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hile POUNDER OF EVOLUTION

HIS LIFE AND WORK

WITH TRANSLATIONS OF AIS

WRITINGS ON ORGANIC EVOLUTION oF +t pa
Vivision of Molluex

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By
MEPS 5 PACKARD. M.D. LED:

Professor of Zoology 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

EONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

gI AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
LONDON AND BOMBAY
I9OI

CoPpyRIGHT, 1901, BY
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO,

All rights reserved

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

Pe AC i

ALTHOUGH it is now a century since Lamarck
published the germs of his theory, it is perhaps only
within the past fifty years that the scientific world
and the general public have become familiar with the
name of Lamarck and of Lamarckism.

The rise and rehabilitation of the Lamarckian the-
ory of organic evolution, so that it has become a
rival of Darwinism; the prevalence of these views in
the United States, Germany, England, and especially
in France, where its author is justly regarded as the
real founder of organic evolution, has invested his
name with a new interest, and led to a desire to learn
some of the details of his life and work, and of his
theory as he unfolded it in 1800 and subsequent
years, and finally expounded it in 1809. ‘Ene tune
seems ripe, therefore, for a more extended sketch of
Lamarck and his theory, as well as of his work asa
philosophical biologist, than has yet appeared.

But the seeker after the details of his life is baffled
by the general ignorance about the man—his ante-
cedents, his parentage, the date of his birth, his early
training and education, his work as a professor in the
Jardin des Plantes, the house he lived in, the place
of his burial, and his relations to his scientific con-
temporaries.

Except the éoges of Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Cuvier,

vi PREFACE

and the brief notices of Martins, Duval, Bourguignat,
and Bourguin, there is no special biography, however
brief, except a brochure of thirty-one pages, reprinted
from a few scattered articles by the distinguished
anthropologist, M. Gabriel de Mortillet, in the fourth
and last volume of a little-known journal, 7’ Homme,
entitled Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Transformistes,
ses Disciples, Paris, 1887. This exceedingly rare
pamphlet was written by the late M. Gabriel de Mor-
tillet, with the assistance of Philippe Salmon and Dr.
A. Mondiére, who with others, under the leadership
of Paul Nicole, met in 1884 and formed a Réunzon
Lamarck and a Diner Lamarck, to maintain and
perpetuate the memory of the great French trans-
formist. Owing to their efforts, the exact date of
Lamarck’s birth, the house in which he lived during
his lifetime at Paris, and all that we shall ever know
of his place of burial have been established. It isa
lasting shame that his remains were not laid in a
grave, but were allowed to be put into a trench, with
no headstone to mark the site, on one side of a
row of graves of others better cared for, from which
trench his bones, with those of others unknown and
neglected, were exhumed and thrown into the cata-
combs of Paris. Lamarck left behind him no letters
or manuscripts; nothing could be ascertained regard-
ing the dates of his marriages, the names of his wives
or of all his children. Of his descendants but one is
known to be living, an officer in the army. But his
aims in life, his undying love of science, his noble
character and generous disposition are constantly
revealed in his writings.

PREFACE ai

The name of Lamarck has been familiar to me
from my youth up. When a boy, I used to arrange
my collection of shells by the Lamarckian system,
which had replaced the old Linnean classification.
For over thirty years the Lamarckian factors of evo-
lution have seemed to me to afford the foundation
on which natural selection rests, to be the primary
and efficient causes of organic change, and thus to
account for the origin of variations, which Darwin
himself assumed as the starting point or basis of his
selection theory. It is not lessening the value of
Darwin’s labors, to recognize the originality of La-
marck’s views, the vigor with which he asserted their
truth, and the heroic manner in which, against ad-
verse and contemptuous criticism, to his dying day
he clung to them.

During a residence in Paris in the spring and sum-
mer of 1899, I spent my leisure hours in gathering
material for this biography. I visited the place 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 old parish
register at the mazrze of the birth of the father of
Lamarck and of Lamarck himself. The Jesuit
Seminary at Amiens was also visited, in order to
obtain traces of his student life there, though the
search was unsuccessful.

My thanks are due to Professor A. Giard of Paris for
kind assistance in the loan of rare books, for copies
of his own essays, especially his Legon d’ Ouverture
des Cours del’ Evolution des Etres organisés, 1888, and

Vill PREFACE

in facilitating the work of collecting data. Intro-
duced by him to Professor Hamy, the learned an-
thropologist and archivist of the Muséum d’ Histoire
Naturelle, I was given by him the freest access to the
archives in the Maison de Buffon, which, among
other papers, contained the MS. Archives du Mu-
séum , i.e., the Procts verbaux des Séances tenues par
les Officters 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 to Lamarck, beyond
proving that he lived in that ancient edifice from
1793 until his death in 1829. Dr. Hamy’s elaborate
history of the last years of the Royal Garden and of
the foundation of the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle,
in the volume commemorating the centennial of the
foundation of the Museum, has been of essential
service.

My warmest thanks are due to M. Adrien de Mor-
tillet, formerly secretary of the Society of Anthro-
pology of Paris, for most essential aid. He kindly
gave me a copy of a very rare pamphlet, entitled
Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Transformistes, ses Dis-
ciples. He also referred me to notices bearing on
the genealogy of Lamarck and his family in the
Revue de Gascogne for 1876. To him also I am in-
debted for the privilege of having electrotypes
made of the five illustrations in the Lamarck, for
copies of the composite portrait of Lamarck by Dr.
Gachet, and also for a photograph of the Acte de
Naissance reproduced by the late M. Salmon.

I have also to acknowledge the kindness shown me

PREFACE iX

by Dr. J. Deniker, the librarian of the Bibliotheque
du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle.

I had begun in the museum library, which con-
tains nearly if not every one of Lamarck’s publica-
tions, to prepare a bibliography of all of Lamarck’s
writings, when, to my surprise and pleasure, I was
presented with a very full and elaborate one by the
assistant-librarian, M. Godefroy Malloisel.

To Professor Edmond Perrier I am indebted fora
copy of his valuable Lamarck et le Transformisme
Actuel, reprinted from the noble volume commem-
orative of the centennial of the foundation of the
Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, which has proved of
much use.

Other sources from which biographical details have
been taken are Cuvier’s é/oge, and the notice of La-
marck, with a list of many of his writings, in the
Revue biographique de la Société malacologique de
France, 1886. This notice, which is illustrated by
three portraits of Lamarck, one of which has been
reproduced, I was informed by M. Paul Kleinsieck
was prepared by the late J. R. Bourguignat, the emi-
nent malacologist and anthropologist. The notices
by Professor Mathias Duval and by L. A. Bourguin
have been of essential service.

As regards the account of Lamarck’s speculative
and theoretical views, I have, so far as possible, pre-
ferred, by abstracts and translations, to let him tell
his own story, rather than to comment at much
length myself on points about which the ablest
thinkers and students differ so much.

It is hoped that Lamarck’s writings referring to

x PREFACE

the evolution theory may, at no distant date, be re-
printed in the original, as they are not bulky and
could be comprised in a single volume.

This life is offered with much diffidence, though
the pleasure of collecting the materials and of put-
ting them together has been very great.

BROWN UNIVERSITY, PROVIDENCE, R. [.,
October, 1gor,

CHAPTER

Te
10
IHU.

Vs

Wile

VII.

VITL.
IX,

*

xaTe
ST
XIII.

