (_prévu_), and that for the end which the Creator designed, there is in reality neither good nor evil, because everything in nature perfectly fulfils its object. 

 "Has God limited his creations to the existence of only matter and nature? This question is vain, and should remain without an answer on our part; because, being reduced to knowing anything only through observation, and to bodies alone, also to what concerns them, these being for us the only observable objects, it would be rash to speak affirmatively or negatively on this subject. 

 "What is a spiritual being? It is what, with the aid of the imagination, one would naturally suppose (_l'on vaudra supposer_). Indeed, it is only by means of opposing that which is material that we can form the idea of spirit; but as this hypothetical being is not in the category of objects which it is possible for us to observe, we do not know how to take cognizance of it. The idea that we have of it is absolutely without base. 

 "We only know physical objects and only objects relative to these beings (_êtres_): such is the condition of our nature. If our thoughts, our reasonings, our principles have been considered as metaphysical objects, these objects, then, are not beings (_êtres_). They are only relations or consequences of relations (_rapports_), or only results of observed laws. 

 "We know that relations are distinguished as general and special. Among these last are regarded those of nature, form, dimension, solidity, size, quantity, resemblance, and difference; and if we add to these objects the being observed and the consideration of known laws, as also that of conventional objects, we shall have all the materials on which our thoughts are based. 

 "Thus being able to observe only the phenomena of nature, as well as the laws which regulate these phenomena, also the products of these last, in a word, only bodies (_corps_) and what concerns them, all that which immediately proceeds from supreme power is incomprehensible to us, as it itself [_i. E. _, supreme power] is to our minds. To create, or to make anything out of nothing, this is an idea we cannot conceive of, for the reason that in all that we can know, we do not find any model which represents it. GOD alone, then, can create, while nature can only produce. We must suppose that, in his creations, the Divinity is not restricted to the use of any time, while, on the other hand, nature can effect nothing without the aid of long periods of time. "

Without translating more of this remarkable book, which is very rare, much less known than the _Philosophie zoologique_, the spirit of theremainder may be imagined from the foregoing extracts. 

The author refers to the numerous evils resulting from ignorance, falseknowledge, lack of judgment, abuse of power, demonstrating the necessityof our confining ourselves within the circle of the objects presented bynature, and never to go beyond them if we do not wish to fall intoerror, because the profound study of nature and of the organization ofman alone, and the exact observation of facts alone, will reveal to us"the truths most important for us to know, " in order to avoid thevexations, the perfidies, the injustices, and the oppressions of allsorts, and "incalculable disorders" which arise in the social body. Inthis way only shall we discover and acquire the means of obtaining theenjoyment of the advantages which we have a right to expect from ourstate of civilization. The author endeavors to state what science canand should render to society. He dwells on the sources from which manhas drawn the knowledge which he possesses, and from which he can obtainmany others--sources the totality of which constitutes for him the fieldof realities. 

Lamarck also in this work has built up a system for moral philosophy. 

Self-love, he says, perfectly regulated, gives rise:

1. To moral force which characterizes the laborious man, so that thelength and difficulties of a useful work do not repel him. 

2. To the courage of him who, knowing the danger, exposes himself whenhe sees that this would be useful. 

3. To love of wisdom. 

Wisdom, according to Lamarck, consists in the observance of a certainnumber of rules or virtues. These we cite in a slightly abridged form. 

Love of truth in all things; the need of improving one's mind;moderation in desires; decorum in all actions; a wise reserve inunessential wants; indulgence, toleration, humanity, good will towardsall men; love of the public good and of all that is necessary to ourfellows; contempt for weakness; a kind of severity towards one's selfwhich preserves us from that multitude of artificial wants enslavingthose who give up to them; resignation and, if possible, moralimpassibility in suffering reverses, injustices, oppression, and losses;respect for order, for public institutions, civil authorities, laws, morality, and religion. 

The practice of these maxims and virtues, says Lamarck, characterizestrue philosophy. 

And it may be added that no one practised these virtues more thanLamarck. Like Cuvier's, his life was blameless, and though he lived amost retired life, and was not called upon to fill any public stationother than his chair of zoölogy at the Jardin des Plantes, we may feelsure that he had the qualities of courage, independence, and patriotismwhich would have rendered such a career most useful to his country. 

As Bourguin eloquently asserts: "Lamarck was the brave man who neverdeserted a dangerous post, the laborious man who never hesitated to meetany difficulty, the investigating spirit, firm in his convictions, tolerant of the opinions of others, the simple man, moderate in allthings, the enemy of weakness, devoted to the public good, imperturbableunder the attaints of fortune, of suffering, and of unjust andpassionate attacks. "

FOOTNOTES:

[198] Mathias Duval: "Le transformiste français Lamarck, " _Bulletin dela Société d'Anthropologie de Paris_, xii. , 1889, p.  345. 

[199] _Philosophie zoologique_, p.  56. 

[200] _Loc. Cit. _, i. , p.  113. 

[201] _Loc. Cit. _, i. , p.  361. 

[202] _Loc. Cit. _, ii. , p.  465. 

[203] _Système analytique des Connaissances de l'Homme_, etc. 

CHAPTER XX

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN LAMARCKISM AND DARWINISM; NEOLAMARCKISM

Since the appearance of Darwin's _Origin of Species_, and after thegreat naturalist had converted the world to a belief in the generaldoctrine of evolution, there has arisen in the minds of many workingnaturalists a conviction that natural selection, or Darwinism as such, is only one of other evolutionary factors; while there are some whoentirely reject the selective principle. Darwin, moreover, assumed atendency to fortuitous variation, and did not attempt to explain itscause. Fully persuaded that he had discovered the most efficient andpractically sole cause of the origin of species, he carried the doctrineto its extreme limits, and after over twenty years of observation andexperiment along this single line, pushing entirely aside theErasmus-Darwin and Lamarckian factors of change of environment, thoughoccasionally acknowledging the value of use and disuse, he triumphantlybroke over all opposition, and lived to see his doctrine generallyaccepted. He had besides the support of some of the strongest men inscience: Wallace in a twin paper advocated the same views; Spencer, Lyell, Huxley, Hooker, Haeckel, Bates, Semper, Wyman, Gray, Leidy, andother representative men more or less endorsed Darwin's views, or atleast some form of evolution, and owing largely to their efforts inscientific circles and in the popular press, the doctrine of descentrapidly permeated every avenue of thought and became generally accepted. 

Meanwhile, the general doctrine of evolution thus proved, and the"survival of the fittest" an accomplished fact, the next step was toascertain "how, " as Cope asked, "the fittest originated?" It was felt bysome that natural selection alone was not adequate to explain the firststeps in the origin of genera, families, orders, classes, and branchesor phyla. It was perceived by some that natural selection by itself wasnot a _vera causa_, an efficient agent, but was passive, and ratherexpressed the results of the operations of a series of factors. Thetransforming should naturally precede the action of the selectiveagencies. 

We were, then, in our quest for the factors of organic evolution, obliged to fall back on the action of the physico-chemical forces suchas light, or its absence, heat, cold, change of climate; and thephysiological agencies of food, or in other words on changes in thephysical environment, as well as in the biological environment. Lamarckwas the first one who, owing to his many years' training in systematicbotany and zoölogy, and his philosophic breadth, had stated more fullyand authoritatively than any one else the results of changes in theaction of the primary factors of evolution. Hence a return on the partof many in Europe, and especially in America, to Lamarckism or itsmodern form, Neolamarckism. Lamarck had already, so far as he couldwithout a knowledge of modern morphology, embryology, cytology, andhistology, suggested those fundamental principles of transformism onwhich rests the selective principle. 

Had his works been more accessible, or, where available, more carefullyread, and his views more fairly represented; had he been favored in hislifetime by a single supporter, rather than been unjustly criticised byCuvier, science would have made more rapid progress, for it is anaxiomatic truth that the general acceptance of a working evolutionarytheory has given a vast impetus to biology. 

We will now give a brief historical summary of the history of opinionheld by Lamarckians regarding the causes of the "origin of the fittest, "the rise of variations, and the appearance of a population of plant andanimal forms sufficiently extensive and differentiated to allow for theplay of the competitive forces, and of the more passive selectiveagencies which began to operate in pre-cambrian times, or as soon as theearth became fitted for the existence of living beings. 

The first writer after Lamarck to work along the lines he laid down wasMr.  Herbert Spencer. In 1866-71, in his epochal and remarkablysuggestive _Principles of Biology_, the doctrine of use and disuse isimplicated in his statements as to the effects of motion on structure ingeneral;[204] and in his theory as to the origin of the notochord, andof the segmentation of the vertebral column and the segmentalarrangement of the muscles by muscular strains, [205] he laid thefoundations for future work along this line. He also drew attention inthe same work to the complementary development of parts, and likewiseinstanced the decreased size of the jaws in the civilized races ofmankind, as a change not accounted for by the natural selection offavorable variations. [206] In fact, this work is largely based on theLamarckian principles, as affording the basis for the action of naturalselection, and thirty years later we find him affirming: "The directaction of the medium was the primordial factor of organicevolution. "[207] In his well-known essay on "The Inadequacy of NaturalSelection" (1893) the great philosopher, with his accustomed vigor andforce, criticises the arguments of those who rely too exclusively onDarwinism alone, and especially Neodarwinism, as a sufficient factor toaccount for the origin of special structures as well as species. 

The first German author to appreciate the value of the Lamarckianfactors was that fertile and comprehensive philosopher and investigatorErnst Haeckel, who also harmonized Lamarckism and Darwinism in thesewords:

 "We should, on account of the grand proofs just enumerated, have to adopt Lamarck's Theory of Descent for the explanation of biological phenomena, even if we did not possess Darwin's Theory of Selection. The one is so completely and _directly proved_ by the other, and established by mechanical causes, that there remains nothing to be desired. The laws of _Inheritance_ and _Adaptation_ are universally acknowledged physiological facts, the former traceable to propagation, the latter to the _nutrition_ of organisms. On the other hand, the _struggle for existence_ is a _biological_ fact, which with mathematical necessity follows from the general disproportion between the average number of organic individuals and the numerical excess of their germs. "[208]

A number of American naturalists at about the same date, as the resultof studies in different directions, unbiassed by a too firm belief inthe efficacy of natural selection, and relying on the inductive methodalone, worked away at the evidence in favor of the primary factors ofevolution along Lamarckian lines, though quite independently, for atfirst neither Hyatt nor Cope had read Lamarck's writings. 

In 1866 Professor A. Hyatt published the first of a series of classicmemoirs on the genetic relations of the fossil cephalopods. His labors, so rich in results, have now been carried on for forty years, and aresupplemented by careful, prolonged work on the sponges, on the tertiaryshells of Steinheim, and on the land shells of the Hawaiian Islands. 

His first paper was on the parallelism between the different stages oflife in the individual and those of the ammonites, carrying outD'Orbigny's discovery of embryonic, youthful, adult, and old-age stagesin ammonites, [209] and showing that these forms are due to anacceleration of growth in the mature forms, and a retardation in thesenile forms. 

In a memoir on the "Biological Relations of the JurassicAmmonites, "[210] he assigns the causes of the progressive changes inthese forms, the origination of new genera, and the production of young, mature, and senile forms to "the favorable nature of the physicalsurroundings, primarily producing characteristic changes which becomeperpetuated and increased by inheritance within the group. "

The study of the modifications of the tertiary forms of Planorbis atSteinheim, begun by Hilgendorf, led among others (nine in all) to thefollowing conclusions:

 "First, that the unsymmetrical spiral forms of the shells of these and of all the Mollusca probably resulted from the action of the laws of heredity, modified by gravitation. 

 "Second, that there are many characteristics in these shells and in other groups, which are due solely to the uniform action of the physical influence of the immediate surroundings, varying with every change of locality, but constant and uniform within each locality. 

 "Third, that the Darwinian law of Natural Selection does not explain these relations, but applies only to the first stages in the establishment of the differences between forms or species in the same locality. That its office is to fix these in the organization and bring them within the reach of the laws of heredity. "

These views we find reiterated in his later palæontological papers. Hyatt's views on acceleration were adopted by Neumayr. [211] Waagen, [212]from his studies on the Jurassic cephalopods, concludes that the factorsin the evolution of these forms were changes in external conditions, geographical isolation, competition, and that the fundamental law wasnot that of Darwin, but "the law of development. " Hyatt has also shownthat at first evolution was rapid. "The evolution is a purely mechanicalproblem in which the action of the habitat is the working agent of allthe major changes; first acting upon the adult stages, as a rule, andthen through heredity upon the earlier stages in successivegenerations. " He also shows that as the primitive forms migrated andoccupied new, before barren, areas, where they met with new conditions, the organisms "changed their habits and structures rapidly to accordwith these new conditions. "[213]

While the palæontological facts afford complete and abundant proofs ofthe modifying action of changes in the environment, Hyatt, in 1877, fromhis studies on sponges, [214] shows that the origin of their endlessforms "can only be explained by the action of physical surroundingsdirectly working upon the organization and producing by such directaction the modifications or common variations above described. "

Mr.  A. Agassiz remarks that the effect of the nature of the bottom ofthe sea on sponges and rhizopods "is an all-important factor inmodifying the organism. "[215]

While Hyatt's studies were chiefly on the ammonites, molluscs, andexisting sponges, Cope was meanwhile at work on the batrachians. His_Origin of Genera_ appeared shortly after Hyatt's first paper, but inthe same year (1866). This was followed by a series of remarkablysuggestive essays based on his extensive palæontological work, which arein part reprinted in his _Origin of the Fittest_ (1887); while in hisepoch-making book, _The Primary Factors of Organic Evolution_ (1896), wehave in a condensed shape a clear exposition of some of the Lamarckianfactors in their modern Neolamarckian form. 

In the Introduction, p.  9, he remarks:

 "In these papers by Professor Hyatt and myself is found the first attempt to show by concrete examples of natural taxonomy that the variations that result in evolution are not multifarious or promiscuous, but definite and direct, contrary to the method which seeks no origin for variations other than natural selection. In other words, these publications constitute the first essays in systematic evolution that appeared. By the discovery of the paleontologic succession of modifications of the articulations of the vertebrate, and especially mammalian, skeleton, I first furnished an actual demonstration of the reality of the Lamarckian factor of use, or motion, as friction, impact, and strain, as an efficient cause of evolution. "[216]

The discussion in Cope's work of kinetogenesis, or of the effects of useand disuse, affords an extensive series of facts in support of thesefactors of Lamarck's. As these two books are accessible to every one, weneed only refer the reader to them as storehouses of facts bearing onNeolamarckism. 

The present writer, from a study of the development and anatomy ofLimulus and of Arthropod ancestry, was early (1870)[217] led to adoptLamarckian views in preference to the theory of Natural Selection, whichnever seemed to him adequate or sufficiently comprehensive to explainthe origin of variations. 

In the following year, [218] from a study of the insects and otheranimals of Mammoth Cave, we claimed that "the characters separating thegenera and species of animals are those inherited from adults, modifiedby their physical surroundings and adaptations to changing conditions oflife, inducing certain alterations in parts which have been transmittedwith more or less rapidity, and become finally fixed and habitual. "

In an essay entitled "The Ancestry of Insects"[219] (1873) we adoptedthe Lamarckian factors of change of habits and environment, of use anddisuse, to account for the origin of the appendages, while we attributedthe origin of the metamorphoses of insects to change of habits or of thetemperature of the seasons and of climates, particularly the change inthe earth's climates from the earlier ages of the globe, "when thetemperature of the earth was nearly the same the world over, to thetimes of the present distribution of heat and cold in zones. "

From further studies on cave animals, published in 1877, [220] we wroteas follows:

 "In the production of these cave species, the exceptional phenomena of darkness, want of sufficient food, and unvarying temperature, have been plainly enough _veræ causæ_. To say that the principle of natural selection accounts for the change of structure is no explanation of the phenomena; the phrase has to the mind of the writer no meaning in connection with the production of these cave forms, and has as little meaning in accounting for the origination of species and genera in general. Darwin's phrase 'natural selection, ' or Herbert Spencer's term 'survival of the fittest, ' expresses simply the final result, while the process of the origination of the new forms which have survived, or been selected by nature, is to be explained by the action of the physical environments of the animals coupled with inheritance-force. It has always appeared to the writer that the phrases quoted above have been misused to state the cause, when they simply express the result of the action of a chain of causes which we may, with Herbert Spencer, call the 'environment' of the organism undergoing modification; and thus a form of Lamarckianism, greatly modified by recent scientific discoveries, seems to meet most of the difficulties which arise in accounting for the origination of species and higher groups of organisms. Certainly 'natural selection' or the 'survival of the fittest' is not a _vera causa_, though the 'struggle for existence' may show us the causes which have led to the _preservation_ of species, while changes in the environment of the organism may satisfactorily account for the original tendency to variation assumed by Mr.  Darwin as the starting-point where natural selection begins to act. "

In our work on _The Cave Animals of North America_, [221] after statingthat Darwin in his _Origin of Species_ attributed the loss of eyes"wholly to disuse, " remarking (p.  142) that after the more or lessperfect obliteration of the eyes, "natural selection will often haveeffected other changes, such as an increase in the length of the antennæor palpi, as a compensation for blindness, " we then summed up as followsthe causes of the production of cave faunæ in general:

 "1. Change in environment from light, even partial, to twilight or total darkness, and involving diminution of food, and compensation for the loss of certain organs by the hypertrophy of others. 