CONTENTS

BIRTH, FAMILY, YOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER .
STUDENT LIFE AND BOTANICAL CAREER . : x
LAMARCK’S SHARE IN THE REORGANIZATION OF THE
JARDIN DES PLANTES AND MUSEUM OF NATURAL
HISTORY ; F 5 ‘ ; : : -
PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY AT THE
MUSEUM . ‘ : <
LAsT DAys AND DEATH . ‘ ‘ : : :
POSITION IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE; OPINIONS
OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES AND SOME LATER
BIOLOGISTS. F : . : : ‘ :
LAMARCK’S WoRK IN METEOROLOGY AND PHYSICAL
SCIENCE . : : : : : : i 4
LAMARCK’S WoRK IN GEOLOGY F 3 : 5
LAMARCK THE FOUNDER OF INVERTEBRATE PAL&-
ONTOLOGY ; ‘ F é ci : A ‘

LAMARCK’S OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY AND

BIOLOGY . , . ; ‘ : A 5 3
LAMARCK AS A BOTANIST. : 5 - : ,
LAMARCK THE ZOOLOGIST : F c ‘ 5

THE EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON AND OF

GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE F : . ‘ F

23

51

124

73

198

Xil

CHAPTER
XeTVi.
XV.

XVI.

xeVilule

XVIII.

XIX.

CONTENTS

THE VIEWS OF ERASMUS DARWIN . F F -
WHEN bID LAMARCK CHANGE HIS VIEWS REGARD-
ING THE MUTABILITY OF SPECIES? . z :

THE STEPS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LAMARCK’S
VIEWS ON EVOLUTION BEFORE THE PUBLICATION
OF HIS ‘‘ PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE”

THE ‘‘ PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE” . : : ‘

LAMARCK’S THEORY AS TO THE EVOLUTION OF
MAN : : : . ; . : : :

LAMARCK’S THOUGHTS ON MORALS, AND ON THE
RELATION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN LAMARCKISM AND DAR-
WINISM ; NEOLAMARCKISM . : A : :

BIBLIOGRAPHY . : A é . C 3 3

357

425

Els) OF TeERUST RATIONS

ATTEMPT AT A RECONSTRUCTION OF THE PROFILE OF

LAMARCK BY Dr. GACHET (Photogravure) Frontispiece
FACING
T PAGE
BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK, FRONT V 1eW )
5 ° F 4 4
BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK, is a )
Act OF BIRTH : ; ; , - : - - 6
AUTOGRAPH OF LAMARCK, JANUARY 25, 1802 : : : Io
LAMARCK AT THE AGE OF 35 YEARS . 5 : A 5 20
BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK. REAR VIEW FROM THE WEST
MAISON DE BUFFON, IN WHICH LAMARCK LIVED IN PARIS, 42
1793-1829
PORTRAIT OF LAMARCK, WHEN OLD AND BLIND, IN THE
COSTUME OF A MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE, ENGRAVED
IN 1824 . a ; F : : : A ‘ : 54
PORTRAIT OF LAMARCK . ; : F : - “ - 180

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

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LAMARCK, THEY FounNDER oF

EvouvuTion. His Lire anp Work

CHEW? ibe ot
BIRTH, FAMILY, YOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER

THE life of Lamarck is the old, old story of a man
of genius who lived far in advance of his age, and
who died comparatively unappreciated and neglected.
But his original and philosophic views, based as they
were on broad conceptions of nature, and touching
on the burning questions of our day, have, after the
lapse of a hundred years, gained fresh interest and
appreciation, and give promise of permanent accept-
ance.

The author of the /lore Francaise will never be for-
gotten by his countrymen, who called him the French
Linné; and he who wrote the Anizmaux sans Verte-
bres at once took the highest rank as the leading
zodlogist of his period. But Lamarck was more than
a systematic biologist of the first order. Besides
rare experience and judgment in the classification of
plants and of animals, he had an unusually active,
inquiring, and philosophical mind, with an originality

No

LAMARCK, ALS LIFE AND WORK

and boldness in speculation, and soundness in reason-
ing and in dealing with such biological facts as were
known in his time, which have caused his views as to
the method of organic evolution to again come to the
front.

As a zoélogical philosopher no one of his time
approached Lamarck. The period, however, in
which he lived was not ripe for the hearty and gen-
eral adoption of the theory of descent. As in the
organic world we behold here and there prophetic
types, anticipating, in their generalized synthetic
nature, the incoming, ages after, of more specialized
types, so Lamarck anticipated by more than half a
century the principles underlying the present evolu-
tionary theories.

So numerous are now the adherents, in some form,
of Lamarck’s views, that at the present time evolu-
tionists are divided into Darwinians and Lamarckians
or Neolamarckians. The factors of organic evolution
as stated by Lamarck, it is now claimed by many,
really comprise the primary or foundation principles
or initiative causes of the origin of life-forms. Hence
not only do many of the leading biologists of his
native country, but some of those of Germany, of
the United States, and of England, justly regard him
as the founder of the theory of organic evolution.

Besides this, Lamarck lived in a transition period.
He prepared the way for the scientific renascence in
France. Moreover, his simple, unselfish character was
a tare one.) Ele ledtairetired life) ) iis youthwwas
tinged with romance, and during the last decade of
his life he was blind. He manfully and patiently

BIRTH, VOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER 3

bore adverse criticisms, ridicule, forgetfulness, and
inappreciation, while, so far from renouncing his
theoretical views, he tenaciously clung to them to
his dying day.

The biography of such a character is replete with
interest, and the memory of his unselfish and fruitful
devotion to science should be forever cherished. His
life was also notable for the fact that after his fiftieth
year he took up and mastered a new science; and at
a period when many students of literature and science
cease to be productive and rest from their labors, he
accomplished the best work of his life—work which
has given him lasting fame as a systematist and as a
philosophic biologist. Moreover, Lamarckism com-
prises the fundamental principles of evolution, and
will always have to be taken into consideration in
accounting for the origin, not only of species, but
especially of the higher groups, such as orders, classes,
and phyla.

This striking personage in the history of biological
science, who has made such an ineffaceable impres-
sion on the philosophy of biology, certainly demands
more than a brief c/oge to keep alive his memory.

Jean-Baptiste-Pierre-Antoine de Monet, Chevalier
de Lamarck, was born August I, 1744, at Bazentin-
le-Petit. This little village is situated in Picardy, or
what is now the Department of the Somme, in the
Arrondissement de Péronne, Canton d’Albert, a little
more than four miles from Albert, between this town
and Bapaume, and near Longueval, the nearest post-
office to Bazentin. The village of Bazentin-le-Grand,

4 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

composed of a few more houses than its sister ham-
let, is seen half a mile to the southeast, shaded by the
little forest such as borders nearly every town and
village in this region. The two hamlets are pleas-
antly situated in a richly cultivated country, on the
chalk uplands or downs of Picardy, amid broad acres
of wheat and barley variegated with poppies and the
purple cornflower, and with roadsides shaded by tall
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 single little
street, with its one-storied, thatched or tiled cottages,
isat infrequent intervals broken by an elderly dame in
her sadots, or by a creaking, rickety village cart driven
by a farmer-boy in blouse and hob-nailed shoes. The
largest inhabited building is the mazrze, a modern
structure, at one end of which is the village school,
where fifteen or twenty urchins enjoy the instruc-
tions of the worthy teacher. A stone church, built
in 1774, and somewhat larger than the needs of the
hamlet at present require, raises its tower over the
quiet scene.

Our pilgrimage to Bazentin had for its object the
discovery of the birthplace of Lamarck, of which we
could obtain no information in Paris. Our guide
from Albert took us to the mazrze, and it was with
no little satisfaction that we learned from the excel-
lent village teacher, M. Duval, that the house in
which the great naturalist was born was still stand-
ing, and but a few steps away, in the rear of the
church and of the mazrze. With much kindness he

Joutel del., from a photograph by the author.

BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK, FRONT VIEW

Joutel del., from a photograph by the author.

BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK

BIRTH, VOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER 5

left his duties in the schoolroom, and accompanied
us to the ancient structure.

The modest chéteau stands a few rods to the west-
ward of the little village, 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
in France, with its high, incurved roof; the walls,
nearly a foot and a half thick, built of brick; the cor-
ners and windows of blocks of white limestone. It is
about fifty feet long and twenty-five feet wide.
Above the roof formerly rose a small tower. There
is no porch over the front door. Within, a rather nar-
row hall passes through the centre, and opens into a
large room on each side. What was evidently the
drawing-room or sa/on was a spacious apartment with
a low white wainscot and a heavy cornice. Over the
large, roomy fireplace is a painting on the wood
panel, representing a rural scene, in which a shep-
herdess and her lover are engaged in other occupa-
tions than the care of the flock of sheep visible in the
distance. Over the doorway is a smaller but quaint
painting of the same description. The house is unin-
habited, and perhaps uninhabitable—indeed almost a
ruin—and is used as a storeroom for wood and rub-
bish by the peasants in the adjoining house to the
left, on the south.

The ground in front was cultivated with vegetables,
not laid down to a lawn, and the land stretched back
for perhaps three hundred to four hundred feet be-
tween the old garden walls.

Here, amid these rural scenes, even now so beau-
tiful and tranquil, the subject of our sketch was

6 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

born and lived through his infancy and early boy-
hood.*

If his parents did not possess an ample fortune,
they were blessed with a numerous progeny, for La-
marck was the eleventh and youngest child, and
seems to have survived all the others. Biographers
have differed as to the date of the birth of Lamarck.t
Happily the exact date had been ascertained through
the researches of M. Philippe Salmon; and M. Duval
kindly showed us in the thin volume of records, with
its tattered and torn leaves, the register of the Acte de
Natssance, and made a copy of it, as follows:

Extrait du Registre aux Actes de Baptéme de la Com-
mune de Bazentin, pour l’ Année 1744.

L’an mil sept cent quarante-quatre, le premier aott
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 Fran-
coise de Fontaine demeurant en leur chateau de Ba-
zentin le petit, son parrain a été Messire Jean Bap-
tiste de Fossé, prétre-chanoine de l’église collégiale
de St. Farcy de Péronne, y demeurant, sa marraine
Dame Antoinette Francoise de Bucy, niéce de Messire
Louis Joseph Michelet, chevalier, ancien commissaire

*Tn the little chapel next the church lies buried, we were told by
M. Duval, a Protestant of the family of de Guillebon, the purchaser
(acquéreur) of the chéteau, Whether the estate is now in the hands
of his heirs we did not ascertain.

+ As stated by G. de Mortillet, the date of his birth is variously
given. Michaud’s Dictionnatre Biographique gives the date April
I; other authors, April 11; others, the correct one, August I, 1744.
(Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Trans formistes, ses Disciples. L’ Homme,
iv. p. 289, 1887.)

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de l’artillerie de France demeurante au chateau de
Guillemont, qui ont signé avec mon dit sieur de Ba-
zentin et nous.

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

Of Lamarck’s parentage and ancestry there are
fortunately some traces. In the Regzstre aux Actes
de Baptéme pour l’ Année 1702, still preserved in the
mairie of Bazentin-le-Petit, the record shows that his
father was born in February, 1702, at Bazentin. The
infant was baptised February 16, 1702, the permis-
sion to the curé by Henry, Bishop of Amiens, having
been signed February 3, 1702. Lamarck’s grand-
parents were, according to this certificate of baptism,
Messire Philippe de Monet de Lamarck, Ecuyer,
Seigneur des Bazentin, and Dame Magdeleine de
Lyonne.

The family of Lamarck, as stated by H. Masson,*
notwithstanding his northern and almost Germanic
name of Chevalier de Lamarck, originated in the
southwest of France. Though born at Bazentin, in
old Picardy, it is not less true that he descended on
the paternal side from an ancient house of Béarn,
whose patrimony was very modest. This house was
that of Monet.

Another genealogist, Baron C. de Cauna,t tells us
that there is no doubt that the family of Monet in
Bigorret was divided. One of its representatives

**<*Sur la maison de Viella—les Mortiers-brévise et les Montalembert
en Gascogne—et sur le naturaliste Lamarck.”” Par Hippolyte Masson,
(Revue de Gascogne, xvii., pp. 141-143, 1876.)

+ [éid., p. 194.

$A small town in southwestern France, near Lourdes and Pau; it
is about eight miles north of Tarbes, in Gascony.

8 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

formed a branch in Picardy in the reign of Louis
XIN Zor, later

Lamarck’s grandfather, Philippe de Monet, “sei-
eneur de Bazentin et autres lieux,” was also “chevalier
de l’ordre royal et militaire de Saint-Louis, command-
ant pour le roi en la ville et chateau de Dinan, pen-
sionnaire de sa majesté.”’

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

The family of Monet was represented among the
French nobility of 1789 by Messires de Monet de
Caixon and de Monet de Saint-Martin. By marriage
their grandson was connected with an honorable fam-
ily of Montant, near Saint-Sever-Cap.

Another authority, the Abbé J. Dulac, has thrown
additional light on the genealogy of the de Lamarck
family, which, it may be seen, was for at least three
centuries a military one.* The family of Monet,
Seigneur de Saint-Martin et de Sombran, was main-
tained as a noble one by order of the Royal Council
of State of Jume™ 20, 1678., ‘Te descended ((@) irom
Bernard de Monet, esquire, captain of the chateau of
Lourdes, who had as a son (II) Etienne de Monet,

* Revue de Gascogne, pp. 264-269, 1876.

BIRTH, VOULE, AND MIEITAKY CAREER 9

esquire, who, by contract dated August 15, 1543,
married Marguerite de Sacaze. He was the father of
(111) Pierre de Monet, esquire, “Seigneur d’Ast, en
Béarn, guidon des gendarmes de la compagnie du roi
de Navarre.” From him descended (Iv) Etienne de
Monet, esquire, second of the name, “ Seigneur d’Ast
et Lamarque, de Julos.” He was a captain by rank,
and bought the estate of Saint-Martin in 1592. He
married, in 1612, Jeanne de Lamarque, daughter of
William de Lamarck, “ Seigneur de Lamarque et de
Bretaigne.”’ They had three children, the third of
whom was Philippe, “ chevalier de Saint-Louis, com-
mandant du chateau de Dinan, Seigneur de Bazen-
tin, en Picardy,’’ who, as we have already seen, was
the father of the naturalist Lamarck, who lived from
1744 to 1829. The abbé relates that Philippe, the
father of the naturalist, was born at Saint-Martin, in
the midst of Bigorre, “22 plezne Bigorre,’ and he
very neatly adds that “the Bigorrais have the right
to claim for their land of flowers one of the glories

4

of botany.’*

* The abbé attempts to answer the question as to what place gave
origin to the name of Lamarck, and says:

‘* The author of the history of Béarn considered the cradle of the
race to have been the freehold of Marca, parish of Gou (Basses-
Pyrénées). A branch of the family established in le Magnoac changed
its name of Marca to that of La Marque.” It was M. d’Ossat who
gave rise to this change by addressing his letters to M. de Marca (at
the time when he was preceptor of his nephew), sometimes under the
name of M. Marca, sometimes J/. la A7argua, or of AL. dela Marca,
but more often still under that of AZ. de la Marque, ‘* with the object,
no doubt, of making him a Frenchman” (‘‘ dans la wute sans doute de
le franciser”). (Vite du Cardinal d’Ossat, tome i., p. 319.)

“To recall their origin, the branch of Magnoac to-day write their
name Margue-Marca. If the Marca of the historian belongs to
Béarn, the Lamarque of the naturalist, an orthographic name in prin-
ciple, proceeds from Bigorre, actually chosen (désignée) by Lamarcg,

10 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

The name was at first variously spelled de La-
marque, de la Marck, or de Lamarck. He himself
signed his name, when acting as secretary of the As-
sembly of Professors-administrative of the Museum
of Natural History during the years of the First Re-
public, as plain Lamarck.

The inquiry arises how, being the eleventh child,
he acquired the title of chevalier, which would natur-
ally have become extinct with the death of the oldest
son. The Abbé Dulac suggests that the ten older of
the children had died, or that by some family arrange-
ment he was allowed to add the domanial name to
the patronymic one. Certainly he never tarnished
the family name, which, had it not been for him, would
have remained in obscurity.