 "2. Disuse of certain organs. 

 "3. Adaptation, enabling the more plastic forms to survive and perpetuate their stock. 

 "4. Isolation, preventing intercrossing with out-of-door forms, thus insuring the permanency of the new varieties, species, or genera. 

 "5. Heredity, operating to secure for the future the permanence of the newly originated forms as long as the physical conditions remain the same. 

 "Natural selection perhaps expresses the total result of the working of these five factors rather than being an efficient cause in itself, or at least constitutes the last term in a series of causes. Hence Lamarckism in a modern form, or as we have termed it, Neolamarckism, seems to us to be nearer the truth than Darwinism proper or natural selection. "[222]

In an attempt to apply Lamarck's principle of the origin of the spinesand horns of caterpillars and other insects as well as other animals tothe result of external stimuli, [223] we had not then read what he sayson the subject. (See p.  316. ) Having, however, been led to examine intothe matter, from the views held by recent observers, especially Henslow, and it appearing that Lamarck was substantially correct in supposingthat the blood (his "fluids") would flow to parts on the exposedportions of the body and thus cause the origin of horns, on theprinciple of the saying, "_ubi irritatio, ibi affluxus_, " we came to thefollowing conclusions:

 "The Lamarckian factors (1) change (both direct and indirect) in the _milieu_, (2) need, and (3) habit, and the now generally adopted principle that a change of function induces change in organs, [224] and in some or many cases actually induces the hypertrophy and specialization of what otherwise would be indifferent parts or organs;--these factors are all-important in the evolution of the colors, ornaments, and outgrowths from the cuticle of caterpillars. "

Our present views as to the relations between the Lamarckian factors andthe Darwinian one of natural selection are shown by the followingsummary at the end of this essay. 

 "1. The more prominent tubercles, and spines or bristles arising from them, are hypertrophied piliferous warts, the warts, with the seta or hair which they bear, being common to all caterpillars. 

 "2. The hypertrophy or enlargement was probably [we should rather say _possibly_] primarily due to a change of station from herbs to trees, involving better air, a more equable temperature, perhaps a different and better food. 

 "3. The enlarged and specialized tubercles developed more rapidly on certain segments than on others, especially the more prominent segments, because the nutritive fluids would tend more freely to supply parts most exposed to external stimuli. 

 "4. The stimuli were in great part due to the visits of insects and birds, resulting in a mimicry of the spines and projections on the trees; the colors (lines and spots) were due to light or shade, with the general result of protective mimicry, or adaptation to tree-life. 

 "5. As the result of some unknown factor some of the hypodermic cells at the base of the spines became in certain forms specialized so as to secrete a poisonous fluid. 

 "6. After such primitive forms, members of different families, had become established on trees, a process of arboreal segregation or isolation would set in, and intercrossing with low-feeders would cease. 

 "7. Heredity, or the unknown factors of which heredity is the result, would go on uninterruptedly, the result being a succession of generations perfectly adapted to arboreal life. 

 "8. Finally the conservative agency of natural selection operates constantly, tending towards the preservation of the new varieties, species, and genera, and would not cease to act, in a given direction, so long as the environment remained the same. 

 "9. Thus in order to account for the origin of a species, genus, family, order, or even a class, the first steps, causing the origination of variations, were in the beginning due to the primary (direct and indirect) factors of evolution (Neolamarckism), and the final stages were due to the secondary factors, segregation and natural selection (Darwinism). "

From a late essay[225] we take the following extracts explaining ourviews:

 "In seeking to explain the causes of a metamorphosis in animals, one is compelled to go back to the primary factors of organic evolution, such as the change of environment, whether the factors be cosmical (gravity), physical changes in temperature, effects of increased or diminished light and shade, under- or over-nutrition, and the changes resulting from the presence or absence of enemies, or from isolation. The action of these factors, whether direct or indirect, is obvious, when we try to explain the origin or causes of the more marked metamorphoses of animals. Then come in the other Lamarckian factors of use and disuse, new needs resulting in new modes of life, habits, or functions, which bring about the origination, development, and perfection of new organs, as in new species and genera, etc. , or which in metamorphic forms may result in a greater increase in the number of, and an exaggeration of the features characterizing the stages of larval life. 

 "VI. _The Adequacy of Neolamarckism_. 

 "It is not to be denied that in many instances all through the ceaseless operation of these fundamental factors there is going on a process of sifting or of selection of forms best adapted to their surroundings, and best fitted to survive, but this factor, though important, is quite subordinate to the initial causes of variation, and of metamorphic changes. 

 "Neolamarckism, [226] as we understand this doctrine, has for its foundation a combination of the factors suggested by the Buffon and Geoffroy St.  Hilaire school, which insisted on the direct action of the _milieu_, and of Lamarck, who relied both on the direct (plants and lowest animals) and on the indirect action of the environment, adding the important factors of need and of change of habits resulting either in the atrophy or in the development of organs by disuse or use, with the addition of the hereditary transmission of characters acquired in the lifetime of the individual. 

 "Lamarck's views, owing to the early date of his work, which was published in 1809, before the foundation of the sciences of embryology, cytology, palæontology, zoögeography, and in short all that distinguishes modern biology, were necessarily somewhat crude, though the fundamental factors he suggested are those still invoked by all thinkers of Lamarckian tendencies. 

 "Neolamarckism gathers up and makes use of the factors both of the St.  Hilaire and Lamarckian schools, as containing the more fundamental causes of variation, and adds those of geographical isolation or segregation (Wagner and Gulick), the effects of gravity, the effects of currents of air and of water, of fixed or sedentary as opposed to active modes of life, the results of strains and impacts (Ryder, Cope, and Osborn), the principle of change of function as inducing the formation of new structures (Dohrn), the effects of parasitism, commensalism, and of symbiosis--in short, the biological environment; together with geological extinction, natural and sexual selection, and hybridity. 

 "It is to be observed that the Neolamarckian in relying mainly on these factors does not overlook the value of natural selection as a guiding principle, and which began to act as soon as the world became stocked with the initial forms of life, but he simply seeks to assign this principle to its proper position in the hierarchy of factors. 

 "Natural selection, as the writer from the first has insisted, is not a _vera causa_, an initial or impelling cause in the origination of new species and genera. It does not start the ball in motion; it only, so to speak, guides its movements down this or that incline. It is the expression, like that of "the survival of the fittest" of Herbert Spencer, of the results of the combined operation of the more fundamental factors. In certain cases we cannot see any room for its action; in some others we cannot at present explain the origin of species in any other way. Its action increased in proportion as the world became more and more crowded with diverse forms, and when the struggle for existence had become more unceasing and intense. It certainly cannot account for the origination of the different branches, classes, or orders of organized beings. It in the main simply corresponds to artificial selection; in the latter case, man selects forms already produced by domestication, the latter affording sports and varieties due to change in the surroundings, that is, soil, climate, food, and other physical features, as well as education. 

 "In the case also of heredity, which began to operate as soon as the earliest life forms appeared, we have at the outset to invoke the principle of the heredity of characters acquired during the lifetime of lowest organisms. 

 "Finally, it is noticeable that when one is overmastered by the dogma of natural selection he is apt, perhaps unconsciously, to give up all effort to work out the factors of evolution, or to seek to work out this or that cause of variation. Trusting too implicitly to the supposed _vera causa_, one may close his eyes to the effects of change of environment or to the necessity of constant attempts to discover the real cause of this or that variation, the reduction or increase in size of this or that organ; or become insensible to the value of experiments. Were the dogma of natural selection to become universally accepted, further progress would cease, and biology would tend to relapse into a stage of atrophy and degeneration. On the other hand, a revival of Lamarckism in its modern form, and a critical and doubting attitude towards natural selection as an efficient cause, will keep alive discussion and investigation, and especially, if resort be had to experimentation, will carry up to a higher plane the status of philosophical biology. "

Although now the leader of the Neodarwinians, and fully assured of the"all-sufficiency" of natural selection, the veteran biologist Weismann, whose earlier works were such epoch-making contributions to insectembryology, was, when active as an investigator, a strong advocate ofthe Lamarckian factors. In his masterly work, _Studies in the Theory ofDescent_[227] (1875), although accepting Darwin's principle of naturalselection, he also relied on "the transforming influence of directaction as upheld by Lamarck, " although he adds, "its extent cannot asyet be estimated with any certainty. " He concluded from his studies inseasonal dimorphism, "that differences of specific value can originatethrough the direct action of external conditions of life only. " Whileconceding that sexual selection plays a very important part in themarkings and coloring of butterflies, he adds "that a change produceddirectly by climate may be still further increased by sexual selection. "He also inquired into the origin of variability, and held that it can beelucidated by seasonal dimorphism. He thus formulated the chief resultsof his investigations: "A species is only caused to change through theinfluence of changing external conditions of life, this change being ina fixed direction which entirely depends on the physical nature of thevarying organism, and is different in different species or even in thetwo sexes of the same species. "

The influence of changes of climate on variation has been studied toespecial advantage in North America, owing to its great extent, and tothe fact that its territory ranges from the polar to the tropicalregions, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. As respectsclimatic variation in birds, Professor Baird first took up the inquiry, which was greatly extended, with especial relation to the formation oflocal varieties, by Dr.  J.  A. Allen, [228] who was the first to ascertainby careful measurements, and by a study of the difference in plumage andpelage of individuals inhabiting distant portions of a common habitat, the variations due to climatic and local causes. 

"That varieties, " he says, "may and do arise by the action of climaticinfluences, and pass on to become species; and that species become, inlike manner, differentiated into genera, is abundantly indicated by thefacts of geographical distribution, and the obvious relation of localforms to the conditions of environment. The present more or lessunstable condition of the circumstances surrounding organic beings, together with the known mutations of climate our planet has undergone inpast geological ages, point clearly to the agency of physical conditionsas one of the chief factors in the evolution of new forms of life. Solong as the environing conditions remain stable, just so long willpermanency of character be maintained; but let changes occur, howevergradual or minute, and differentiations begin. " He inclines to regardthe modifications as due rather to the direct action of the conditionsof environment than to "the round-about process of natural selection. "He also admits that change of habits and food, use and disuse, arefactors. 

The same kind of inquiry, though on far less complete data, was extendedby the present writer[229] in 1873 to the moths, careful measurements oftwenty-five species of geometrid moths common to the Atlantic andPacific coasts of North America showing that there is an increase insize and variation in shape of the wings, and in some cases in color, inthe Pacific Coast over Eastern or Atlantic Coast individuals of the samespecies, the differences being attributed to the action of climaticcauses. The same law holds good in the few Notodontian moths common toboth sides of our continent. Similar studies, the results depending oncareful measurements of many individuals, have recently been made byC.  H. Eigenmann (1895-96), W.  J. Moenkhaus (1896), and H.  C. Bumpus(1896-98). 

The discoveries of Owen, Gaudry, Huxley, Kowalevsky, Cope, Marsh, Filhol, Osborn, Scott, Wortmann, and many others, abundantly prove thatthe lines of vertebrate descent must have been the result of the actionof the primary factors of organic evolution, including the principles ofmigration, isolation, and competition; the selective principle beingsecondary and preservative rather than originative. 

Important contributions to dynamic evolution or kinetogenesis are theessays of Cope, Ryder, Dall, Osborn, Jackson, Scott, and Wortmann. 

Ryder began in 1877 to publish a series of remarkably suggestive essayson the "mechanical genesis, " through strains, of the vertebrate limbsand teeth, including the causes of the reduction of digits. Indiscussing the origin of the great development of the incisor teeth ofrodents, he suggested that "the more severe strains to which they weresubjected by enforced or intelligently assumed changes of habit, werethe initiatory agents in causing them to assume their present forms, such forms as were best adapted to resist the greatest strains withoutbreaking. "[230]

He afterwards[231] claimed that the articulations of the cartilaginousfin-rays of the trout (_Salmo fontinalis_) are due to the mechanicalstrains experienced by the rays in use as motors of the body of the fishin the water. 

In the line of inquiry opened up by Cope and by Ryder are the essays ofOsborn[232] on the mechanical causes for the displacement of theelements of the feet in the mammals, and the phylogeny of the teeth. Also Professor W.  B. Scott thus expresses the results of hisstudies:[233]

 "To sum up the results of our examination of certain series of fossil mammals, one sees clearly that transformation, whether in the way of the addition of new parts or the reduction of those already present, acts just _as if_ the direct action of the environment and the habits of the animal were the efficient cause of the change, and any explanation which excludes the direct action of such agencies is confronted by the difficulty of an immense number of the most striking coincidences. .. . So far as I can see, the theory of determinate variations and of use-inheritance is not antagonistic but supplementary to natural selection, the latter theory attempting no explanation of the _causes_ of variation. Nor is it pretended for a moment that use and disuse are the sole or even the chief factors in variation. "

As early as 1868 the Lamarckian factor of isolation, due to migrationinto new regions, was greatly extended, and shown by Moritz Wagner[234]to be a most important agent in the limitation and fixation of varietiesand species. 

 "Darwin's work, " he says, "neither satisfactorily explains the external cause which gives the first impulse to increased individual variability, and consequently to natural selection, nor that condition which, in connection with a certain advantage in the struggle for life, renders the new characteristics indispensable. The latter is, according to my conviction, solely fulfilled by the voluntary or passive migration of organisms and colonization, which depends in a great measure upon the configuration of the country; so that only under favorable conditions would the home of a new species be founded. "

This was succeeded by Rev. J.  T. Gulick's profound essays "On Diversityof Evolution under One Set of External Conditions"[235] (1872), and on"Divergent Evolution through Cumulative Segregation"[236] (1887). 

These and later papers are based on his studies on the land shells ofthe Hawaiian Islands. The cause of their extreme diversity of localspecies is, he claims, not due to climatic conditions, food, enemies, orto natural selection, but to the action of what he calls the "law ofsegregation. "

Fifteen years later Mr.  Romanes published his theory of physiologicalselection, which covered much the same ground. 

A very strong little book by an ornithologist of wide experience, Charles Dixon, [237] and refreshing to read, since it is packed withfacts, is Lamarckian throughout. The chief factor in the formation oflocal species is, he thinks, isolation; the others are climaticinfluences (especially the glacial period), use and disuse, and sexualselection as well as chemical agency. Dixon insists on the "vastimportance of isolation in the modification of many forms of life, without the assistance of natural selection. " Again he says: "Naturalselection, as has often been remarked, can only preserve a beneficialvariation--it cannot originate it, it is not a cause of variation; onthe other hand, the use or disuse of organs is a direct cause ofvariation, and can furnish natural selection with abundance of materialto work upon" (p.  49). The book, like the papers of Allen, Ridgway, Gulick, and others, shows the value of isolation or segregation inspecial areas as a factor in the origination of varieties and species, the result being the prevention of interbreeding, which would otherwiseswamp the incipient varieties. 

Here might be cited Delboeuf's law:[238]

 "When a modification is produced in a very small number of individuals, this modification, even were it advantageous, would be destroyed by heredity, as the favored individuals would be obliged to unite with the unmodified individuals. _Il n'en est rien, cependant. _ However great may be the number of forms similar to it, and however small may be the number of dissimilar individuals which would give rise to an isolated individual, we can always, while admitting that the different generations are propagated under the same conditions, meet with a number of generations at the end of which the sum total of the modified individuals will surpass that of the unmodified individuals. " Giard adds that this law is capable of mathematical demonstration. "Thus the continuity or even the periodicity of action of a primary factor, such, for example, as a variation of the _milieu_, shows us the necessary and sufficient condition under which a variety or species originates without the aid of any secondary factor. "

Semper, [239] an eminent zoölogist and morphologist, who also was thefirst (in 1863) to criticise Darwin's theory of the mode of formation ofcoral atolls, though not referring to Lamarck, published a strong, catholic, and original book, which is in general essentially Lamarckian, while not undervaluing Darwin's principle of natural selection. "Itappears to me, " he says, in the preface, "that of all the properties ofthe animal organism, Variability is that which may first and most easilybe traced by exact investigation to its efficient causes. "

 "By a rearrangement of the materials of his argument, however, we obtain, as I conceive, convincing proof that external conditions can exert not only a very powerful selective force, but a transforming one as well, although it must be the more limited of the two. 

 "An organ no longer needed for its original purpose may adapt itself to the altered circumstances, and alter correspondingly if it contains within itself, as I have explained above, the elements of such a change. Then the influence exerted by the changed conditions will be _transforming_, not _selective_. 

 "This last view may seem somewhat bold to those readers who know that Darwin, in his theory of selection, has almost entirely set aside the direct transforming influence of external circumstances. Yet he seems latterly to be disposed to admit that he had undervalued the transforming as well as the selective influence of external conditions; and it seems to me that his objection to the idea of such an influence rested essentially on the method of his argument, which seemed indispensable for setting his theory of selection and his hypothesis as to the transformation of species in a clear light and on a firm footing" (p.  37). 

Dr.  H. De Varigny has carried on much farther the kind of experimentsbegun by Semper. In his _Experimental Evolution_ he employs theLamarckian factors of environment and use and disuse, regarding theselective factors as secondary. 

The Lamarckian factors are also depended upon by the late ProfessorEimer in his works on the variation of the wall-lizard and on themarkings of birds and mammals (1881-88), his final views being comprisedin his general work. [240] The essence of his point of view may be seenby the following quotation:

 "According to my conception, the physical and chemical changes which organisms experience during life through the action of the environment, through light or want of light, air, warmth, cold, water, moisture, food, etc. , and which they transmit by heredity, are the primary elements in the production of the manifold variety of the organic world, and in the origin of species. From the materials thus supplied the struggle for existence makes its selection. These changes, however, express themselves simply as growth" (p.  22). 

In a later paper[241] Eimer proposes the term "orthogenesis, " or directdevelopment, in rigorous conformity to law, in a few definitedirections. Although this is simply and wholly Lamarckism, Eimer claimsthat it is not, "for, " he strangely enough says, "Lamarck ascribed noefficiency whatever to the effects of outward influences on the animalbody, and very little to their effects upon vegetable organisms. "Whereas if he had read his Lamarck carefully, he would have seen thatthe French evolutionist distinctly states that the environment actsdirectly on plants and the lower animals, but indirectly on thoseanimals with a brain, meaning the higher vertebrates. The sameanti-selection views are held by Eimer's pupil, Piepers, [242] whoexplains organic evolution by "laws of growth, . .. Uncontrolled by anyprocess of selection. "

Dr.  Cunningham likewise, in the preface to his translation of Eimer'swork, gives his reasons for adopting Neolamarckian views, concludingthat "the theory of selection can never get over the difficulty of theorigin of entirely new characters;" that "selection, whether natural orartificial, could not be the essential cause of the evolution oforganisms. " In an article on "The New Darwinism" (_Westminster Review_, July, 1891) he claims that Weismann's theory of heredity does notexplain the origin of horns, venomous teeth, feathers, wings of insects, or mammary glands, phosphorescent organs, etc. , which have arisen onanimals whose ancestors never had anything similar. 

Discussing the origin of whales and other aquatic mammals, W. Kükenthalsuggests that the modifications are partially attributable to mechanicalprinciples. (_Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist. _, February, 1891. )

From his studies on the variation of butterflies, Karl Jordan[243]proposes the term "mechanical selection" to account for them, but hepoints out that this factor can only work on variations produced byother factors. Certain cases, as the similar variation in the samelocality of two species of different families, but with the same wingpattern, tell in favor of the direct action of the local surroundings onthe markings of the wings. 

In the same direction are the essays of Schroeder[244] on the markingsof caterpillars, which he ascribes to the colors of the surroundings; ofFischer[245] on the transmutations of butterflies as the result ofchanges of temperature, and also Dormeister's[246] earlier paper. Steinach[247] attributes the color of the lower vertebrates to thedirect influence of the light on the pigment cells, as doesBiedermann. [248]

In his address on evolution and the factors of evolution, Professor A. Giard[249] has given due credit to Lamarck as "the creator oftransformism, " and to the position to be assigned to natural selectionas a secondary factor. He quotes at length Lamarck's views published in1806. After enumerating the primary factors of organic evolution, heplaces natural selection among his secondary factors, such as heredity, segregation, amixia, etc. On the other hand, he states that Lamarck wasnot happy in the choice of the examples which he gave to explain theaction of habits and use of parts. "Je ne rappellerai par l'histoiretant de fois critique du cou de la giraffe et des cornes de l'escargot. "

Another important factor in the evolution of the metazoa or many-celledanimals, from the sponges and polyps upward from the one-celled forms orprotozoa, is the principle of animal aggregation or colonizationadvanced by Professor Perrier. As civilization and progressiveintelligence in mankind arose from the aggregation of men into tribes orpeoples which lived a sedentary life, so the agricultural, building, andother arts forthwith sprang up; and as the social insects owe theirhigher degree of intelligence to their colonial mode of life, so as soonas unicellular organisms began to become fixed, and form aggregates, thesponge and polyp types of organization resulted, this leading to thegastræa, or ancestral form from which all the higher phyla may haveoriginated. 

M.  Perrier appears to fully accept Lamarck's views, including hisspeculations as to wants, and use and disuse. He, however, refuses toaccept Lamarck's extreme view as to the origin through effort ofentirely new organs. As he says: "Unfortunately, if Lamarck succeeded inexplaining in a plausible way the modification of organs alreadyexisting, their adaptation to different uses, or even theirdisappearance from disuse, in regard to the appearance of new organs hemade hypotheses so venturesome that they led to the momentaryforgetfulness of his other forceful conceptions. "[250]

The popular idea of Lamarckism, and which from the first has beenprejudicial to his views, is that an animal may acquire an organ bysimply wishing for or desiring it, or, as his French critics put it, "Unanimal finit toujours par posséder un organe quand il le veut. " "Such, "says Perrier, [251] "is not the idea of Lamarck, who simply attributesthe transformations of species to the stimulating action of externalconditions, construing it under the expression of wants (_besoins_), andexplaining by that word what we now call _adaptations_. Thus the longneck of the giraffe results from the fact that the animal inhabits acountry where the foliage is situated at the tops of high trees; thelong legs of the wading birds have originated from the fact that thesebirds are obliged to seek their food in the water without wettingthemselves, " etc. (See p.  350. )

 "Many cases, " says Perrier, "may be added to-day to those which Lamarck has cited to support his first law [pp.  303, 346]; the only point which is open to discussion is the extent of the changes which an organ may undergo, through the use it is put to by the animal. It is a simple question of measurement. The possibility of the creation of an organ in consequence of external stimuli is itself a matter which deserves to be studied, and which we have no right to reject without investigation, without observations, or to treat as a ridiculous dream; Lamarck would doubtless have made it more readily accepted, if he had not thought it well to pass over the intermediate steps by means of wants. It is incontestable that by lack of exercise organs atrophy and disappear. "

 Finally, says Perrier: "Without doubt the real mechanism of the improvement (_perfectionnement_) of organisms has escaped him [Lamarck], but neither has Darwin explained it. The law of natural selection is not the indication of a process of transformation of animals; it is the expression of the total results. It states these results without showing us how they have been brought about. We indeed see that it tends to the preservation of the most perfect organisms; but Darwin does not show us how the organisms themselves originated. This is a void which we have only during these later years tried to fill" (p.  90). 

Dr.  J.  A. Jeffries, author of an essay "On the Epidermal System ofBirds, " in a later paper[252] thus frankly expresses his views as to therelations of natural selection to the Lamarckian factors. Referring toDarwin's case of the leg bones of domestic ducks compared with those ofwild ducks, and the atrophy of disused organs, he adds:

 "In this case, as with most of Lamarck's laws, Darwin has taken them to himself wherever natural selection, sexual selection, and the like have fallen to the ground. 

 "Darwin's natural selection does not depend, as is popularly supposed, on direct proof, but is adduced as an hypothesis which gains its strength from being compatible with so many facts of correlation between an organism and its surroundings. Yet the same writer who considers natural selection proved will call for positive experimental proof of Lamarck's theory, and refuse to accept its general compatibility with the facts as support. Almost any case where natural selection is held to act by virtue of advantage gained by use of a part is equally compatible with Lamarck's theory of use and development. The wings of birds of great power of flight, the relations of insects to flowers, the claws of beasts of prey, are all cases in point. "

Professor J.  A. Thomson's useful _Synthetic Summary of the Influence ofthe Environment upon the Organism_ (1887) takes for its text Spencer'saphorism, that the direct action of the medium was the primordial factorof organic evolution. Professor Geddes relies on the changes in the soiland climate to account for the origin of spines in plants. 

The botanist Sachs, in his _Physiology of Plants_ (1887), remarks: "Afar greater portion of the phenomena of life are [is] called forth byexternal influences than one formerly ventured to assume. "

Certain botanists are now strong in the belief that the species ofplants have originated through the direct influence of the environment. Of these the most outspoken is the Rev. Professor G. Henslow. His viewis that self-adaptation, by response to the definite action of changedconditions of life, is the true origin of species. In 1894[253] heinsisted, "_in the strictest sense of the term_, that natural selectionis not wanted as an 'aid' or a 'means' in originating species. " In alater paper[254] he reasserts that all variations are definite, thatthere are no indefinite variations, and that natural selection "can takeno part in the origination of varieties. " He quotes with approval theconclusion of Mr.  Herbert Spencer in 1852, published

 "seven years before Darwin and Dr.  Wallace superadded natural selection as an aid in the origin of species. He saw no necessity for anything beyond the natural power of change with adaptation; and I venture now to add my own testimony, based upon upwards of a quarter of a century's observations and experiments, which have convinced me that Mr.  Spencer was right and Darwin was wrong. His words are as follows: 'The supporters of the development hypothesis can show . .. That any existing species, animal or vegetable, when placed under conditions different from its previous ones, immediately begins to undergo certain changes of structure fitting it for the new conditions; . .. That in the successive generations these changes continue until ultimately the new conditions become the natural ones. .. . They can show that throughout all organic nature there is at work a modifying influence of the kind they assign as the causes of specific differences; an influence which, though slow in its action, does in time, if the circumstances demand it, produce marked changes. '"[255]

Mr.  Henslow adduces observations and experiments by Buckman, Bailey, Lesage, Lothelier, Costantin, Bonnier, and others, all demonstratingthat the environment acts directly on the plant. 

Henslow also suggests that endogens have originated from exogenousplants through self-adaptation to an aquatic habit, [256] which is inline with our idea that certain classes of animals have diverged fromthe more primitive ones by change of habit, although this has led to thedevelopment of new class-characteristics by use and disuse, phenomenawhich naturally do not operate in plants, owing to their fixedconditions. 

Other botanists--French, German, and English--have also been led tobelieve in the direct influence of the _milieu_, or environment. Suchare Viet, [257] and Scott Elliot, [258] who attributes the growth of bulbsto the "direct influence of the climate. "

In a recent work Costantin[259] shares the belief emphatically held bysome German botanists in the direct influence of the environment notonly as modifying the form, but also as impressing, without the aid ofnatural selection, that form on the species or part of its inheritedstock; and one chapter is devoted to an attempt to establish the thesisthat acquired characters are inherited. 

In his essay "On Dynamic Influences in Evolution" W.  H. Dall[260] holdsthe view that--

 "The environment stands in a relation to the individual such as the hammer and anvil bear to the blacksmith's hot iron. The organism suffers during its entire existence a continuous series of mechanical impacts, none the less real because invisible, or disguised by the fact that some of them are precipitated by voluntary effort of the individual itself. .. . It is probable that since the initiation of life upon the planet no two organisms have ever been subjected to exactly the same dynamic influences during their development. .. . The reactions of the organism against the physical forces and mechanical properties of its environment are abundantly sufficient, if we are granted a single organism, with a tendency to grow, to begin with; time for the operation of the forces; and the principle of the survival of the fittest. "

In his paper on the hinge of Pelecypod molluscs and its development, hehas pointed out a number of the particular ways in which the dynamics ofthe environment may act on the characters of the hinge and shell ofbivalve molluscs. He has also shown that the initiation and developmentof the columellar plaits in Voluta, Mitra, and other gasteropod molluscs"are the necessary mechanical result of certain comparatively simplephysical conditions; and that the variations and peculiarities connectedwith these plaits perfectly harmonize with the results which followwithin organic material subjected to analogous stresses. "

In the same line of study is Dr.  R.  T. Jackson's[261] work on themechanical origin of characters in the lamellibranch molluscs. "Thebivalve nature of the shell doubtless arose, " he says, "from thesplitting on the median line of a primitive univalvular ancestor;" andhe adds: "A parallel case is seen in the development of a bivalve shellin ancient crustaceans;" in both types of shells "the form is induced bythe mechanical conditions of the case. " The adductor muscles of bivalvemolluscs and crustaceans are, he shows plainly, the necessaryconsequence of the bivalvular condition. 

In his theory as to the origin of the siphon of the clam (_Myaarenaria_), he explains it in a manner identical with Lamarck'sexplanations of the origin of the wading and swimming birds, etc. , evento the use of the words "effort" and "habit. "

 "In _Mya arenaria_ we find a highly elongated siphon. In the young the siphon hardly extends beyond the borders of the valves, and then the animal lives at or close to the surface. In progressive growth, as the animal burrows deeper, the siphon elongates, until it attains a length many times the total length of the valves. 

 "The ontogeny of the individual and the paleontology of the family both show that Mya came from a form with a very abbreviated siphon, and it seems evident that the long siphon of this genus was brought about by the effort to reach the surface induced by the habit of deep burial. "

 "The tendency to equalize the form of growth in a horizontal plane, or the geomalic tendency of Professor Hyatt, [262] is seen markedly in pelecypods. In forms which crawl on the free borders of the valves, the right and left growth in relation to the perpendicular is obvious, and agrees with the right and left sides of the animal. In Pecten the animal at rest lies on the right valve, and swims or flies with the right valve lowermost. Here equalization to the right and left of the perpendicular line passing through the centre of gravity is very marked (especially in the Vola division of the group); but the induced right and left aspect corresponds to the dorsal and ventral sides of the animal, not the right and left sides, as in the former case. Lima, a near ally of Pecten, swims with the edges of the valves perpendicular. In this case the geomalic growth corresponds to the right and left sides of the animal. 

 "The oyster has a deep or spoon-shaped attached valve, and a flat or flatter free valve. This form, or a modification of it, we find to be characteristic of all pelecypods which are attached to a foreign object of support by the cementation of one valve. All are highly modified, and are strikingly different from the normal form seen in locomotive types of the group. The oyster may be taken as the type of the form adopted by attached pelecypods. The two valves are unequal, the attached valve being concave, the free valve flat; but they are not only unequal, they are often very dissimilar--as different as if they belonged to a distinct type in what would be considered typical forms. This is remarkable as a case of acquired and inherited characteristics finding very different expression in the two valves of a group belonging to a class typically equivalvular. The attached valve is the most highly modified, and the free is least modified, retaining more fully ancestral characters. Therefore, it is to the free young before fixation takes place and to the free, least-modified valve that we must turn in tracing genetic relations of attached groups. Another characteristic of attached pelecypods is camerated structure, which is most frequent and extensive in the thick attached valve. The form as above described is characteristic of the Ostreidæ, Hinnites, Spondylus, and Plicatula, Dimya, Pernostrea, Aetheria, and Mulleria; and Chama and its near allies. These various genera, though ostreiform in the adult, are equivalvular and of totally different form in the free young. The several types cited are from widely separated families of pelecypods, yet all, under the same given conditions, adopt a closely similar form, which is strong proof that common forces acting on all alike have induced the resulting form. What the forces are that have induced this form it is not easy to see from the study of this form alone; but the ostrean form is the base of a series, from the summit of which we get a clearer view. " (_Amer. Nat. _, pp.  18-20. )

Here we see, plainly brought out by Jackson's researches, that theLamarckian factors of change of environment and consequently of habit, effort, use and disuse, or mechanical strains resulting in themodifications of some, and even the appearance of new organs, as theadductor muscles, have originated new characters which are peculiar tothe class, and thus a new class has been originated. The mollusca, indeed, show to an unusual extent the influence of a change inenvironment and of use and disuse in the formation of classes. 