As to his father’s tastes and disposition, what in-
fluence his mother had in shaping his character, his
home environment, as the youngest of eleven chil-
dren, the nature of his education in infancy and boy-

Pontacg, or Lamarque pres Béarn, That the Lamargue of the
botanist of the royal cabinet distinguished himself from all the Za-
marques of Béarn or of Bigorre, which it bears (gw’?? gise) to this day in
the Hautes-Pyrénées, Canton d’Ossun, we have many proofs: Aast at
some distance, Bourcat and Couet all near l’Abbaye Laique, etc. The
village so determined is called in turn Marca, La Marque, La-
marque ; names predestined to several destinations ; judge then to
the mercy of a botanist, Lamarck, La Marck, Delamarque, De La-
marck, who shall determine their number? As to the last, I only ex-
plain it by a fantasy of the man who would de-Bigorrize himself in
order to Germanize himself in the hope, apparently, that at the first
utterance of the name people would believe that he was from the
outre Rhin rather than from the borders of Gave or of Adour. Con-
sequently a hundred times more learned and a hundred times more
worthy of a professorship in the Museum, where Monet would seem
(entrevait) much less than Lamarque.”

It may be added that Béarn was an ancient province of southern
France nearly corresponding to the present Department of Basses-
Pyrénées. Its capital was Pau.

cog ‘Se AUVOANVE SMOUVNV'L AO HdVUDOLAV

paaas
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Badd fie ma eras me fby adie t) 4 3 para gashon 9
CTA Cape dw br iy 7 Ave 9 mp ity 443 ” ry ime

tee

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AL Meuse

BURMA MOGI AAND MIETTARY (CAREER Vy

hood, there are no sources of information. But
several of his brothers entered the army, and the
domestic atmosphere was apparently a military
one.

Philippe de Lamarck, with his large family, had
endowed his first-born son so that he could maintain
the family name and title, and had found situa-
tions for several of the others in the army. Jean
Lamarck did not manifest any taste for the cler-
ical profession. He lived in a martial atmosphere.
For centuries his ancestors had borne arms. His
eldest brother had been killed in the breach at the
siege of Berg-op-Zoom; two others were still in the
service, and in the troublous times at the beginning
of the war in 1756, a young man of high spirit and
courage would naturally not like to relinquish the
prospect of renown and promotion. But, yielding
to the wishes of his father, he entered as a student at
the college of the Jesuits at Amiens.*

His father dying in 1760, nothing could induce the
incipient abbé, then seventeen years of age, to longer
wear his bands. Immediately on returning home he
bought himself a wretched horse, for want of means
to buy a better one, and, accompanied by a poor lad

* We have been unable to ascertain the date when young Lamarck
entered the seminary. On making inquiries in June, 1899, at the
Jesuits’ Seminary in Amiens, one of the faculty, after consultation
with the Father Superior, kindly gave us in writing the following in-
formation as to the exact date: ‘‘ The registers of the great seminary
were carried away during the French Revolution, and we do not know
whither they have been transported, and whether they still exist to-
day. Besides, it is very doubtful whether Lamarck resided here, be-
cause only ecclesiastics preparing for receiving orders were received
in the seminary. Do you not confound the seminary with the ancient
college of Rue Poste de Paris, college now destroyed ?”

12 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

of his village, he rode across the country to join the
French army, then campaigning in Germany.

He carried with him a letter of recommendation
from one of his neighbors on an adjoining estate in
the ‘country, Madame (de Lanveth, tov M.de ‘Wastic,
colonel of the regiment of Beaujolais.*

““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 re-
cruit, 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 sepa-
rated, 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

* We are following the Eloge of Cuvier almost verbatim, also repro-
duced in the bicgraphical notice in the Revue biographigue de la So-
ciélé Malacologiqgue de France, said to have been prepared by J. R.
Bourguignat.

BIRTH, .YOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER 13

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 with-
draw 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 moral courage in later years. The staying
power he showed in immovably adhering to his views
on evolution through many years, and under the di-
rect and raking fire of harsh and unrelenting criticism
and ridicule from friend and foe, affords a striking
contrast to the moral timidity shown by Buffon when
questioned by the Sorbonne.) We can see that La-
marck was the stuff martyrs are made of, and that
had he been tried for heresy he would have been
another Tycho Brahe.

[Soon after, de Lamarck was nominated to a lieuten-
ancy; but so glorious a beginning of his military
career was most unexpectedly checked. A sudden
accident forced him to leave the service and entirely
change his course of life. His regiment had been,
during peace, sent into garrison, first at Toulon and
then at Monaco. While there a comrade in play
lifted him by the head; this gave rise to an inflam-

14 LANARCEK, (ALS LET VAN D WiOhRIS

mation of the lymphatic glands of 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 sur-
ceons met with no better success, and danger had be-
come very imminent, when our cozfrere, 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 treat-
ment 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.”

CHARTER: I
STUDENT LIFE AND BOTANICAL CAREER

THE profession of arms had not led Lamarck to
forget the principles of physical science which he had
received at college. During his sojourn at Monaco
the singular vegetation of that rocky country had
attracted his attention,and Chomel’s 7razté des Plantes
usuelles accidentally falling into his hands had given
him some smattering of botany.

Lodged at Paris, as he has himself said, in a room
much higher up than he could have wished, the
clouds, almost the only objects to be seen from
his windows, interested him by their ever-changing
shapes, and inspired in him his first ideas of meteor-
ology. There were not wanting other objects to ex-
cite interest in a mind which had always been remark-
ably active and original. He then realized, to quote
from his biographer, Cuvier, what Voltaire said of
Condorcet, that solid enduring discoveries can shed a
lustre quite different from that of a commander of a
company of infantry. He resolved to study some
profession. This last resolution was but little less
courageous than the first. Reduced toa _ pension
(pension alimentaire) of only 400 francs a year, he
attempted to study medicine, and while waiting until
he had the time to give to the necessary studies, he
worked in the dreary office of a bank.

16 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

The meditations, the thoughts and aspirations of a
contemplative nature like his, in his hours of work or
leisure, in some degree consoled the budding philoso-
pher during this period of uncongenial labor, and
when he did have an opportunity of communicating
his ideas to his friends, of discussing them, of defend-
ing them against objection, the hardships of his work-
aday life were for the time forgotten. In his ardor
for science all the uncongenial experiences of his life
as a bank clerk vanished. Like many another ris-
ing genius in art, literature, or science, his.zeal for
knowledge and investigation in those days of grinding
poverty fed the fires of his genius, and this was the
light which throughout his long poverty-stricken life
shed a golden lustre on his toilsome existence. He
did not then know that the great Linné, the father of
the science he was to illuminate and so greatly to ex-
pand, also began life in extreme poverty, and eked out
his scanty livelihood by mending over again for his own
use the cast-off shoes of his fellow-students. (Cuvier.)

Bourguin* tells us that Lamarck’s medical course
lasted four years, and this period of severe study—
for he must have made it such—evidently laid the
best possible foundation that Paris could then afford
for his after studies. He seems, however, to have
wavered in his intentions of making medicine his
life work, for he possessed a decided taste for music.
His eldest brother, the Chevalier de Bazentin, strongly
opposed, and induced him to abandon this project,
though not without difficulty.

* Les Grand Naturalists Francais au Commencement du XIX
Srécle.

STUDENT LIFE AND BOTANICAL CAREER 7

At about this time the two brothers lived in a quiet
village * near Paris, and there for a year they studied
together science and history. And now happened an
event which proved to be the turning point, or rather
gave a new and lasting impetus to Lamarck’s career
and decided his vocation in life. In one of their
walks they met the philosopher and sentimentalist,
Jean Jacques Rousseau. We know little about La-
marck’s acquaintance with this genius, for all the de-
tails of his life, both in his early and later years, are
pitifully scanty. Lamarck, however, had attended
at the Jardin du Roi a botanical course, and now,
having by good fortune met Rousseau, he probably
improved the acquaintance, and, found by Rousseau
to be a congenial spirit, he was soon invited to ac-
company him in his herborizations.