Lang's treatment, in his _Text-book of Comparative Anatomy_ (1888), ofthe subjects of the musculature of worms and crustacea, and of themechanism of the motion of the segmented body in the Arthropoda, is ofmuch value in relation to the mechanical genesis of the body segmentsand limbs of the members of this type. Dr.  B. Sharp has also discussedthe same subject (_American Naturalist_, 1893, p.  89), also Graber inhis works, while the present writer in his _Text-book of Entomology_(1898) has attempted to treat of the mechanical origin of the segmentsof insects, and of the limbs and their jointed structure, along thelines laid down by Herbert Spencer, Lang, Sharp, and Graber. 

W. Roux[263] has inquired how natural selection could have determinedthe special orientation of the sheets of spongy tissue of bone. Hecontends that the selection of accidental variation could not originatespecies, because such variations are isolated, and because, toconstitute a real advantage, they should rest on several characterstaken together. His example is the transformation of aquatic intoterrestrial animals. 

G. Pfeffer[264] opposes the efficacy of natural selection, as do C. Emery[265] and O. Hertwig. The essence of Hertwig's _The BiologicalProblem of To-day_ (1894) is that "in obedience to different externalinfluences the same rudiments may give rise to different adultstructures" (p.  128). Delage, in his _Théories sur l'Hérédité_, summarizes under seven heads the objections of these distinguishedbiologists. Species arise, he says, from general variations, due tochange in the conditions of life, such as food, climate, use and disuse, very rarely individual variations, such as sports or aberrations, whichare more or less the result of disease. 

Mention should also be made of the essays and works of H. Driesch, [266]De Varigny, [267] Danilewsky, [268] Verworn, [269] Davenport, [270]Gadow, [271] and others. 

In his address on "Neodarwinism and Neolamarckism, " Mr.  Lester F. Ward, the palæobotanist, says:

 "I shall be obliged to confine myself almost exclusively to the one great mind, who far more than all others combined paved the way for the new science of biology to be founded by Darwin, namely, Lamarck. " After showing that Lamarck established the functional, or what we would call the dynamic factors, he goes on to say that "Lamarck, although he clearly grasped the law of competition, or the struggle for existence, the law of adaptation, or the correspondence of the organism to the changing environment, the transmutation of species, and the genealogical descent of all organic beings, the more complex from the more simple; he nevertheless failed to conceive the selective principle as formulated by Darwin and Wallace, which so admirably complemented these great laws. "[272]

As is well known, Huxley was, if we understand his expressions aright, not fully convinced of the entire adequacy of natural selection. 

 "There is no fault to be found with Mr.  Darwin's method, then; but it is another question whether he has fulfilled all the conditions imposed by that method. Is it satisfactorily proved, in fact, that species may be originated by selection? that there is such a thing as natural selection? that none of the phenomena exhibited by species are inconsistent with the origin of species in this way?

 * * * * *

 "After much consideration, with assuredly no bias against Mr.  Darwin's views, it is our clear conviction that, as the evidence stands, it is not absolutely proven that a group of animals, having all the characters exhibited by species in nature, has ever been originated by selection, whether artificial or natural. Groups having the morphological character of species, distinct and permanent races, in fact, have been so produced over and over again; but there is no positive evidence, at present, that any group of animals has, by variation and selective breeding, given rise to another group which was even in the least degree infertile with the first. Mr.  Darwin is perfectly aware of this weak point, and brings forward a multitude of ingenious and important arguments to diminish the force of the objection. "[273]

We have cited the foregoing conclusions and opinions of upwards of fortyworking biologists, many of whom were brought up, so to speak, in theDarwinian faith, to show that the pendulum of evolutionary thought isswinging away from the narrow and restricted conception of naturalselection, pure and simple, as the sole or most important factor, andreturning in the direction of Lamarckism. 

We may venture to say of Lamarck what Huxley once said of Descartes, that he expressed "the thoughts which will be everybody's two or threecenturies after" him. Only the change of belief, due to the rapidaccumulation of observed facts, has come in a period shorter than "twoor three centuries;" for, at the end of the very century in whichLamarck, whatever his crudities, vagueness, and lack of observations andexperiments, published his views, wherein are laid the foundations onwhich natural selection rests, the consensus of opinion as to the directand indirect influence of the environment, and the inadequacy of naturalselection as an initial factor, was becoming stronger and deeper-rootedeach year. 

We must never forget or underestimate, however, the inestimable value ofthe services rendered by Darwin, who by his patience, industry, and raregenius for observation and experiment, and his powers of lucidexposition, convinced the world of the truth of evolution, with theresult that it has transformed the philosophy of our day. We are all ofus evolutionists, though we may differ as to the nature of the efficientcauses. 

FOOTNOTES:

[204] Vol.  ii. , p.  167, 1871. 

[205] Vol.  ii. , p.  195. 

[206] Vol.  i. , § 166, p.  456. 

[207] _The Factors of Organic Evolution_, 1895, p.  460. 

[208] _Schöpfungegeschichte_, 1868. _The History of Creation_, New York, ii. , p.  355. 

[209] Alcide d'Orbigny, _Paléontologie française_, Paris, 1840-59. 

[210] Abstract in Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, xvii. , December 16, 1874. 

[211] _Zeitschr. Der deutsch. Geol. Gesellschaft_, 1875. 

[212] _Palæontologica Indica_. Jurassic Fauna of Kutch. I. Cephalopoda, pp.  242-243. (See Hyatt's _Genesis of the Arietidæ_, pp.  27, 42. )

[213] "Genera of Fossil Cephalopods, " Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. , xxii. , April 4, 1883, p.  265. 

[214] "Revision of the North American Poriferæ. " Memoirs Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. , ii. , part iv. , 1877. 

[215] _Three Cruises of the "Blake, "_ 1888, ii. , p.  158. 

[216] The earliest paper in which he adopted the Lamarckian doctrines ofuse and effort was his "Methods of Creation of Organic Types" (1871). Inthis paper Cope remarks that he "has never read Lamarck in French, norseen a statement of his theory in English, except the very slightnotices in the _Origin of Species_ and _Chambers' Encyclopædia_, thelatter subsequent to the first reading of this paper. " It is interestingto see how thoroughly Lamarckian Cope was in his views on the descenttheory. 

[217] Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement ofScience, Troy meeting, 1870. Printed in August, 1871. 

[218] _American Naturalist_, v. , December, 1871, p.  750. See alsopp.  751, 759, 760. 

[219] Printed in advance, being chapter xiii. Of _Our Common Insects_, Salem, 1873, pp.  172, 174, 179, 180, 181, 185. 

[220] "A New Cave Fauna in Utah. " _Bulletin of the United StatesGeological Survey_, iii. , April 9, 1877, p.  167. 

[221] Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, iv. , 1888, pp.  156:27 plates. See also _American Naturalist_, Sept. , 1888, xxii. , p.  808, and Sept. , 1894, xxviii. , p.  333. 

[222] Carl H. Eigenmann, in his elaborate memoir, _The Eyes of theBlind Vertebrates of North America (Archiv für Entwickelungsmechanik derOrganismen_, 1899, viii. ), concludes that the Lamarckian view, thatthrough disuse and the transmission by heredity of the characters thusinherited the eyes of blind fishes are diminished, "is the only view sofar examined that does not on the face of it present serious objections"(pp.  605-609). 

[223] "Hints on the Evolution of the Bristles, Spines, and Tubercles ofCertain Caterpillars, etc. " Proceedings Boston Society of NaturalHistory, xxiv. , 1890, pp.  493-560; 2 plates. 

[224] E.  J. Marey: "Le Transformisme et la Physiologie Expérimentale, Cours du Collège de France, " _Revue Scientifique_, 2^me série, iv. , p.  818. (Function makes the organ, especially in the osseous andmuscular systems. ) See also A. Dohrn: _Der Ursprung der Wirbelthiere unddas Princip des Functionswechsels_, Leipzig, 1875. See also Lamarck'sopinion, p.  295. 

[225] "On the Inheritance of Acquired Characters in Animals with aComplete Metamorphosis. " Proceedings Amer. Acad. Arts and Sciences, Boston, xxix. (N.  S. , xxi. ). 1894, pp.  331-370; also monograph of"Bombycine Moths, " Memoirs Nat. Acad. Sciences, vii. , 1895, p.  33. 

[226] In 1885, in the Introduction to the _Standard Natural History_, weproposed the term Neolamarckianism, or Lamarckism in its modern form, todesignate the series of factors of organic evolution, and we take theliberty to quote the passage in which the word first occurs. We may addthat the briefer form, Neolamarckism, is the more preferable. 

"In the United States a number of naturalists have advocated what may becalled Neo-Lamarckian views of evolution, especially the conception thatin some cases rapid evolution may occur. The present writer, contrary topure Darwinians, believes that many species, but more especially typesof genera and families, have been produced by changes in the environmentacting often with more or less rapidity on the organism, resulting attimes in a new genus, or even a family type. Natural selection, actingthrough thousands, and sometimes millions, of generations of animals andplants, often operates too slowly; there are gaps which have been, so tospeak, intentionally left by Nature. Moreover, natural selection was, asused by some writers, more an idea than a _vera causa_. Naturalselection also begins with the assumption of a tendency to variation, and presupposes a world already tenanted by vast numbers of animalsamong which a struggle for existence was going on, and the few werevictorious over the many. But the entire inadequacy of Darwinism toaccount for the primitive origin of life forms, for the originaldiversity in the different branches of the tree of life forms, theinterdependence of the creation of ancient faunas and floras ongeological revolutions, and consequent sudden changes in the environmentof organisms, has convinced us that Darwinism is but one of a number offactors of a true evolution theory; that it comes in play only as thelast term of a series of evolutionary agencies or causes; and that itrather accounts, as first suggested by the Duke of Argyll, for the_preservation_ of forms than for their origination. We may, in fact, compare Darwinism to the apex of a pyramid, the larger mass of thepyramid representing the complex of theories necessary to account forthe world of life as it has been and now is. In other words, we believein a modified and greatly extended Lamarckianism, or what may be calledNeo-Lamarckianism. "

[227] _Studies in the Theory of Descent_. By Dr.  August Weismann. Translated and edited, with notes, by Raphael Meldola. London, 1882. 2 vols. 

[228] "The Influence of Physical Conditions in the Genesis of Species, "_Radical Review_, i. , May, 1877. See also J.  A. Allen in Bull. Mus. Comp. Zoöl. Ii. , 1871; also R. Ridgway, _American Journal of Science_, December, 1872, January, 1873. 

[229] Annual Report of the United States Geological and GeographicalSurvey Territories, 1873. Pp.  543-560. See also the author's monographof Geometrid Moths or Phalænidæ of the United States, 1876, pp.  584-589, and monograph of Bombycine Moths (Notodontidæ), p.  50. 

[230] Proceedings Academy of Natural Science, Philadelphia (1877), p.  318. 

[231] Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (1889), p.  546. 

[232] Transactions American Philosophical Society, xvi. (1890), andlater papers. 

[233] _American Journal of Morphology_ (1891), pp.  395, 398. 

[234] "Über die Darwinische Theorie in Besug auf die geographischeVerbreitung der Organismen. " Sitzenb. Der Akad. München, 1868. Translated by J.  L. Laird under the title, _The Darwinian Theory and theLaw of the Migration of Organisms_. London, 1873. Also _Ueber denEinfluss der geographischen Isolirung und Colonierbildung auf diemorphologischen Veränderungen der Organismen_. München, 1870. 

[235] _Linnæan Society's Journal_: Zoölogy, xi. , 1872. 

[236] _Linnæan Society's Journal_: Zoölogy, xx. , 1887, pp.  189-274, 496-505: also _Nature_, July 18, 1872. 

[237] _Evolution without Natural Selection; or, The Segregation ofSpecies without the aid of the Darwinian Hypothesis_, London (1885), pp.  1-80. 

[238] _Revue Scientifique_, xix. (1877). P.  669. Quoted by Giard in_Rev. Sci. _, 1889, p.  646. 

[239] _Animal Life as Affected by the Natural Conditions of Existence. _By Karl Semper. The International Scientific Series. New York, 1881. 

[240] _Organic Evolution as the Result of the Inheritance of AcquiredCharacters, according to the Laws of Organic Growth. _ Translated byJ.  T. Cunningham, 1890. 

[241] _On Orthogenesis and the Impotence of Natural Selection in SpeciesFormation. _ Chicago, 1898. 

[242] _Die Farbenevolution bei den Pieriden_. Leiden, 1898. 

[243] "On Mechanical Selection and Other Problems. " _NovitatesZoologicæ_, iii. Tring, 1896. 

[244] _Entwicklung der Raupenzeichnung und Abhängigkeit der letzeren vonder Farbe der Umgebung_, 1894. 

[245] _Transmutation der Schmetterlinge infolgeTemperatur-veränderungen_, 1895. 

[246] _Ueber den Einfluss der Temperatur bei der Erzeugung derSchmetterlings-varietäten_, 1880. 

[247] _Ueber Farbenwechsel bei niederen Wirbelthieren, bedingt durchdirecte Wirkung des Lichts auf die Pigmentzellen. _ _Centralblatt fürPhysiologie_, 1891, v. , p.  326. 

[248] _Ueber den Farbenwechsel der Frösche. _ _Pflüger's Archiv fürPhysiologie_, 1892, li. , p.  455. 

[249] _Leçon d'Ouverture du Cours de l'Évolution des Êtres organisés. _Paris, 1888, and "Les Facteurs de l'Évolution, " _Revue Scientifique_, November 23, 1889. 

[250] _Revue Encyclopédique_, 1897. P.  325. Yet we have an example ofthe appearance of a new organ in the case of the duckbill, in which thehorny plates take the place of the teeth which Poulton has discovered inthe embryo. Other cases are the adductor muscles of shelled crustacea. (See p.  418. )

[251] _La Philosophie Zoologique avant Darwin_. Paris, 1884, p.  76. 

[252] "Lamarckism and Darwinism. " Proceedings Boston Society NaturalHistory, xxv. , 1890, pp.  42-49. 

[253] "The Origin of Species without the Aid of Natural Selection, "_Natural Science_, Oct. , 1894. Also, "The Origin of Plant Structures. "

[254] "Does Natural Selection play any Part in the Origin of Speciesamong Plants?" _Natural Science_, Sept. , 1897. 

[255] "Essay on the Development Hypothesis, " 1852, London _Times_. 

[256] "A Theoretical Origin of Endogens from Exogens throughSelf-Adaptation to an Aquatic Habit, " _Linnean Society Journal_: Botany, 1892, _l.  c. _, xxix. , pp.  485-528. A case analogous to kinetogenesis inanimals is his statement based on mathematical calculations byMr.  Hiern, "that the best form of the margin of floating leaves forresisting the strains due to running water is circular, or at least theseveral portions of the margin would be circular arcs" (p.  517). 

[257] "De l'Influence du Milieu sur la Structure anatomique desVégétaux, " _Ann. Sci. Nat. Bot. _, ser.  6, xii. , 1881, p.  167. 

[258] "Notes on the Regional Distribution of the Cape Flora, "_Transactions_ Botanical Society, Edinburgh. 1891, p.  241. 

[259] _Les Végétaux et les Milieux cosmiques_, Paris, 1898, pp.  292. 

[260] Proceedings Biological Society of Washington, 1890. 

[261] "Phylogeny of the Pelecypoda, " Memoirs Boston Society NaturalHistory, iv. , 1890, pp.  277-400. Also, _American Naturalist_, 1891, xxv. , pp.  11-21. 

[262] "Transformations of Planorbis at Steinheim, with Remarks on theEffects of Gravity upon the Forms of Shells and Animals, " ProceedingsA.  A.  A.  S. , xxix. , 1880. 

[263] _Der Kampf der Theile im Organismus_. Leipzig, 1881. Also_Gesammelte Abhandlungen über Entwickelungsmechanik der Organismen_. Leipzig, 1895. 

[264] _Die Unwandlung der Arten ein Vorgang functionellerSelbsgestaltung_. Leipzig, 1894. 

[265] _Gedanken zur Descendenz- und Vererbungstheorie; Biol. Centralblatt_, xiii. , 1893, 397-420. 

[266] _Entwickelungmecanische Studien_, 1892-93. 

[267] _Experimental Evolution_, 1892; also, "Recherches sur le Nanismeexperimental, " _Journ. Anat. Et Phys. _, 1894. 