Still more recently Professor Giard + has unearthed
from the works of Rousseau the following statement
by him regarding species: “ Est-ce qu’A proprement
parler il n’existerait point d’espéces dans la nature,

* Was this quiet place in the region just out of Paris possibly
near Mont Valérien? He must have been about twenty-two years
old when he met Rousseau and began to study botany seriously. His
Flore Francaise appeared in 1778, when he was thirty-four years old.
Rousseau, at the end of his checkered life, from 1770 to 1778, lived
in Paris. He often botanized in the suburbs; and Mr. Morley, in
his Rowsseau, says that ‘‘one of his greatest delights was to watch
Mont Valerien in the sunset” (p. 436). Rousseau died in Paris in
1778. That Rousseau expressed himself vaguely in favor of evolu-
tion is stated by Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire, who quotes a ‘‘ Phrase,
malheureusement un peuambigué, gui semble montrer, dans se grand
écrivain, un partisan de plus de la variabilité du type.” (Résumé
des Vues sur Vespece organique, p. 18, Paris, 1889.) The passage is
quoted in Geoffroy’s Histoire Naturelle Générale des Regnes organiques,
ii., ch. I., p. 271. I have been unable to verify this quotation.

+ Lecon d’ Ouverture du Cours del’ Evolution des Etres organtsés,
Paris, 1888.

2

18 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

mais seulement des individus?’’* In his Descours sur
l’Inégalité parm les Hommes is the following passage,
which shows, as Giard says, that Rousseau perfectly
understood the influence of the wzz/zeu and of wants
on the organism; and this brilliant writer seems to
have been the first to suggest natural selection, though
only in the case of man, when he says that the weaker
in Sparta were eliminated in order that the superior
and stronger of the race might survive and be main-
tained.

“« 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 ac-
quired 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 be-
fore birth.’’+

Soon Lamarck abandoned not only a military
career, but also music, medicine, and the bank, and
devoted himself exclusively to science. He was now
twenty-four years old, and, becoming a student of

* Dictionnatre des Termes dela Botanique. Art. APHRODITE.
+ Discours sur l’ Origine et les Fondements de 0 Inégalité parnit
les Hommes. 1754.

STUDENT LIFE AND BOTANICAL CAREER 19

botany under Bernard de Jussieu, for ten years gave
unremitting attention to this science, and especially
to a study of the French flora.

Cuvier states that the ‘lore Francaise appeared
after “six months of unremitting labor.” However
this may be, the results of over nine preceding years
of study, gathered together, written, and printed
within the brief period of half a year, was no hasty
tour de force, but a well-matured, solid work which for
many years remained a standard one.

It brought him immediate fame. It appeared at a
fortunate epoch. The example of Rousseau and the
general enthusiasm he inspired had made the study
of flowers very popular—* une scrence a la mode,” as
Cuvier says—even among many ladies and in the
world of fashion, so that the new work of Lamarck,
though published in three octavo volumes, had a
rapid success.

The preface was written by Daubenton.* Buffon
also took much interest in the work, opposing as it
did the artificial system of Linné, for whom he had,
for other reasons, no great degree of affection. (He
obtained the privilege of having the work published
at the royal printing office at the expense of the
government, and the total proceeds of the sale of the
volumes were given to the author. This elaborate

* Since 1742, the keeper and demonstrator of the Cabinet, who
shared with Thouin, the chief gardener, the care of the Royal Gar-
dens. Daubenton was at that time the leading anatomist of France,
and after Buffon’s death he gathered around him all the scientific men
who demanded the transformation of the superannuated and incom-
plete Jardin du Roi, and perhaps initiated the movement which resulted
five years later in the creation of the present Museum of Natural His-
tonves(Eiamiy, lec. ipa £2.)

20 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

work at once placed young Lamarck in the front rank
of botanists, and now the first and greatest honor of
his life came to him. The young lieutenant, disap-
pointed in a military advancement, won his spurs in
the field of science. A place in botany had become
vacant at the Academy of Sciences, and M.de Wa-
marck having been presented in the second rank (ex
seconde ligne), the ministry, a thing almost unex-
ampled, caused him to be given by the king, in 1779,
the preference over M. Descemet, whose name was
presented before his, in the first rank, and who since
then, and during a long life, never could recover
the place which he unjustly lost.* ‘In a word, the
poor officer, so neglected since the peace, obtained
at one stroke the good fortune, always very rare,
and especially so at that time, of being both the
recipient ,of ithe favor, ‘of pthe Court wand sof "the
public.” +

The interest and affection felt for him by Buffon
were of advantage to him in another way. Desiring
to have his son, whom he had planned to be his suc-
cessor as Intendant of the Royal Garden, and who
had just finished 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,
in 1781, a commission as Royal Botanist, charged

* De Mortillet (Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Trans formistes, p. 11)
states that Lamarck was elected to the Academy at the age of thirty;
but as he was born in 1744, and the election took place in 1779, he
must have been thirty-five years of age.

+ Cuvier’s Eloge, p. viii.; also Revue biographique de la Société
Matlacologigue, p. 67.

erewbbaecaan st
ED IS yy

x

2 apfee

Lronz an old engraving

A. de Vaux-Bidon, det.

YEARS

35

LAMARCK AT THE AGE OF

nin

ney une

STUDENT LIFE AND BOTANICAL CAREER 2,

with visiting the foreign botanical gardens and
museums, and of placing them in communication
with those of Paris. His travels extended through
portions of the years 1781 and 1782.

According to his own statement,* in pursuit of this
object he collected not only rare and interesting plants
which were wanting in the Royal Garden, but also min-
erals and other objects of natural history new to the
Museum. He went to Holland, Germany, Hungary,
etc., visiting universities, botanical gardens, and mu-
seums of natural history. He examined the mines
of the Hartz in Hanover, of Freyburg in Saxony, of
Chemnitz and of Cremnitz in Hungary, making there
numerous observations which he incorporated in his
work on physics, and sent collections of ores, minerals,
and seeds to Paris. He also made the acquaintance
of the botanists Gleditsch at Berlin, Jacquin at Vienna,
and Murray at Géttingen. He obtained some idea
of the magnificent establishments in these countries
devoted to botany, “and which,” he says, “‘ ours do not
yet approach, in spite of all that had been done for
them during the last thirty years.” +

(On his return, as he writes, he devoted all his ener-
gies and time to research and to carrying out his great
enterprises in botany; as he stated: “Indeed, for the
last ten years my works have obliged me to keep in
constant activity a great number of artists, such as
draughtsmen, engravers, and printers.” +

* See letters to the Committee of Public Instruction.

+ Cuvier’s Eloge, p. viii; also Bourguignat in Revue biog. Soc. Ma-
lacologique, p. 67.

¢ He received no remuneration for this service. As was afterwards
stated in the National Archives, Etat des personnes attachées au Mu-

22 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

But the favor of Buffon, powerful as his influence
was,* together with the aid of the minister, did not
avail to give Lamarck a permanent salaried 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 of keeper of the
herbarium of the Royal Garden, with the paltry salary
Of 1,000"trancs.)

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

séum National ad’ Histoire Naturelle a Vepoque du messidor an Il de la
Republique, he *‘ sent to this establishment seeds of rare plants, inter-
esting minerals, and observations made during his travels in Holland,
Germany, and in France. He did not receive any compensation for
this service.”

*««'The illustrious Intendant of the Royal Gardenand Cabinet had
concentrated in his hands the most varied and extensive powers. Not
only did he hold, like his predecessors, the fersonne/ of the establish-
ment entirely at his discretion, but he used the appropriations which
were voted to him with a very great independence. ‘Thanks to the
universal renown which he had acquired both in science and in litera-
ture, Buffon maintained with the men who succeeded one another in
office relations which enabled him to do almost anything he liked at
the Royal Garden.” Tis manner to public men, as Condorcet said, was
conciliatory and tactful, and to his subordinates he was modest and
unpretending. (Professor G. T. Hamy, Les Dernters Jours du Far-
din du Roi, etc., p. 3.) Buffon, after nearly fifty years of service as In-
tendant, died April 16, 1788.

CAP iE ke it

LAMARCK’S SHARE IN THE REORGANIZATION OF
THE JARDIN DES PLANTES: AND’ MUSEUM OF
NATURAL HISTORY

EVEN in his humble position as keeper of the
herbarium, with its pitiable compensation, Lamarck,
now an eminent botanist, with a European reputa-
tion, was by no means appreciated or secure in his
position. He was subjected to many worries, and,
already married and with several children, 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 to scientific fitness for the
position; and in 1790 he was on the point of dis-
charging Lamarck.* On the 20th of August the
Finance Committee reduced the expenses of the Royal
Garden and Cabinet, and, while raising the salary of
the professor of botany, to make good the deficiency
thus ensuing suppressed the position of keeper of
the herbarium, filled by Lamarck. Lamarck, on
learning of this, acted promptly, and though in this

* Another intended victim of La Billarderie, whose own salary had
been at the same time reduced, was Faujas de Saint-Fond, one of the
founders of geology. But his useful discoveries in economic geology
having brought him distinction, the king had generously pensioned
him, and he was retained in office on the printed Etat distributed by
the Committee of Finance. (Hamy, I. c., p. 29.)

24 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

cavalier way stricken off from the rolls of the Royal
Garden, he at once prepared, printed, and distributed
among the members of the National Assembly an
energetic claim for restoration to his office.* 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 he filled was
a pressing necessity, and could not be conveniently
or usefully added to that of the professor of botany,
who was already overworked.

This manly and able plea in his own defence also
comprised a broad, comprehensive plan for the organ-
ization and development of a great national museum,
combining both vast collections and adequate means
of public instruction. The paper briefly stated, in
courteous language, what he wished to say to public
men, in general animated with good intentions, but
little versed in the study of the sciences and the
knowledge of their application. It praised, in fit
terms, the work of the National Assembly, and gave,
without too much emphasis, the assurance of an en-
tire devotion to the public business. Then in a very
clear and comprehensive way were given all the kinds
of service which an establishment like the Royal
Garden should render to the sciences and arts, and
especially to agriculture, medicine, commerce, etc.
Museums, galleries, and botanical gardens; public lec-

s, 2
tures and demonstrations in the museum and school

* Hamy, |. c., p. 29. This brochure, of which I possess a copy,
is a small quarto pamphlet of fifteen pages, signed, on the last page,
“7. B. Lamarck, ancien Officier au Régiment de Leaujolais, de
L’ Academie des Sciences de Paris, Botantste attaché au Cabinet d’ His-
totre Naturelle du Jardin des Plantes.”

REORGANIZATION OF THE MUSEUM 25

of botany; an office for giving information, the dis-
tribution of seeds, etc.—all the resources already so
varied, as well as the facilities for work at the Jardin,
passed successively in review before the representa-
tives of the country, and the address ended in a
modest request to the Assembly that its author be
allowed a few days to offer some observations regard-
ing the future organization of this great institution.

The Assembly, adopting the wise views announced
in the manifest which had been presented by the offi-
cers of the Jardin and Cabinet, sent the address to
the Committee, and gave a month’s time to the
petitioners to prepare and present a plan and regula-
tions which should establish the organization of their
establishment. *

It was in 1790 that the decisive step was taken by
the officers of the Royal Garden+ and Cabinet of

* Hamy, l.c., p. 31; also Pieces /ustificatives, Nos. 11 e¢ 12, pp.
g7-tor. The Intendant of the Garden was completely ignored, and his
unpopularity and inefficiency led to his resignation. But meanwhile,
in his letter to Condorcet, the perpetual Secretary of the Institute of
Trance, remonstrating against the proposed suppression by the As-
sembly of the place of Intendant, he partially retracted his action
against Lamarck, saying that Lamarck’s work, ‘‘ peut étre utile, mais
west pas absolutement nécessaire.” ‘The Intendant, as Hamy adds,
knew well the value 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 lore Francaise was in a most precarious situation and sup-
ported on his paltry salary a family of seven persons, as he was al-
ready at this time married and had five children. ‘* But his own
place was in peril, and he did not hesitate to sacrifice the poor savant
whom he had himself installed as keeper of the herbarium,” (Hamy,
l. c., pp. 34, 35.)

+ The first idea of the foundation of the Jardin dates from 1626,
but the actual carrying out of the conception was in 1635. The first
act of installation took place in 1640. Gui de la Brosse, in order to
please his high protectors, the first physicians of the king, named his
establishment Jardin des Plantes Medicinales. It was renovated by
Fagon, who was born in the Jardin, and whose mother was the niece

26 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

Natural History which led to the organization of the
present Museum of Natural History as it is to-day.
Throughout the proceedings, Lamarck, as at the out-
set, took a prominent part, his address having led the
Assembly to invite the officers of the double estab-
lishment to draw up rules for its government.

The officers met together August 23d, and their
distrust and hostility against the Intendant were
shown by their nomination of Daubenton, the Nestor
of the French savants, to the presidency, although
La Billarderie, as representing the royal authority,
was present at the meeting. At the second meeting
(August 24th) he took no part in the proceedings,
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 the institution,
and from that day to this it has been solely under
the management of a director and scientific corps of
professors, all of them original investigators as well
as teachers. Certainly the most practical and efficient
sort of organization for such an establishment.*

of Gui de la Brosse. By his disinterestedness, activity, and great
scientific capacity, he regenerated the garden, and under his admin-
istration flourished the great professors, Duverney, Tournefort, Geof-
froy the chemist, and others (Perrier, 1. c., p. 59). | Fagon was suc-
ceed by Buffon, ‘‘the new legislator and second founder.” His
Intendancy lasted from 1739 to 1788.

* Three days after, August 30th, the report was ready, the discussion
began, and the foundations of the new organization were definitely laid.
‘“No longer any Jardin or Cabinets, but a Museum of Natural His-
tory, whose aim was clearly defined. No officers with unequal func-
tions; all are professors and all will give instruction. They elect
themselves and present to the king a candidate for each vacant place.
Finally, the general administration of the Museum will be confided to
the officers of the establishment, this implying the suppression of the
Intendancy.” (Hamy, I. c., p. 37-)

REORGANIZATION OF THE MUSEUM 27

Lamarck, though holding a place subordinate to
the other officers, was present, as the records of the
proceedings of the officers of the Jardin des Plantes at
this meeting show.

During the middle of 1791, the Intendant, La
Billarderie, after “four years of incapacity,” placed
his resignation in the hands of the king. The Min-
ister of the Interior, instead of nominating Daubenton
as Intendant, reserved the place for a protégé, and,
julyet. 1701, sent. im the’ name of} Jacques-Henri
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the distinguished author
of Paul et Virginte and of Etudes sur la Nature.
The new Intendant was literary in his tastes, fond of
nature, but not a practical naturalist. M. Hamy
wittily states that ‘Bernardin Saint-Pierre contem-
plated and dreamed, and in his solitary meditations
had imagined a system of the world which had
nothing in common with that which was to be seen
in the Faubourg Saint Victor, and one can readily
imagine the welcome that the officers of the Jardin
gave to the singular naturalist the Tuileries had sent
them:

Lamarck suffered an indignity from the _ inter-
meddling of this second Intendant of the Jardin.
In his budget of expensest sent to the Minister of

* Hamy, |. c., p. 37. The Faubourg Saint Victor was a part of the
Quartier Latin, and included the Jardin des Plantes.