[268] "Ueber die organsplastischen Kräfte der Organismen, " _Arbeit. Nat. Ges. _, Petersburg, xvi. , 1885; Protok, 79-82. 

[269] _General Physiology_, 1899. 

[270] _Experimental Morphology_, 1897-99. 2 vols. 

[271] "Modifications of Certain Organs which seem to be Illustrations ofthe Inheritance of Acquired Characters in Mammals and Birds. " _Zool. Jahrb. Syst. Abth. _, 1890, iv. , pp.  629-646; also, _The Lost Link_, byE. Haeckel, with notes, etc. , by H. Gadow, 1899. 

[272] Proceedings Biological Society of Washington, vi. , 1892, pp.  13, 19. 

[273] _Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews_, 1870, p.  323. 

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS OF J.  B. DE LAMARCK[274]

1778-1828

1778

Flore française ou description succinte de toutes les plantes quicroissent naturellement en France, disposées selon une nouvelle méthoded'analyse et à laquelle on a joint la citation de leurs vertus les moinséquivoques en médecine et de leur utilité dans les arts. Paris (Impr. Nationale), 1778. 8vo, 3 vol. 

Vol.  I. Ext. Du Rapport fait par MM.  Duhamet et Guettard de cet ouvrage. Pp.  1-4. 

 Discours préliminaire. Pp.  i-cxix. Principes élémentaires de Botanique. Pp.  1-223. Méthode analytique. --Plantes cryptogames. Pp.  1-132, viii, pl. 

Vol.  II. Méthode analytique. --Plantes adultes, ou dont les fleurs sontdans un état de développement parfait. Pp.  iv. , 684. 

Vol.  III. Méthode analytique. Pp.  654, x. 

_Idem. _ 2e édit. Paris, 1793. 

(1805-15)

Flore française ou description succinte de toutes les plantes quicroissent naturellement en France, disposées selon une nouvelle méthoded'analyse, et précédées par un exposé des principes élémentaires de laBotanique. 

(En collaboration avec A.  P. De Candolle). Édition III. Paris (Agasse), 1805. 4 vol. , 8vo. 

Vol.  I. Lettre de M. De Candolle à M.  Lamarck. Pp.  xv. 

 Discours préliminaire. (Réimpression de la 1re édit. ) pp.  1-60. Principes élémentaires de Botanique, pp.  61-224. Méthode analytique: {analyse des genres. Pp.  1-76. {analyse des espèces. Pp.  77-388, 10 pl. 

Vol.  II. Explication de la Carte botanique de France, pp.  i-xii. Plantesacotylédonées. Pp.  1-600. Carte coloriée. 

Vol.  III. Monocotylédonées phanérogames. Pp.  731. 

Vol.  IV. " " pp.  944. 

Même édition, augmentée du tome 5 et tome 6, contenant 1300 espèces nondécrites dans les cinq premiers volumes. Paris (Desray), 1815. 8vo, pp.  622. 

Lettre de M.  A.  P. De Candolle à M.  Lamarck, pp.  10. 

1783

Dictionnaire botanique. --(En Encyclopédie méthodique. Paris, in 4to. ) I, 1783; II, 1786; pour le IIIe volume, 1789, Lamarck a été aidé parDesrousseaux. Le IVe, 1795, est de Desrousseaux, Poiret et Savigny. Lesderniers: V, 1804; VI, 1804; VII, 1806; et VIII, 1808, sont de Poiret. 

Lamarck et Poiret. Encyclopédie méthod. : Botanique. 8 vols. Et suppl. 1 à 3, avec 900 pl. 

1784

Mémoire sur un nouveau genre de plante nommé Brucea, et sur le fauxBrésillet d'Amérique. Mém. Acad. Des Sci. 21 janvier 1784. Pp.  342-347. 

1785

Mémoire sur les classes les plus convenables à établir parmi lesvégétaux et sur l'analogie de leur nombre avec celles déterminées dansle règne animal, ayant égard de part et d'autre à la perfection graduéedes organes. (De la classification des végétaux. ) Mém. Acad. Des Sci. 1785. Pp.  437-453. 

1788

Mémoire sur le genre du Muscadier, Myristica. Mém. Acad. Des Sci. 1788. Pp.  148-168, pl.  v. -ix. 

1790

Mémoire sur les cabinets d'histoire naturelle, et particulièrement surcelui du Jardin des Plantes; contenant l'exposition du régime et del'ordre qui conviennent à cet établissement, pour qu'il soit vraimentutile. (No imprint. ) 4to, pp.  15. 

Considérations en faveur du Chevalier de la Marck, ancien officier auRégiment de Beaujolais, de l'Académie Royale des Sciences; Botaniste duRoi, attaché au Cabinet d'Histoire Naturelle. [Paris] 1790. 8vo, pp.  7. 

1791

Instruction aux voyageurs autour du monde, sur les observations les plusessentielles à faire en botanique. Soc. Philom. (Bull. ) Paris, 1791, pp.  8. 

Illustrations des genres, ou exposition des caractères de tous lesgenres de plantes établis par les botanistes (Encyclopédie méthodique):I, 1791; II, 1793; III, 1800, avec 900 planches. (Le supplément, quiconstitue le tome IV, 1823, est de Poiret. )

Extrait de la flore française. Paris, 1792. 1 vol. In-8vo. 

Tableau encyclopédique et méthodique des trois règnes de la nature. Botanique continuée par J.  L.  M. Poiret. Paris (Panckoucke), 1791-1823. Text, 3 v. ; Pls. , 4 v. (Encyclopédie méthodique. ) 4to. 

Tableau encyclopédique et méthodique des trois règnes de la nature. Mollusques testacés (et polypes divers). Paris (Panckoucke) [etc. ], 1791-1816. Text (3), 180 pp. Pls.  2 v. (Encyclopédie méthodique. ) 4to. 

_Idem. _ Continuator Bruguière, Jean Guillaume. Histoire naturelle desvers. Par Bruguière [et J.  B.  P.  A. De Lamarck; continuée par G.  P. Deshayes]. Paris (Panckoucke) [etc. ], 1792-1832, 3 v. (Encyclopédieméthodique. ) 4to. 

1792

Journal d'Histoire naturelle, rédigé par MM.  Lamarck, Bruguière, Olivier, Haüy et Pelletier. Tomes I, II. Pl.  1-24, 25-40. Paris (Impr. Du Cercle social), 1792. In-8vo, 2 vol. 

Le même, sous le titre: Choix de mémoires sur divers objets d'histoirenaturelle, par Lamarck; formant les collections du Journal d'Hist. Nat. 3 vol. In-8vo, tirés de format in-4to, dont le 3me contient 42 pl. Paris(Imprim. Du Cercle social), 1792. 

_Nota. _--Tous les exemplaires de cet ouvrage que l'on rencontre sontincomplets. Un exemplaire de format in-8vo, provenant de la BibliothèqueCuvier (et qui se trouve à la Bibliothèque du Muséum), contient lespages 320 à 360; 8 pages copiées à la main terminent le volume, dont onconnaît complet un seul exemplaire. 

Sur l'histoire naturelle en général. 

Sur la nature des articles de ce journal qui concernent la Botanique. 

Philosophie botanique. L'auteur propose dans cet article un nouveaugenre de plante: le Genre Rothia (Rothia Carolinensis, p.  17, pl.  1). Journ. D'Hist. Nat. I, 1792. Pp.  1-19. (Ce recueil porte aussi le titresuivant: Choix de mémoires sur divers objets d'Histoire naturelle, parMM.  Lamarck, Bruguière, Olivier, Haüy et Pelletier. )

Sur le Calodendron (Calodendron Capense), pp.  56, pl.  3. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. I, 1792. Pp.  56-62. 

Philosophie botanique. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. I, 1792. Pp.  81-92. (Dans cetarticle l'auteur donne la description de: Mimosa obliqua. Pp.  89, pl.  5. )

Sur les travaux de Linné. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. I, 1792. Pp.  136-144. (L'auteur conclut que tout ce que fit Linnæus pour la botanique, il lefit aussi pour la zoologie; et ne donna pas moins de preuves de songénie en traitant le règne minéral, quoique dans cette partie del'histoire naturelle il fut moins heureux en principes et en convenancesdans les rapprochements et les déterminations, que dans les deux autresrègnes. )

Sur une nouvelle espèce de Vantane. Ventanea parviflora. P.  145, pl.  7. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. I, 1792. Pp.  144-148. 

Exposition d'un nouveau genre de plante nommé Drapètes. Drapetesmuscosus et seq. P.  159, pl.  10, fig.  1. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. I, 1792. Pp.  1-190. 

Sur le Phyllachne. Phyllachne uliginosa. P.  192, pl.  10, fig.  2. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. I, 1792. Pp.  190-192. 

Sur l'Hyoseris Virginica. P.  222, pl.  12. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. I, 1792. Pp.  222-224. 

Sur le genre des Acacies; et particulièrement sur l'Acacie hétérophille. Mimosa heterophylla. P.  291, pl.  15. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. I, 1792. Pp.  288-292. 

Sur les Systèmes et les Méthodes de Botanique et sur l'Analyse. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. I, 1792. Pp.  300-307. 

Sur une nouvelle espèce de Grassette. Pinguicula campanulata, p.  336, pl.  18, fig.  I. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. I, 1792. Pp.  334-338. 

Sur l'étude des rapports naturels. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. I, 1792. Pp.  361-371. 

Sur les relations dans leur port ou leur aspect, que les plantes decertaines contrées ont entre elles, et sur une nouvelle espèced'Hydrophylle. Hydrophyllum Magellanicum. P.  373, pl.  19. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. I. 1792. Pp.  371-376. 

Notice sur quelques plantes rares ou nouvelles, observées dansl'Amérique Septentrionale par M.  A. Michaux; adressée à la Sociétéd'Histoire naturelle de Paris par l'auteur; et rédigée avec desobservations. Canna flava--Pinguicula lutea--Ilex Americana--Ilexæstivalis--Ipomæa rubra--Mussænda frondosa--Kalmia hirsuta--Andromedamariana--A. Formosissima. Journ. D'Hist. Nat I, 1792. Pp.  409-419. 

Sur une nouvelle espèce de Loranthe. Loranthus cucullaris. P.  444, pl.  23. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. I, 1792. Pp.  444-448. 

Sur le nouveau genre Polycarpea. Polycarpæa Teneriffæ. P.  5, pl.  25. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. II, 1792. Pp.  3-8. 

Sur l'augmentation continuelle de nos connaissances à l'égard desespèces et sur une nouvelle espèce de Sauge. Salvia scabiosæfolia. P.  44, pl.  27. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. II, 1792. Pp.  41-47. 

Sur une nouvelle espèce de Pectis. Pectis pinnata. P.  150, pl.  31. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. II, 1792. Pp.  148-154. 

Sur le nouveau genre Sanvitalia. Sanvitalia procumbens. P.  178, pl.  35. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. II, 1792. Pp.  176-179. 

Sur l'augmentation remarquable des espèces dans beaucoup de genres quin'en offraient depuis longtemps qu'une, et particulièrement sur unenouvelle espèce d'Hélénium. Helenium caniculatum. P.  213, pl.  35. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. II, 1792. Pp.  210-215. 

Observations sur les coquilles, et sur quelques-uns des genres qu'on aétablis dans l'ordre des Vers testacés. Purpurea, Fusus, Murex, Terebra, etc. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. II, 1792. Pp.  269-280. 

Sur l'Administration forestière, et sur les qualités individuelles desbois indigènes, ou qui sont acclimatés en France; auxquels on a joint ladescription des bois exotiques, que nous fournit le commerce. Par _P.  C. Varenne-Tenille_, Bourg (Philippon), 1792. 2 vol. 8vo. Journ. D'Hist. Nat. II, 1792. Pp.  299-301. 

Sur quatre espèces d'Hélices. Journ. D'Hist nat. II, 1792. Pp.  347-353. 

Prodrome d'une nouvelle classification des coquilles, comprenant unerédaction appropriée des caractères génériques et l'établissement d'ungrand nombre de genres nouveaux. --In Mém. Soc. Hist. Nat. Paris, I, 1792. P.  63. 

Sur les ouvrages généraux en Histoire naturelle; et particulièrement surl'édition du Systema Naturæ de Linnæus, que M.  Gmelin vient de publier. Act. Soc. Hist. Nat. , Paris, I. 1re Part. , 1792. Pp.  81-85. 

1794

Recherches sur les Causes des principaux Faits physiques, etparticulièrement sur celles de la Combustion, de l'Elévation de l'eaudans l'état de vapeurs; de la Chaleur produite par le frottement descorps solides entre eux; de la Chaleur qui se rend sensible dans lesdécompositions subites, dans les effervescences et dans le corps debeaucoup d'animaux pendant la durée de leur vie; de la Causticité, de laSaveur et de l'Odeur de certains composés; de la Couleur des corps; del'Origine des composés et de tous les minéraux; enfin, de l'Entretien dela vie des êtres organiques, de leur accroissement, de leur état devigueur, de leur dépérissement et de leur mort. Avec une planche. Tomes1, 2. Paris, seconde année de la république [1794]. 8vo. 

Mémoire sur les molécules essentiels des composés. Soc. Philom. Rapp. , 1792-98. Pp.  56-57. 

Voyage de Pallas dans plusieurs provinces de l'empire de Russie et dansl'Asie septentrionale, traduit de l'allemand par Gauthier de laPeyronnerie. Nouvelle édition revue et enrichie de notes par Lamarck, Langlès et Billecoq. Paris, an II (1794). 8 vol. In-8vo, avec un atlasde 108 pl. Folio. 

1796

Voyage au Japon, par le cap de Bonne-Espérance, les îles de la Sonde, etc. , par Thunberg, traduit, rédigé (sur la version anglaise), etc. , parLanglès, et _revu, quant à l'histoire naturelle_, par Lamarck. Paris. 1796. 2 vol. In-4to (8vo, 4 vol. ), av. Fig. 

Réfutation de la théorie pneumatique et de la nouvelle théorie deschimistes modernes, etc. Paris, 1796. 1 vol. 8vo. 

1797

Mémoires de physique et d'histoire naturelle, établis sur des bases deraisonnement indépendantes de toute théorie; avec l'explication denouvelles considérations sur la cause générale des dissolutions, sur lamatière du feu; sur la couleur des corps; sur la formation des composés;sur l'origine des minéraux; et sur l'organisation des corps vivants. Lusà la première classe de l'Institut national, dans ses séancesordinaires. Paris, an V (1797). 1 vol. 8vo. Pp.  410. 

De l'influence de la lune sur l'atmosphère terrestre, etc. Bull. Soc. Philom. I. , 1797; pp.  116-118. Gilbert Annal. VI, 1800; pp.  204-223; etNicholson's Journal, III, 1800; pp.  438-489. 

Mémoires de Physique et d'Histoire naturelle. Paris, 1797. 8vo. Biogr. Un. , Suppl.  LXX. P.  22. 

1798

De l'influence de la lune sur l'atmosphère terrestre. Journ. De Phys. XLVI, 1798; pp.  428-435. Gilbert Annal. VI, 1800; pp.  204-233. Tilloch, Philos. Mag. I, 1798; pp.  305-306. Paris, Soc. Philom. (Bull. ) II, 1797;pp.  116-118. Nicholson's Journ. III, 1800. Pp.  488-489. 

Sensibility of Plants. (Translated from the Mémoires de Physique. )Tilloch, Philos. Mag. I, 1798. Pp.  305-306. 

Mollusques testacés du tableau encyclopédique et méthodique des troisrègnes de la nature, Paris, an VI (1798). 1 vol. In-4to de 299 pl. , formant suite à l'Histoire des Vers de Bruguière (1792), continuée parDeshayes (1830), de l'Encyclopédie méthodique. 

1799

Mémoire sur la matière du feu, considéré comme instrument chimique dansles analyses. 1º, De l'action du feu employé comme instrument chimiquepar la voie sèche; p.  134. 2º, De l'action du feu employé commeinstrument chimique par la voie humide; p.  355. Journ. De Phys. XLVIII, 1799. Pp.  345-361. 

Mémoire sur la matière du son. (Lu à l'Institut national, le 16 brumairean VIII, et le 26 du même mois. ) Journ. De Phys. XLIX, 1799. Pp.  397-412. 

Sur les genres de la Sèche, du Calmar et du Poulpe, vulgairement nomméspolypes de mer. (Lu à l'Institut national le 21 floréal an VI. ) Soc. Hist. Nat. , Paris (Mém. ), 1799. Pp.  1-25, pl.  1, 2. Bibl. Paris, Soc. Philom. (Bull. ) I, Part.  2, 1799. Pp.  129-131 (Extrait). 