+ Devis de la Dépense du Jardin National des Plantes et du Cabinet
@’ Histoire Naturelle pour 1 Année 1793, presented to the National Con-
vention by Citoyen Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. In it appeared a note
relative to Lamarck, which, after stating that, though full of zeal
and of knowledge of botany, his time was not entirely occupied ; that
for two months he had written him in regard to the duties of his posi-
tion ; referred to the statements of two of his seniors, who repeated the
old gossip as to the claim of La Billarderie that his place was useless,

28 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

the Interior, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre took occasion
to refer to Lamarck in a disingenuous and blundering
way, which may have both amused and disgusted
him.

But the last days of the Jardin du Roi were drawing
to a close, and a new era in French natural science,
signalized by the reorganization of the Jardin and
Cabinet under the name of the Muséum d’Histotre
Naturelle, was dawning. On the 6th of February,
1.793, the National Convention, at the request of
Lakanal,* ordered the Committees of Public Instruc-

and also found fault with him for not recognizing the artificial system
of Linné in the arrangement of the herbarium, added: ‘‘ However,
desirous of retaining M. La Marck, father of six children, in the posi-
tion which he needs, and not wishing to let his talents be useless, after
several conversations with the older officers of the Jardin, I have believed
that, M. Desfontaines being charged with the botanical lectures in the
school, and M. Jussieu in the neighborhood of Paris, it would be well
to send M. La Marck to herborize in some parts of the kingdom, in
order to complete the French flora, as this will be to his taste, and at
the same time very useful to the progress of botany; thus everybody
will be employed and satisfied.”—Perrier, Lamarck et le Transform-
tsme Actuel, pp. 13,14. (Copied from the National Archives.) ‘‘ The
life of Bernardin de St. Pierre (1737-1814) was nearly as irregular as
that of his friend and master [Rousseau]. But his character was
essentially crafty and selfish, like that of many other sentimentalists
of the first order.” (Morley’s Rowsseau, p. 437, footnote.)

* Joseph Lakanal was born in 1762, and died in 1845. Hewas a
professor of philosophy in a college of the Oratory, and doctor of the
faculty at Angers, when in 1792 he was sent as a representative
(député) to the National Convention, and being versed in educational
questions he was placed on the Committee of Public Instruction and
elected its president. He was the means, as Hamy states, of saving
from a lamentable destruction, by rejuvenizing them, the scientific
institutions of ancient France. During the Revolution he voted for
the death of Louis XVI.

Lakanal also presented a plan of organization of a National Insti-
tute, what is now the Institut de France, and was charged with
designating the first forty-eight members, who should elect all the
others. He was by the first forty-eight thus elected. Proscribed as
a regicide at the second restoration, he sailed for the United States,
where he was warmly welcomed by Jefferson. The United States

REORGANIZATION OF THE MUSEUM 29

tion and of Finances to at once make a report on the
new organization of the administration of the Jardin
des Plantes.

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

Their minds were elsewhere, for grave news had
come in from all quarters. The Austrians were
bombarding Valenciennes, the Prussians had invested
Mayence, the Spanish were menacing Perpignan, and
bands of Vendeans had seized Saumur after a bloody
battle; while at Caen, at Evreux, at Bordeaux, at
Marseilles, and elsewhere, muttered the thunders of
the outbreaks provoked by the proscription of the
Girondins. So that under these alarming conditions

Congress voted him five hundred acres of land. The government of
Louisiana offered him the presidency of its university, which, however,
he did not accept. In 1825 he went to live on the shores of Mobile
Bay on land which he purchased from the proceeds of the sale of the
land given him by Congress. Here he became a pioneer and planter.

In 1830 he manifested a desire to return to his native country, and
offered his services to the new government, but received no answer
and was completely ignored. But two years later, thanks to the ini-
tiative of Geoffroy St. Hilaire, who was the means of his reélection
to the French Academy, he decided to return, and did so in 1837.
He lived in retirement in Paris, where he occupied himself until his
death in 1845 in writing a book entitled Sour d’un Alembre de
LInstitut de France aux Etats-Unis pendant vingt-deux ans. The
manuscript mysteriously disappeared, no trace of it ever having been
found. (Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire Universel, Art. LAKANAL.)
His bust now occupies a prominent place among those of other great
men in the French Academy of Sciences.

30 LAMARCK, HIS LIKE AND WORK

the decree of the roth of June; in ‘spite of ats im-
portance to science and higher learning in France,
was passed without discussion.

In his Lamarck De Mortillet states explicitly
that Lamarck, in his address of 1790, changed the
name of the Jardin du Roi to Jardin des Plantes.*
As the article states, ‘‘ Entirely devoted to his studies,
Lamarck entered into no intrigue under the falling
monarchy, so he always remained in a position strait-
ened and inferior to his merits.” It was owing to
this and his retired mode of life that the single-
minded student of nature was not disturbed in his
studies and meditations by the Revolution. And
when the name of the Jardin du Roi threatened to be
fatal to this establishment, it was he who presented
a memoir to transform it, under the name of Jardin
des Plantes, into an institution of higher instruction,
with six professors. In 1793, Lakanal adopted La-
marck’s plan, and, enlarging upon it, created twelve
chairs for the teaching 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 La-
marck’s ideas, but enlarged upon them. Instead of
six positions of professors-administrative, which La-

* This is seen to be the case by the title of the pamphlet : A/émotre
sur les Cabinets d’ Histoire Naturelle, et particulicrement sur celut
du Jardin des Plantes.

REORGANIZATION OF THE MUSEUM ar

marck asked for, Lakanal established twelve chairs
for the teaching of different branches of natural
science.” *

* Bourguin also adds that ‘‘ on one point Lamarck, with more fore-
sight, went farther than Lakanal. He had insisted on the necessity
of the appointment of four demonstrators for zodlogy. In the decree
of June 10, 1793, they were even reduced to two, Afterwards they
saw that this number was insufficient, and to-day (1863) the depart-
ment of zodlogy is administered at the museum by four professors, in
conformity with the division indicated by Lamarck.”

CEEAP Te Reavy,

PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY AT THE
MUSEUM

LAMARCK’S career as a botanist comprised about
twenty-five years. We now come to the third stage
of his life—Lamarck the zodlogist and evolutionist.
He was in his fiftieth year when he assumed the
duties of his professorship of the zodlogy of the in-
vertebrate animals; and at a period when many men
desire rest and freedom from responsibility, with the
vigor of an intellectual giant Lamarck took upon his
shoulders new labors in an untrodden field both in
pure science and philosophic thought.

It was now the summer of 1793, and on the eve of
the Reign of Terror, when Paris, from early in Octo-
ber until the end of the year, was in the deadliest
throes of revolution. The dull thud of the guillotine,
placed in front of the Tuileries, in the Place de la
Revolution, which is now the Place de la Concorde,
a little to the east of where the obelisk of Luxor now
stands, could almost be heard by the quiet workers
in the Museum, for sansculottism in its most aggres-
sive and hideous forms raged not far from the Jardin
des Plantes, then just on the border of the densest
part of the Paris of the first Revolution. Lavoisier,
the founder of modern chemistry, was guillotined
some months later. The Abbé Haitiy, the founder of

PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY aR

crystallography, had been, the year previous, rescued
from prison by young Geoffroy St. Hilaire, his neck
being barely saved from the gleaming axe. Roland,
the friend of science and letters, had been so hunted
down that at Rouen, in a moment of despair, on hear-
ing of his wife’s death, he thrust his sword-cane
through his heart. Madame Roland had been be-
headed, as also a cousin of her husband, and we can
well imagine that these fateful summer and autumn
days were scarcely favorable to scientific enterprises.*
Still, however, amid the loud alarums of this social
tempest, the Museum underwent a new birth which
proved not to be untimely. The Minister of the In-
terior (Garat) invited the professors of the Museum
to constitute an assembly to nominate a director and
a treasurer, and he begged them to present extracts
of their deliberations for him to send to the execu-
tive council, ‘“‘under the supervision of which the

* Most men of science of the Revolution, like Monge and others,
were advanced republicans, and the Chevalier Lamarck, though of
noble birth, was perhaps not without sympathy with the ideas which
led to the establishment of the republic. It is possible that in his
walks and intercourse with Rousseau he may have been inspired with
the new notions of liberty and equality first promulgated by that
philosopher.