Prodrome d'une nouvelle Classification des coquilles, comprenant unerédaction appropriée des caractères génériques, et l'établissement d'ungrand nombre de genres nouveaux. (Lu à l'Institut national le21 frimaire an VII. ) Soc. Hist. Nat. , Paris (Mém. ), 1789. Pp.  63-91. Tableau systématique des Genres--126 g. 

Sur les fossiles et l'influence du mouvement des eaux, considérés commeindices du déplacement continuel du bassin des mers, et de son transportsur différents points de la surface du globe. (Lu à l'Institut nationalle 21 pluviôse an VII [1799]. ) Hydrogéologie, p.  172. 

Annuaire météorologique pour l'an VIII de la République française, etc. (Annonce. ) Paris, Soc. Philom. (Bull. ) III, 1799. P.  56. 

1800

Annuaire météorologique pour l'an VIII de la République. Paris, 1800. 1 vol. 16mo; 116 pp. Bibl. , Gilbert Annal. VI, 1800. Pp.  216-217. 

Mémoire sur le mode de rédiger et de noter les observationsmétéorologiques, afin d'en obtenir des résultats utiles, et sur lesconsidérations que l'on doit avoir en vue pour cet objet. Journ. DePhys. LI, 1800. Pp.  419-426. 

Annuaire météorologique, contenant l'exposé des probabilités acquisespar une longue suite d'observations sur l'état du ciel et sur lesvariations de l'atmosphère, etc. Paris, 1800-1810, 11 volumes, dont les2 premiers in-18mo, les autres in-8vo. 

1801

Système des Animaux sans Vertèbres ou Tableau général des classes, desordres et des genres de ces animaux. Présentant leurs caractèresessentiels et leur distribution d'après leurs rapports naturels, et deleur organisation; et suivant l'arrangement établi dans les galeries duMuséum d'Histoire naturelle parmi les dépouilles conservées. Précédé dudiscours d'Ouverture du Cours de Zoologie donné dans le Muséumd'Histoire naturelle l'an VIII de la République, le 21 floréal. Paris(Déterville), an IX (1801), VIII. Pp.  452. Bibl. , Paris, Soc. Philom. (Bull. ) III, 1802-4. Pp.  7-8. 

Recherches sur la périodicité présumée des principales variations del'atmosphère, et sur les moyens de s'assurer de son existence et de sadétermination. (Lues à l'Institut national de France, le 26 ventôsean IX. ) Journ. De Phys. LII. 1801. Pp.  296-316. 

Réfutation des résultats obtenus par le C. Cotte, dans ses recherchessur l'influence des constitutions lunaires, et imprimés dans le Journalde Physique, mois de fructidor an IX. P.  221. Journ. De Phys. LIII, 1801. Pp.  277-281. 

Sur la distinction des tempêtes d'avec les orages, les ouragans, etc. Etsur le caractère du vent désastreux du 18 brumaire an IX (9 novembre1800). (Lu à l'Institut national le 11 frimaire an IX. ) Journ. De Phys. LII, floréal, 1801. Pp.  377-380. 

1802

Sur les variations de l'état du ciel dans les latitudes moyennes entrel'équateur et le pôle, et sur les principales causes qui y donnent lieu. Journ. De Phys. LVI. 1802. Pp.  114-138. 

Recherches sur l'Organisation des Corps vivants et particulièrement surson origine, sur la cause de ses développements et des progrès de sacomposition, et sur celles qui, tendant continuellement à la détruire, dans chaque individu, amènent nécessairement sa mort. (Précédé duDiscours d'Ouverture du Cours de Zoologie au Mus. Nat. D'Hist. Nat. , anX de la République. ) Paris (Maillard) [1802]. 1 vol. 8vo. Pp.  216. 

 Affinités chimiques, p.  73. --Anéantissement de la colonne vertébrale, p.  21. --Du coeur, p.  26. --De l'organe de la vue, p.  32. --Annélides, p.  24. --Arachnides, p.  27. --La Biologie, p.  186. --Création de la faculté de se reproduire, p.  114. --Crustacés, p.  25. --Dégradation de l'organisation d'une extrémité à l'autre de la chaîne des animaux, p.  7. --Échelle animale, p.  39. --Les éléments, p.  12. --Les espèces, pp.  141-149. --Exercice d'un organe, pp.  53, 56, 65, 125. --Les facultés, pp.  50, 56, 84, 125. --Fécondation, p.  95. --Fluide nerveux, pp.  114, 157, 166, 169. --Formation directe des premiers traits de l'organisation, pp.  68, 92, 94, 98. --Générations spontanées, pp.  46, 100, 115. --Habitudes des animaux, pp.  50, 125, 129. --Homme, p.  124. --Imitation, p.  130. --Influence du fluide nerveux sur les muscles, p.  169. --Insectes, p.  28. --Irritabilité, pp.  109, 179, 186. --Mammaux, p.  15. --Molécules intégrants des composés, p.  150. --Mollusques, p.  23. --Mouvement organique, pp.  7-9. --Multiplication des individus, pp.  117-120. --Nature animale, p.  8. --Nutrition, p.  8. --Oiseaux, p.  16. --Orgasme vital, pp.  79-83. --Organes des corps vivants, p.  111. --Organes de la pensée, p.  127. --Organisation, pp.  9, 98, 104, 134. --Pensée, p.  166. --Poissons, p.  20. --Polypes, p.  35. --Quadrumanes, pp.  131, 135, 136. --Radiaires, p.  32. --Raison, p.  125. --Reptiles, p.  18. --Sentiment, p.  177. --Troglodyte, p.  126. --Tableau du règne animal, p.  37. --Vie, p.  71. 

Mémoire sur la Tubicinelle. (Lu à l'Assemblée des Professeurs du Muséumd'Histoire naturelle. ) Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris, I, 1802. Pp.  4, pl.  464. Bull. Soc. Philom. III, Paris, 1801-1804. Pp.  170-171. (Extrait. )

Mémoires sur les Cabinets d'Histoire naturelle et particulièrement surcelui du Jardin des Plantes; contenant l'exposition du régime et del'ordre qui conviennent à cet établissement, pour qu'il soit vraimentutile. Ext. Des Ann. Du Mus. (1802). Paris. In-4to. 15 p. 

 Des diverses sortes de Cabinets où l'on rassemble des objets d'Histoire naturelle, p.  2. 

 Vrais principes que l'on doit suivre dans l'institution d'un Cabinet d'Histoire naturelle, p.  3. 

 Sur le Cabinet d'Histoire naturelle du Jardin des Plantes, p.  5. 

Hydrogéologie, ou recherches de l'influence générale des eaux sursurface du globe terrestre; sur les causes de l'existence du bassin desmers; de son déplacement et de son transport successif sur lesdifférents points de la surface de ce globe; enfin, sur les changementsque les corps vivants exercent sur la nature et l'état de cette surface. Paris, an X [1802]. 8vo. Pp.  268. 

1802-6

Mémoires sur les fossiles des environs de Paris, comprenant ladétermination des espèces qui appartiennent aux animaux marins sansvertèbres, et dont la plupart sont figurés dans la Collection des Velinsdu Muséum. 

 1er Mémoire. Mollusques testacés dont on trouve les dépouilles fossiles dans les environs de Paris. 

 Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) I, 1802. Pp.  299-312; 383-391; 474-479. 

 Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) II, 1803. Pp.  57-64; 163-169; 217-227; 315-321; 385-391. 

 Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) III, 1804. Pp.  163-170; 266-274. 

 Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) IV, 1804. Pp.  46-55; 105-115; 211-222; 289-298; 429-436. 

 Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) V, 1804. Pp.  28-36; 91-98; 179-180; 237-245; 349-356. 

 Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) VI, 1805. Pp.  117-126; 214-221; 222-228; 337-345. 

 Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) VII, 1806. Pp.  53-62; 136-140; 231-242; 419-430. 

 Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) VIII, 1806. Pp.  156-166; 347-355; 461-469. 

 Tirage à part. Paris. In-4to. 1806. Pp.  284. 

 1er mémoire. Genres Chiton, Patella, Fissurella. Pp.  308-312. 

 2e " " Emarginula, Calyptræa, Conus, Cypræa, Terebellum et Oliva. Pp.  383-391. 

 3e mémoire. Genres Ancilla, Voluta. Pp.  474-479. 

Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) I, 1802. 

 4e mémoire. Genres Mitra, Marginella, Cancellaria, Purpura. Pp.  57-64. 

 5e mémoire. Genres Buccinum, Terebra, Harpa, Cassis. Pp.  163-169. 

 6e mémoire. Genres Strombus, Rostellaria, Murex. Pp.  217-227. 

 7e mémoire. Genre Fusus. Pp.  315-321. 

 8e " Genres Fusus, Pyrula. Pp.  385-391. 

Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) II, 1803. 

 9e mémoire. Genre Pleurotoma. Pp.  163-170. 

 10e mémoire. Genres Pleurotoma, Cerithium. Pp.  266-274. 

 11e et 12e mémoires. Genre Cerithium. Pp.  343-352; 436-441. 

Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) III, 1804. 

 13e mémoire. Genres Trochus, Solarium. Pp.  46-55. 

 14e " " Turbo, Delphinula, Cyclostoma. Pp.  105-115. 

 15e mémoire. Genres Scalaria, Turritella, Bulla. Pp.  212-222. 

 16e " " Bulimus, Phasianella, Lymnæa. Pp.  289-298. 

 17e mémoire. Genres Melania, Auricula, pp.  429-436. 

Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) IV, 1804. 

 18e mémoire. Genres Volvaria, Ampullaria, Planorbis. Pp.  28-36. 

 19e mémoire. Genres Helicina, Nerita, Natica. Pp.  91-98. 

 20e " " Nautilus, Discorbis, Rotalia, Lenticulina. Pp.  179-188. 

 21e mémoire. Genres Nummulites, Lituola, Spirolina. Pp.  237-245. 

 22e mémoire. Genres Miliola, Renulina, Gyrogona. Pp.  349-357. 

Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) V, 1804. 

 23e mémoire. Genres Pinna, Mytilus, Modiola, Nucula. Pp.  117-126. 

 24e mémoire. Genres Pectunculus, Arca. Pp.  214-221. 

 25e " " Cucullæa, Cardita, Cardium. Pp.  337-346. 

 26e mémoire. Genres Crassatella, Mactra, Erycina. Pp.  407-415. 

Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) VI, 1805. 

 27e mémoire. Genres Erycina, Venericardia, Venus. Pp.  53-62. 

 28e " " Venus, Cytherea, Donax. Pp.  130-140. 

 29e " " Tellina, Lucina. Pp.  231-239. 

 30e " " Cyclas, Solen, Fistulana. Pp.  419-430. 

Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) VII, 1806. 

 31e mémoire. Genre Ostrea. Pp.  156-158. 

 32e " Genres Chama, Spondylus, Pecten. Pp.  347-356. 

 33e mémoire. Genres Lima, Corbula. Pp.  461-470. 

 Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) VIII, 1806. 

Sur la crénatule, nouveau genre de coquillage. Pl.  2. Cr. Avicularis. --Cr. Mytiloides. --Cr. Phasianoptera. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris, III, 1804. Pp.  25-31, pl.  2. 

Sur deux nouveaux genres d'insectes de la Nouvelle Hollande: Chiroscelisbifenestra; p.  262. Panops Baudini; p.  265. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris, III, 1804. Pp.  260-265. 

Sur une nouvelle espèce de Trigonie, et sur une nouvelle espèced'Huître, découvertes dans le voyage du Capitaine Baudin. Trigoniasuborbiculata; p.  355, pl.  4, fig.  1. Ostrea ovato-cuneiformis; p.  358, pl.  4, fig.  2. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris, IV, 1804. Pp.  351-359. 

Mémoire sur deux nouvelles espèces de Volutes des mers de la NouvelleHollande. Voluta undulata; p.  157, pl.  xii. , fig.  1. Voluta nivosa;p.  158, pl.  xii. , fig.  2, 3. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris, V, 1804. Pp.  154-160. 

Sur la Galathée, nouveau genre de coquillage bivalve. Galathea radiata. P.  433, pl.  28. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris, V, 1804. Pp.  430-434. 

1805

Considérations sur quelques faits applicables à la théorie du globe, observés par M.  Péron dans son voyage aux terres australes, et surquelques questions géologiques qui naissent de la connaissance de cesfaits. (Observations zoologiques propres à constater l'ancien séjour dela mer sur le sommet des montagnes des îles de Diemen, de la NouvelleHollande et de l'île Timor. ) Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris, VI, 1805. Pp.  26-52. 

Zusatz das Nordlicht am 22sten Octob. , 1804, betreffend. (Translatedfrom the Moniteur. ) Gilbert Annal. XIX, 1805. Pp.  143, 249-250. 

Sur la Dicerate, nouveau genre de coquillage bivalve. Diceras arietina. P.  300, pl.  55, fig.  2. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris, VI, 1805. Pp.  298-302. 

Sur l'Amphibulime. A. Cucullata. P.  305, pl.  55, fig.  1. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris, VI, 1805. Pp.  303-306. 

Recherches asiatiques ou Mémoires de la Société établie au Bengale pourfaire des recherches sur l'histoire et les antiquités, les arts, lessciences, etc. , traduits de l'anglais par La Baume, revues et augmentésde notes, pour la partie orientale, par Langlès; pour la partie dessciences, par Lamarck, etc. Paris, 1805. 2 vol. 4to, av. Pl. 

1805-1809

Recueil de planches des coquilles fossiles des environs de Paris, avecleurs explications. On y a joint 2 planches de Lymnées fossiles etautres coquilles qui les accompagnent, des environs de Paris; parM.  Brard. Ensemble 30 pl. Gr. En taille douce. Paris (Dufour &d'Ocagne), 1823. In-4to. 

 Explic. Des 4 premières planches, 1-4. Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) VI, 1805. Pp.  122-228, pl.  43-46. 

 Explic. Des 8 pl. Suivantes, 5-7. Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) VII, 1806. Pp.  442-444. Pl.  13-15. 

 Explic. Des 3 pl. Suivantes, 8-10. Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) VIII, 1806. Pp.  77-78. Pl.  35-37. 

 Explic. Des 4 pl. Suivantes, 11-14. Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) VIII, 1806. Pp.  383-388, pl.  59-62. 

 Explic. Des 4 pl. Suivantes, 15-18. Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) IX, 1807. Pp.  236-240, pl.  17-20. 

 Explic. Des 2 pl. Suivantes, 19, 20. Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) IX, 1807. Pp.  399-401, pl.  31-32. 

 Explic. Des 4 pl. Suivantes, 21-24. Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) XII, 1808. Pp.  456-459, pl.  40-43. 

 Explic. Des 4 pl. Suivantes, 25-28. Paris, Mus. Hist. Nat. (Ann. ) XIV, 1809. Pp.  374-375, pl.  20-23. 

1806

Synopsis plantarum in Flora Gallica descriptarum. (En collab. Avec A.  P. Decandolle. ) Paris (H. Agasse). 1806. 1 vol. 8vo. XXIV. 432 pp. Ordinumgenerumque anomalorum Clavis analytica. Pp.  i-xxiv. 

Discours d'Ouverture du Cours des Animaux sans Vertèbres, prononcé dansle Muséum d'Histoire naturelle en mai 1806. Paris, 1806. Br. , in-8vo. 

1807

Sur la division des Mollusques acéphales conchylifères, et sur unnouveau genre de coquille appartenant à cette division (Etheria). Ann. Mus. X, 1807. Pp.  389-408, 4 pl. 

Etwas über die Meteorologie. Gilbert Annal. XVII, 1807. Pp.  355-359. 

Sur la division des Mollusques acéphalés conchylifères et sur un nouveaugenre de coquille appartenant à cette division. (Genre Etheria. ) Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris, X, 1807. Pp.  389-398. 

Sur l'Éthérie, nouveau genre de coquille bivalve de la famille desCamacées. Etheria elliptica; p.  401, pl.  29 et 31, fig.  1. Etheriatrigonule; p.  403, pl.  30 et 31, fig.  2. Etheria semi-lunata; p.  404, pl.  32, fig.  1, 2. Etheria transversa; p.  406, pl.  32, fig.  3, 4. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris. X, 1807. Pp.  398-408. (Ce mémoire se rattache auprécédent. )

1809

Philosophie zoologique, ou exposition des considérations relatives àl'histoire naturelle des animaux; à la diversité de leur organisation etdes facultés qu'ils en obtiennent; aux causes physiques qui maintiennenten eux la vie et donnent lieu aux mouvements qu'ils exécutent; enfin, àcelles qui produisent, les unes les sentiments, et les autresl'intelligence de ceux qui en sont doués. Paris (Dentu), 1809. 2 vol. In-8vo, XXV, 428. 475 pages. 

_Idem_, nouvelle Édition. Paris, J.  B. Baillière. 1830. (A reprint ofthe first edition. )

2me Édition. Revue et précédée d'une introduction biographique parCharles Martins. Paris. Savy. 1873. 2 vol. 8vo. LXXXIV. 412; 431 pages. 

 Vol.  I. Première Partie. --Considération sur l'histoire naturelle des animaux, leurs caractères, leurs rapports, leur organisation, leur distribution, leur classification et leurs espèces. 

 Chap.  I. Des parties de l'art dans les productions de la nature. P.  17. 

 Chap.  II. Importance de la considération des rapports. P.  39. 

 Chap.  III. De l'Espèce parmi les corps vivants et de l'idée que nous devons attacher à ce mot. P.  53. 

 Chap.  IV. Généralités sur les animaux. P.  82. 

 Chap.  V. Sur l'état actuel de la distribution et de la classification des animaux. P.  102. 

 Chap.  VI. Dégradation et simplification de l'organisation d'une extrémité à l'autre de la chaîne animale, en procédant du plus composé vers le plus simple. P.  130. 

 Chap.  VII. De l'influence des circonstances sur les actions et les habitudes des animaux, et de celle des actions et des habitudes de ces corps vivants, comme causes qui modifient leur organisation et leurs parties. P.  218. 

 Chap.  VIII. De l'ordre naturel des animaux, et de la disposition qu'il faut donner à leur distribution générale pour la rendre conforme à l'ordre même de la nature. P.  269. 

 Deuxième Partie. --Considérations sur les causes physiques de la vie, les conditions qu'elle exige pour exister, la force excitatrice de ses mouvements, les facultés qu'elle donne aux corps qui la possèdent et les résultats de son existence dans ces corps. 

 Chap.  I. Comparaison des corps inorganiques avec les corps vivants, suivie d'une parallèle entre les animaux et les végétaux. P.  377. 

 Chap.  II. De la vie, de ce qui la constitue, et des conditions essentielles à son existence dans un corps. P.  400. 

 Vol.  II. 2me Partie. 

 Chap.  III. De la cause excitatrice des mouvements organiques. P.  1. 

 Chap.  IV. De l'orgasme et de l'irritabilité. P.  20. 

 Chap.  V. Du tissu cellulaire, considéré comme la gangue dans laquelle toute organisation a été formée. P.  46. 

 Chap.  VI. Des générations directes ou spontanées. P.  61. 

 Chap.  VII. Des résultats immédiats de la vie dans un corps. P.  91. 

 Chap.  VIII. Des facultés communes à tous les corps vivants. P.  113. 

 Chap.  IX. Des facultés particulières à certains corps vivants. P.  127. 

 Troisième Partie. --Considérations sur les causes physiques du sentiment; celles qui constituent la force productrice des actions; enfin, celles qui donnent lieu aux actes d'intelligence qui s'observent dans différents animaux. P.  169. 

 Chap.  I. Du système nerveux, de sa formation et des différentes sortes de fonctions qu'il peut exciter. P.  180. 

 Chap.  II. Du fluide nerveux. P.  235. 

 Chap.  III. De la sensibilité et du mécanisme des sensations. P.  252. 

 Chap.  IV. Du sentiment intérieur, des émotions qu'il est susceptible d'éprouver, et de la puissance qu'il en acquiert pour la production des actions. P.  276. 

 Chap.  V. De la force productrice des actions des animaux, et de quelques faits particuliers qui résultent de l'emploi de cette force; p.  302. De la consommation et de l'épuisement du fluide nerveux dans la production des actions animales; p.  314. De l'origine du penchant aux mêmes actions; p.  318. De l'instinct des animaux; p.  320. De l'industrie de certains animaux; p.  327. 

 Chap.  VI. De la volonté. P.  330. 

 Chap.  VII. De l'entendement, de son origine, et de celle des idées. P.  346. 

 Chap.  VIII. Des principaux actes de l'entendement, ou de ceux du premier ordre dont tous les autres dérivent; p.  388. De l'imagination; p.  411. De la raison et de sa comparaison avec l'instinct; p.  441. 

(Ces notes ont été relevées sur l'édition de 1809. )

1810-1811

Sur la détermination des espèces parmi les animaux sans vertèbres, etparticulièrement parmi les mollusques testacés. (Tirage à part, Paris, 1817. 4to. 5 pls. )

 Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris, XV, 1810. Pp.  20-26. 

 Descript. Des Espèces. --Cône (Conus). Pp.  26-40; pp.  269-292; pp.  422-442. Descript. Des Espèces. --Porcelaine (Cypræa). Pp.  443-454. 

 Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris, XVI, 1810. 

 Descript. Des Espèces. --Porcelaine (Cypræa), suite, pp.  89-108. Descript. Des Espèces. --Ovule (Ovula). Pp.  109-114. " " " Tarrière (Terebellum). Pp.  300-302. " " " Ancillaire (Ancillaria). Pp.  302-306. " " " Olive (Oliva). Pp.  306-328. 

 Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. XVII, 1811. 

 Descript. Des Espèces. --Volute (Voluta). Pp.  54-80. " " " Mitre (Mitra). Pp.  195-222. 

Description des Espèces du Genre Conus. Ann. Muséum. XV. 1810. Pp.  29-40, 263-292, 422-442. 

Description du genre Porcelaine (Cypræa) et des Espèces qui lecomposent. Ann. Mus. XV, 1810. Pp.  443-454. 

Suite de la détermination des Espèces de Mollusques testacés. Continuation du genre Porcelaine. Ann. Mus. XVI, 1811. Pp.  89-114. 

1812

Extrait du cours de zoologie du Muséum d'Histoire naturelle sur lesAnimaux sans Vertèbres, présentant la distribution et classification deces animaux, les caractères des principales divisions et une simpleliste des genres, à l'usage de ceux qui suivent ce cours. Paris, octobre1812. 8vo. Pp.  127. 

1813

Sur les polypiers empâtés. 

 Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris, XX, 1813. Pinceau (Penicillus). Pp.  294, 297-299. Flabellaire (Flabellaria). Pp.  298-303. Synoique (Synoicum). Pp.  303-304. Éponge (Spongia). Pp.  305-312; 370-386; 432-458. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris, I, 1815. Téthie (Tethya). Pp.  69-71. Alcyon (Alcyonium). Pp.  72-80; 162-168; 331-333. Géodie (Geodia). Pp.  333-334. Botrylle (Botryllus). Pp.  335-338. Polycycle (Polycyclus). Pp.  338-340. 

1813-15

Sur les polypiers corticifères. 

 Mém. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris, I, 1813. P.  401. Corail (Coraillium). Pp.  407-410. Mélite (Melitæa). Pp.  410-413. Isis. Pp.  413-416. Cymosaire (Cymosaria). Pp.  467-468. Antipate (Antipathes). Pp.  469-476. Mém. Mus. Hist. Nat. , Paris, II, 1815. Gorgone (Gorgonia). Pp.  76-84; 157-164. Coralline (Corallina). Pp.  227-240. 

Rapport fait à l'Institut (en collaboration avec Cuvier) sur lesobservations sur les Lombrics, ou les Vers de terre, etc. , par Montègre. Paris, 1815. Br. , in-8vo, 1 pl. 

1815-22

Histoire naturelle des Animaux sans Vertèbres, présentant les caractèresgénéraux et particuliers de ces animaux, leur distribution, leursclasses, leurs familles, leurs genres, et la citation des principalesEspèces qui s'y rapportent; précédée d'une introduction offrant ladétermination des caractères essentiels de l'Animal, sa distinction duVégétal et des autres corps naturels; enfin, l'exposition des principesfondamentaux de la zoologie. Paris, mars 1815 à août 1822. 7 vol. 8vo. 2e édit. , Paris, 1835-45. 11 vol. In-8vo. 

1818

Suite de la détermination des Espèces de Mollusques testacés. GenresVolute et Mitre. Ann. Mus. XVII, 1818. Pp.  54-80 et 195-222. 

Description des genres Tarrière (Terebellum), Ancillaria et Oliva. Ann. Mus. XVII, 1818. Pp.  300-328. 

1820

Système analytique des connaissances de l'homme restreintes à celles quiproviennent directement ou indirectement de l'observation. Paris(Berlin), 1820. In-8vo. Pp.  362. 

 Première Partie. --Des Objets que l'homme peut considérer hors de lui, et que l'observation peut lui faire connaître, p.  13. 

 Chap.  I. De la Matière, p.  5. 

 Chap.  II. De la Nature; p.  20. Définition de la nature, et exposé des parties dont se compose l'ordre des choses qui la constitue; p.  50. Objets métaphysiques dont l'ensemble constitue la nature; p.  51. De la nécessité d'étudier la nature, c'est-à-dire l'ordre des choses qui la constitue, les lois qui régissent ses actes, et surtout, parmi ces lois, celles qui sont relatives à notre être physique; p.  60. Exposition des sources où l'homme a puisé les connaissances qu'il possède et dans lesquelles il pourra en recueillir quantité d'autres; sources dont l'ensemble constitue pour lui le champ des réalités; p.  85. 

 Des Objets évidemment produits; p.  97. 

 Chap.  I. Des Corps inorganiques, p.  100. 

 Chap.  II. Des Corps vivants; p.  114. Des Végétaux; p.  125. Des Animaux; p.  134. 

 Deuxième Partie. --De l'Homme et de certains systèmes organiques observés en lui, lesquels concourrent à l'exécution de ses actions; p.  149. Généralités sur le sentiment; p.  161. Analyse des phénomènes qui appartiennent au sentiment; p.  175. 

 Sect.  I. --De la sensation. P.  177. Chap.  I. Des sensations particulières, p.  180. Chap.  II. De la sensation générale. 

 Sect.  II. --Du sentiment intérieur et de ses principaux produits. P.  191. Chap.  I. Des penchants naturels. P.  206. Chap.  II. De l'instinct. P.  228. 

 Sect.  III. --De l'intelligence, des objets qu'elle emploie, et des phénomènes auxquels elle donne lieu. P.  255. Chap.  I. Des idées. P.  290. Chap.  II. Du jugement et de la raison. P.  325. Chap.  III. Imagination. P.  348. 

1823

Recueil de planches de coquilles fossiles des environs de Paris, avecleurs explications. On y a joint deux planches de Lymnées fossiles etautres coquilles qui les accompagnent, des environs de Paris; parM.  Brard. Paris, 1823. 1 vol. In-4to de 30 pl. 

1828

Histoire naturelle des Végétaux par Lamarck et Mirbel. Paris, Déterville(Roret). In-18mo. 15 vol. , avec 120 pl. 

 Cet ouvrage fait partie de Buffon: Cours complet d'Histoire naturelle (Edit. De Castel). 80 vol. In-18mo. Paris, 1799-1802. Déterville (Roret). 

Storia naturale de' vegetabili per famiglie con la citazione de laClasse et dell' ordine di Linnes, e l'indicazione dell' use che si puofar delle piante nelle arti, nel commercio, nell' agricultura, etc. Condisegni tratti dal naturale e un genere completo, secondo il sistemalinneano, con de' rinvii alla famiglie naturali, di A.  L. Jussieu. DaG.  B. Lamarck e da B. Mirbel. Recata in lingua italiana dal A. Farinicon note ed aggiunte. 3 Tom. De 5-7. Fasc. 1835-41. (Engelmann'sBibliothec. Hist. Nat. , 1846. )

FOOTNOTES:

[274] Prepared by M.  G. Malloisel, with a few titles added by theauthor. 

EULOGIES AND BIOGRAPHICAL ARTICLES ON LAMARCK

Geoffroy St.  Hilaire, Étienne. --Discours sur Lamarck. (Recueil publiépar l'Institut. 4to. Paris, 1829. )

Cuvier, George. --Éloge de M. De Lamarck, par M.  le Baron Cuvier. Lu àl'Académie des Sciences, le 26 novembre 1832. [No imprint. ] Paris. (Trans. In Edinburgh New Philosophical Journ. No.  39. )

Bourguin, L.  B. --Les grands naturalistes français au commencement duXIXe siècle (Annales de la Société linnéenne du Département deMaine-et-Loire. 6me Année. Angers, 1863. 8vo. Pp.  185-221). Introduction, pp.  185-193. 

Lacaze-Duthiers, H. De. --De Lamarck. (Cours de zoologie au Muséumd'Histoire naturelle. ) Revue scientifique, 1866. Nos.  16-18-19. 

Memoir of Lamarck, by J. Duncan. See Jardine (Sir W. ), Bart. , TheNaturalist's Library. Vol.  36, pp.  17-63. Edinburgh, 1843. 

Quatrefages, A. De. --Charles Darwin et ses précurseurs français. Étudesur le transformisme. Paris, 1870. 8vo. Pp.  378. 

Martins, Charles. --Un naturaliste philosophe. Lamarck, sa vie et sesoeuvres. Extrait de la Revue des Deux Mondes. Livraison du 1er mars1873. Paris. 

Haeckel, Ernst. --Die Naturanschauung von Darwin, Goethe und Lamarck. Vortrag in der ersten öffentlichen Sitzung der fünf und fünfzigstenVersammlung Deutscher Naturforscher und Aerzte zu Eisenach am18 September 1882. Jena, 1882. 8vo. Pp.  64. 

Perrier, Edmond. --La philosophie zoologique avant Darwin. Paris, 1884. Pp.  292. 

Perrier, Edmond. --Lamarck et le transformisme actuel. (Extrait du volumecommémoratif du Centenaire de la fondation du Muséum d'Histoirenaturelle. ) Paris, 1893. Folio. Pp.  61. 

Bourguignat, J.  R. --Lamarck, J.  B.  P.  A. De Monnet de. (Biographicalsketch, with a partial bibliography of his works, said to have beenprepared by M.  Bourguignat. ) Revue biographique de la Sociétémalacologique de France. Paris, 1886. Pp.  61-85. With a portrait afterVaux-Bidon. 

Mortillet, Gabriel de. --Lamarck. Par G. De Mortillet. (L'Homme, IV, No.  1. 10 jan. 1887. Pp.  1-8. ) With portrait and handwriting, includingautograph of Lamarck. 

Mortillet, Gabriel de, and others. --Lamarck. Par un groupe detransformistes, ses disciples. (Reprinted from L'Homme, IV. Paris, 1887. 8vo. Pp.  31. ) With portrait and figures. 

Mortillet, Gabriel de. --Réunion Lamarck. (La Société, l'École et leLaboratoire d'Anthropologie de Paris, à l'Exposition universelle deParis. ) Paris, 1889. Pp.  72-84. 

Mortillet, Adrien de. --Recherches sur Lamarck (including acte denaissance, acte de décès, and letter from M.  Mondière regarding hisplace of burial). L'Homme, IV, No.  10. Mai 25 1887. Pp.  289-295. Withportrait and view of the house he lived in. On p.  620, a note referringto a movement to erect a monument to Lamarck. 

Giard, Alfred. --Leçon d'ouverture du cours de l'évolution des êtresorganisés. (Bull. Sc. De la France et de la Belgique. ) Paris, 1888. Pp.  28. Portrait. 

Claus, Carl. --Lamarck als Begründer des Descendenzlehre. Wien, 1883. 8vo. Pp.  35. 

Duval, Mathias. --Le transformiste français Lamarck. (Bull. Soc. D'Anthropologie de Paris. Tome XII, IIIe Série. ) pp.  336-374. 

Lamarck. --Les maîtres de la science: Lamarck. Paris, 1892. G. Masson, Éditeur. 12mo. Pp.  98. 

Hamy, E.  T. --Les derniers jours du Jardin du Roi et la fondation duMuséum d'Histoire naturelle. Pp.  40. (Extrait du volume commémoratif duCentenaire de la fondation du Muséum d'Histoire naturelle. ) Paris, 10 juin 1893. Folio. Pp.  162. Paris, 1893. 

Osborn, H.  F. --From the Greeks to Darwin. An outline of the developmentof the evolution idea. New York. 1894. 8vo. Pp.  259. 

Houssay, Frédéric. --Lamarck, son oeuvre et son esprit. Revueencyclopédique. Année 1897. Pp.  969-973. Paris, Librairie Larousse. 

Hermanville, F.  J.  F. --Notice biographique sur Lamarck. Sa vie et sesoeuvres. Beauvais, 1898. 8vo. Pp.  45. Portrait, after Thorel-Perrin. 

Packard, A.  S. --Lamarck, and Neo-Lamarckism. (The Open Court. Feb. , 1897. ) Chicago, 1897. Pp.  70-81. 

Packard, A.  S. --Lamarck's Views on the Evolution of Man, on Morals, andon the Relation of Science to Religion. The Monist, Chicago, Oct. , 1900. Chapters XVIII and XIX of the present work. 

INDEX

 Adaptation, 322, 367, 392, 412. 

 Ærobates, 338. 

 Ai, 320. 

 Amphibia, 342. 

 Ant-eater, 307, 313. 

 Antlers, origin of, 316. 

 Ant-lion, 337. 

 Appetence, doctrine of, 219, 234, 236, 350, 412. 

 Aspalax, 307. 

 Atrophy, 274, 290, 303, 306, 307, 309, 311, 315, 343. 

 Audouin J.  V. , 63. 

 Barus, C. , estimate of Lamarck's work in physics, 85. 

 Batrachia, 342. 

 Battle, law of, 219, 224. 

 Beaver, 312. 

 Besoins, 245, 270, 274, 281, 295, 302, 324, 334, 346, 350, 352, 412. 

 Bird, humming, 313. 

 Birds, domestic, atrophy in, 274; origin of, 342; origin of swimming, 234, 311; perching, 234, 312; shore, 234, 312. 

 Blainville, H.  D. De, 62, 64, 135. 

 Blumenbach, 138. 

 Bolton, H.  C. , 86. 

 Bonnet, C. , ideas on evolution, 156; germs, 163. 

 Bosc, L.  A.  G. , 52. 

 Bourguin. L.  B. , 30, 31. 

 Bradypus tridactylus, 320. 

 Brain, 337, 360; human, 358. 

 Bruguière, J.  G. , 38, 113. 

 Buffalo, 315. 

 Buffon, G.  L.  L. , 19, 92, 198; factors of evolution, 205, 356; views on descent, 201. 

 Bulla, 348. 

 Callosities, origin of, 203. 

 Camelo-pardalis, 316, 351. 

 Carnivora, 317; origin of, 343. 

 Catastrophism, 105, 117, 126, 146, 153; anti-, 105, 114, 153. 

 Cave life, 390, 392. 

 Cetacea, 343, 409; rudimentary teeth of, 307. 

 Chain of being, 167, 181, 191, 208, 235, 241, 242. 

 Changes in environment, 302; local, 301; slow, 301. 

 Characters, acquired, heredity of, 219, 224, 246, 276, 303, 319. 

 Chimpanzee, 367. 

 Chiton, 348. 

 Circumstances, influence of, 246, 247, 292, 294, 302, 305, 320, 323, 363, 400. 

 Clam, origin of siphon of, 353, 418. 

 Classifications, artificial, 282. 

 Claws of birds, 312; Carnivora, 317, 414. 

 Climate, 204, 218, 244, 283, 400, 402, 416. 

 Coal, origin of, 113, 122. 

 Colonies, animal, 411. 

 Colors, animal, 221. 

 Competition, 236, 287. 

 Conditions, changes of, 292, 294, 302, 305, 310, 400, 407, 414. 

 Consciousness, 325, 326, 353. 

 Cope, E.  D. , 383, 389. 

 Corals, 115. 

 Correlation, law of, 136, 142, 145; of tertiary beds, 133. 

 Costantin, 416. 

 Creation by evolution, 130. 

 Crossing, swamping effects of, 246, 320. 

 Crustacea, origin of, 341. 

 Cunningham, J.  T. , 409. 

 Cuvier, George, 66, 140; eulogy on Lamarck, 65; first paper, 185. 

 Dall, W.  H. , estimate of Lamarck's work, 196. 

 Darkness, influence of, 308. 

 Darwin, Charles, 423, 424; estimate of Lamarck's views, 73; factors tabulated, 356; origin of man, compared with Lamarck's, 371; views on descent, 217, 407. 

 Darwin, Erasmus, factors of evolution, 217, 223, 356; life of, 216. 

 Daubenton, 19, 26, 29, 136. 

 Deer, 316. 

 Degeneration, as used by Buffon, 204, 209; by Geoffroy, 213; by Lamarck, 182, 274, 290. 

 Delboeuf's law, 406. 

 Desiring, 236, 351, 412. 

 Digits, modifications of, 234, 311, 317, 321, 338, 344; reduction of, 315. 

 Direct action of environment, 324, 409, 410, 414, 416. 

 Disuse, 274, 290, 296, 303, 306, 307, 311, 318, 343, 392, 412. 

 Dixon, C. , 405. 

 Dogs, tailless, 220; domestication in, 299; races of, 299, 304. 

 Domestic animals, 274, 304. 

 Domestication, effects of, 298, 323. 

 D'Orbigny, A. , 386. 

 Duck, 298, 312, 318. 

 Duckbill, 412. 

 Earth, great age of, 119; revolutions of, 109, 147, 150; theory of, 149. 

 Earth's interior, 105. 

 Effort, 213, 234, 257, 295, 339, 348, 351, 353, 354, 370, 411, 420. 

 Egypt, mummied species of, 271, 286. 

 Eigenmann, C.  H. , 393. 

 Eimer, G.  H.  T. , 408. 

 Elephant, 315. 

 Emotion, 353. 

 Encasement theory, 162, 218, 222. 

 Environment, 214, 410, 417, 421. 

 Epigenesis, 156. 

 Erosion, 101. 

 Evil, 377. 

 Evolution, dynamic, 417; Lamarck's views on, 322. 

 Exercise, 211, 256. 

 Existence, struggle for, 207, 237, 287. 

 Extinct species, 126, 129, 130. 

 Eyeless animals, 307, 309. 

 Eyes, 308; of flounder, 313. 

 Faujas de St.  Fond, 23, 140. 

 Feelings, internal, 324, 325, 330, 347. 

 Fishes, flat, 313; form due to medium, 291; origin of, 341. 

 Fittest, origin of, 383. 

 Flamingo, 250. 

 Flounder, 313. 

 Flying mammals, origin of, 338. 

 Fossilization, 120. 

 Fossils, 109, 110, 112, 125, 138; deep-sea, 113; of Paris basin, 134. 

 Frog, 312. 

 Function, change of, 394. 

 Galeopithecus, 339. 

 Gasteropods, 348, 417. 

 Generation, spontaneous, 158, 176, 201, 285. 

 Geoffroy St.  Hilaire, E. , 36, 67, 307; factors tabulated, 356; life, 212; views on descent, 215; views on species, 213. 

 Geographical distribution, 205, 246. 

 Geological time, 119, 130, 222. 

 Geology, Lamarck's work in, 100. 

 Germs of life, first, 259, 261, 268; preëxistence of, 162, 218, 222. 

 Giard, A. , 406, 410. 

 Giraffe, 316, 351, 411, 412. 

 Goose, 298, 312, 313. 

 Granite, origin of, 120, 149. 

 Guettard, J.  E. , 95, 132, 136. 

 Gulick, J.  T. , 405. 

 Habits, 235, 247, 295, 303, 305, 314, 316, 321, 323, 324, 340, 394. 

 Haeckel, E. , 385; estimate of Lamarck's theory, 69. 

 Hamy, E.  T. , 19, 22, 25. 

 Hearing, 308. 

 Henslow, G. , 414. 

 Heredity, 250, 276, 303, 306, 319, 336; of acquired characters, 219, 224, 246, 276, 303, 319. 

 Hertwig, R. , 282. 

 Hoofs, origin of, 315. 

 Hooke, Robert, 132. 

 Horns, origin of, 316, 354, 393, 409. 

 Horse, 274, 304, 315. 

 Hutton, James, 99. 

 Huxley, T.  H. , 423, 424; estimate of Lamarck's scientific position, 74, 90. 

 Hyatt, A. , 386, 419. 

 Hybridity, 223. 

 Hybrids, 284. 

 Hydrogéologie, 89. 

 Imitation, 361. 

 Indirect action of environment, 324, 409. 

 Industry, animal, 336. 

 Infusoria, 328. 

 Insects, wingless, 309. 

 Intestines of man, 310. 

 Instinct, 223, 286, 330, 331, 332, 349; variations in, 335, 337, 349. 

 Isolation, 392, 394, 404; in man, 320, 369. 

 Jacko, 364. 

 Jardin des Plantes, 23. 

 Jeffries, J.  A. , 413. 

 Jordan, K. , 410. 

 Juncus bufonius, 252. 

 Kangaroo, 318. 

 Lacaze-Duthiers, H. De, reminiscences of Lamarck, 75. 

 Lakanal, J. , 28. 

 Lamarck, Cornelie de, 55. 

 Lamarck, J.  B. De, birth, 6; birthplace, 4; blindness, 51; botanical career, 15, 19, 173; burial place, 57; death, 51; estimates of his life-work, 69; factors at evolution, 233, 356; founder of palæontology, 124; house in Paris, 42; meteorology and physical science, 79; military career, 11; origin of man, 357; parentage, 7; share in reorganization of Museum, 24; shells, collections of, 46; on spontaneous generation, 158; style, 179; travels, 20; views on religion, 372; work in geology, 89; zoölogical work, 32, 180. 

 Lamarckism, relations to Darwinism, 382. 

 Land, changes of level of, 107. 

 Latreille, P.  A. , 62. 

 Law of battle, 219, 224. 

 Laws of evolution, Lamarck's, 303, 346. 

 Legs, atrophy of, 290, 309, 343. 

 Lemur volans, 339. 

 Life, 346; conditions of, 292, 294, 302, 305, 310, 400, 414; definitions of, 168, 169, 280. 

 Light, 410. 

 Limbs, atrophy of, 290, 309; genesis of, 421; of seal, 338, 344; whale, 343. 

 Lizard, 313. 

 Local changes, 301. 

 Lyell, Charles, estimate of Lamarck's theory, 71. 

 Mammals, aquatic, 343; flying, 338. 

 Man, as a check on animal life, 288; origin of, 357; origin of language, 370; origin of his plantigrade feet, 365; posture, 362, 368; relation to apes, 362; segregation of, from apes, 369; shape of his skull, 365; sign-language, 368; speech, origin of, 370; swamping effects of crossing in, 320. 

 Medium, 214. 

 Milieu, 214, 416. 

 Mimicry, protective, 220, 221, 225. 

 Minerals, growth of, 164. 

 Mole, 307. 

 Molluscs, 420; eyeless, 309; gasteropod, 348; pelecypod, 417; lamellibranch, 418; Lamarck's work on, 189. 

 Monet, de, 8. 

 Monotremes, origin from birds, 342. 

 Morals, 372. 

 Mortillet, G. De, 30. 

 Mountains formed by erosion, 101, 103. 

 Muscles, adductor, 418. 

 Museum of Natural History, Paris, 34. 

 Mya arenaria, 353, 418. 

 Myrmecophaga, 307. 

 Myrmeleon, 337. 

 Nails, 321. 

 Natural selection. Inadequacy of, 393, 397, 401, 407, 410, 413, 415, 421, 423. 

 Nature, balance of, 207; definition of, 169, 345, 375. 

 Neck, elongation of, in birds, 274, 311, 317; giraffe, 316, 351; ostrich, 317. 

 Needs, 245, 270, 274, 281, 295, 302, 324, 334, 346, 350, 351, 352. 

 Neodarwinism, 422. 

 Neolamarckism, 2, 382, 396, 398, 422. 

 Ophidia, atrophy of legs of, 290, 309. 

 Organic sense, 325, 327, 336. 

 Organs, changes in, 310; origin of, precedes their use, 223; follows their use, 305, 346; atrophy of, 274, 290, 303, 306, 307, 309, 311, 315; new production of, 346, 412, 420. 

 Orang-outang, 364. 

 Osborn, H.  S. , 403. 

 Ostrich, 317. 

 Otter, 312. 

 Ox, 315. 

 Oyster, 419. 

 Palæontology, 136; Invertebrate, 135, 149. 

 Pallas, 137. 

 Penchants, 281, 293, 328, 331. 

 Perrier, E. , 26, 411. 

 Petaurista, 338. 

 Philosophy, moral, Lamarck's, 379. 

 Phoca vitulina, 338, 344. 

 Phylogeny, 130. 

 Pigeons, 298; fantail, 304. 

 Planorbis, 387. 

 Plants, changes due to cultivation, etc. , 251, 267, 274, 283, 296, 297; cultivated, 298. 

 Population, over-, checks on, 287, 288. 

 Preformation, 162, 218, 222. 

 Propensities, 281, 293, 328, 335, 349, 351. 

 Proteus, 308. 

 Pteromys, 339. 

 Ranunculus Aquatilis, 251, 300. 

 Religion and science, 372. 

 Reptiles, 342. 

 Revolutions of the earth, 109, 142. 

 Rousseau, J.  J. , 17, 18. 

 Roux, W. , 421. 

 Ruminants, 315. 

 Ryder, J.  A. , 403. 

 Science and Religion, 372. 

 Sciurus volans, 338. 

 Scott, W.  B. , 403. 

 Sea, former existence of, 109, 110, 148. 

 Seal, 338, 344. 

 Segments, origin of, 421. 

 Segregation, in man, 320, 369. 

 Selection, mechanical, 410. 

 Semper, C. , 406. 

 Series, animal, branching, 235, 264, 282. 

 Serpents, origin of, 290, 309; eyes of, 314. 

 Sexual selection, 219, 224. 

 Shell, bivalve, origin of, 418; crustacean, 418. 

 Shells, deep-water, 112; fossil, 40, 120, 125, 131; Lamarckian genera, 183. 

 Simia satyrus, 367; troglodytes, 364. 

 Sloth, 320. 

 Snakes, atrophy of legs of, 290, 309; eyes of, 314; origin of, 290, 309; tongue of, 313. 

 Sole, 314. 

 Species, Buffon's views on, 201, 221; definition of, 252, 255, 262, 267, 275; extinct, 126; Geoffroy St.  Hilaire, views on, 214; Lamarck's views on, 183; modification of, 131; origin of, 131, 283; stability of, 271, 277, 401; variation in, 278. 

 Speech, 370. 

 Spencer, Herbert, 371, 382, 384, 415. 

 Spermist, 218. 

 Sphalax, 307. 

 Spines, 251, 393, 414. 

 Sponges, 194. 

 Squirrel, flying, 338, 339. 

 Stimulus, external, 348, 354, 393. 

 Struggle for existence, 207, 237, 287. 

 Surroundings, 214, 421; local, 410. 

 Symmetry, radial, 291. 

 Swan, 313. 

 Tail, of kangaroo, 318. 

 Teeth, 307; atrophy of, 307; in embryo birds, 307; in whales, 307. 

 Temperature, 410. 

 Tentacles of snail, 348, 354. 

 Tertiary shells, 110, 125, 133. 

 Thought, definition of, 172. 

 Time, geological, 119, 130, 222, 236. 

 Toes, modifications of, 234, 311, 315, 317, 321, 338, 344. 

 Tree, genealogical, first, 130, 181, 192, 193, 349. 

 Trout, 403. 

 Tubercles, origin of, 394. 

 Tunicata, position of, 195. 

 Turbot, 314. 

 Turtle, sea, 312. 

 Uniformitarianism, 130. 

 Use, 248, 256, 257, 302, 303, 311, 318, 384, 412. 

 Use-inheritance, 219, 224, 246, 276, 303, 319, 346. 

 Use originates organs, 276, 311, 346. 

 Variability, 407. 

 Variation, climatic, 204, 218, 401; causes of, 218, 266. 

 Varieties, 401. 

 Varigny, H. De, 408. 

 Vestigial organs, 307, 308. 

 Vital force, 167. 

 Vitalism, 168. 

 Volucella, 338. 

 Wagner, M. , 404. 

 Wallace, A.  R. , on origin of giraffe's neck, 351. 

 Wants, 245, 270, 274, 281, 295, 302, 324, 334, 346, 350, 351, 352. 

 Ward, L.  F. , 422. 

 Water, diversified condition of, 290. 

 Werner, 97. 

 Whale, 307, 343, 409. 

 Will, 319, 330, 337. 

 Willing, 236, 351, 412. 

 Weismann, A. , 399. 

 Wings, atrophy of, in insects, 309. 

 Woodpecker, 313.