His studies and meditations were probably not interrupted by the
events of the Terror. Stevens, in his history of the French Revolu-
tion, tells us that Paris was never gayer than in the summer of 1793,
and that during the Reign of Terror the restaurants, cafés, and the-
atres were always full. There were never more theatres open at the
same period than then, though no single great play or opera was
produced. Meanwhile the great painter David at this time built up
a school of art and made that city a centre for art students. Indeed
the Revolution was ‘‘a grand time for enthusiastic young men,” while
people in general lived their ordinary lives. There is little doubt,
then, that the savants, except the few who were occupied by their
duties as members of the Convertion Nationale, worked away quietly
at their specialties, each in his own study or laboratory or lecture-
room,

34 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

National Museum is for the future placed ;”’ though
in general the assembly only reported to the Minister
matters relating to. the expenses, the first annual
grant of the Museum being 100,000 livres.

Four days after, June 14th, the assembly met and
adopted the name of the establishment in the follow-
ing terms: Muséum ad’ Histoire Naturelle décrété par
la Convention Nationale le 10 Juin, 1793; and at a
meeting held on the oth of July the assembly defi-
nitely organized the first bureau, with Daubenton
as director, Thouin treasurer, and Desfontaines sec-
retary. Lamarck, as the records show, was present
at all these meetings, and at the first one, June 14th,
Lamarck and Fourcroy were designated as commis-
sioners for the formation of the Museum library.

All this was done without the aid or presence of
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the Intendant. The Min-
ister of the Interior, meanwhile, had communicated
to him the decision of the National Convention, and
invited him to continue his duties up to the moment
when the new organization should be established.
After remaining in his office until July oth, he retired
from the Museum August 7th following, and finally
withdrew to the country at Essones.

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

Let us now look at the composition of the assémbly
of professors, which formed the Board of Administra-
tion of the Museum at the time of his appointment.

PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY 35

The associates of Lamarck and Geoffroy St. Hilaire,
who had already been connected with the Royal Gar-
den and Cabinet, were Daubenton, Thouin, Desfon-
taine, Portal, and Mertrude. The Nestor of the
faculty was Daubenton, who was born in 1716. He
was the collaborator of Buffon in the first part of his
Histoire Naturelle, and the author of treatises on
the mammals and of papers on the bats and other
mammals, also on reptiles, together with embryologi-
cal and anatomical essays. Thouin, the professor of
horticulture, was the veteran gardener and architect
of the Jardin des Plantes, and withal a most useful
man. He was affable, modest, genial, greatly be-
loved by his students, a man of high character, and
possessing much executive ability. A street near the
Jardin was named after him. He was succeeded by
Bosc. Desfontaine had the chair of botany, but his
attainments as a botanist were mediocre, and his lec-
tures were said to have been tame and uninteresting.
Portal taught human anatomy, while Mertrude lec-
tured on vertebrate anatomy; his chair was filled by
Cuvier in 1795.

Of this group Lamarck was facile princeps, as he
combined great sagacity and experience as a system-
atist with rare intellectual and philosophic traits.
For this reason his fame has perhaps outlasted that
of his young contemporary, Geoffroy St. Hilaire.

The necessities of the Museum led to the division
of the chair of zodlogy, botany being taught by Des-
fontaine. And now began a new era in the life of
Lamarck. After twenty-five years spent in botanical
research he was compelled, as there seemed nothing

30 LAMARCK, AIS LIFE AND WORK

else for him to undertake, to assume charge of the
collection of invertebrate animals, and to him was
assigned that enormous, chaotic mass of forms then
known as molluscs, insects, worms, and microscopic
animals. Had he continued to teach botany, we
might never have had the Lamarck of biology and
biological philosophy. But turned adrift in a world
almost unexplored, he faced the task with his old-
time bravery and dogged persistence, and at once
showed the skill of a master mind in systematic
work.

The two new professorships in zodlogy were filled,
one by Lamarck, previously known as a botanist, and
the other by the young Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire,
then twenty-two years old, who was at that time a
student of Haitiy, and in charge of the minerals, be-
sides teaching mineralogy with especial reference to
crystallography.

To Geoffroy was assigned the four classes of verte-
brates, but in reality he only occupied himself with
the mammals and birds. Afterwards Lacépéde * 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 in-
sects, crustacea, worms, molluscs, echinoderms, corals,
etc., at the Museum were enormous. At this time

* Bern. Germ. Etienne, Comte de Lacépéde, born in 1756, died
in 1825, was elected professor of the zodlogy of ‘‘ quadrupedes ovi-
pares, reptiles, et poissons,” January 12, 1795 (Records of the
Museum). He was the author of works on amphibia, reptiles, and
mammals, forming continuations of Buffon’s (/7stotre Naturelle. He
also published Histoire Naturelle des Poissons (1798-1803), L7istotre
des Cétacés (1804), and Listoire Naturelle de 1’ Homme (1827), Les
Ages de la Nature et Histoire de l Espice Humaine, tome 2, 1830.

PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY a7.

France began to send out those exploring expedi-
tions to all parts of the globe which were so numerous
and fruitful during the first third of the nineteenth
century. The task of arranging and classifying single-
handed this enormous mass of material was enough
to make a young man quail, and it is a proof of the
vigor, innate ability, and breadth of view of the man
that in this pioneer work he not only reduced to
some order this vast horde of forms, but showed such
insight and brought about such radical reforms in
zoological classification, especially in the foundation
and limitation of certain classes, an insight no one
before him had evinced. To him and to Latreille
much of the value of the Regue Animal of Cuvier,
as regards invertebrate classes, is due.

ihe ‘exact title of the chair held “by JLamarck is
given in the £¢a¢ of persons attached to the National
Museum of Natural History at the date of the Ier
messidor, an II. of the Republic (1794), where he is
mentioned as follows: “ LAMARCK—fifty years old;
married for the second time; wife exceinte ; six chil-
dren; professor of zodlogy, of insects, of worms, and
microscopic animals.” His salary, like that of the
other professors, was put at 2,868 livres, 6 sous, 8
deniers,

Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire + has related how the
professorship was given 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

*sRerrien, Jeics., ps. LA.
t Fragments Biographiques, p. 214.

38 LAMARGEK, L1LS LLEE AND WORK

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 admin-
istration, 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 Anitmaux sans
Vertcbres.”

Before his appointment to this chair Lamarck had
devoted considerable attention to the study of conch-
ology, and already possessed a rather large 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 and including 1791, Lamarck published
nothing. Whether this was naturally due to the
social convulsions and turmoil which raged around the
Jardin des Plantes, or to other causes, is not known.
In 1792, however, Lamarck and his friends and col-
leagues, Bruguiére, Olivier, and the Abbé Haiiy,
founded the Journal d'Histoire Naturelle, which
contains nineteen botanical articles, two on shells, '
besides one on physics, by Lamarck. These, with
many articles by other men of science, illustrated by
plates, indicate that during the years of social unrest
and upheaval in Paris, and though France was also

PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY 39

engaged in foreign wars, the philosophers preserved in
some degree, at least, the traditional calm of their pro-
fession, and passed their days and nights in absorption
in matters biological and physical. In 1801 appeared
his Systeme des Antmaux sans Vertibres, preceded by
the opening discourse of his lectures on the lower
animals, in which his views on the origin of species
were first propounded. During the years 1793-1798,
or for a period of six years, he published nothing
on zodlogy, and during this time only one paper
appeared, in 1798, on the influence of the moon on
the earth’s atmosphere. But as his memoirs on fire
and on sound were published in 1798, it is evident
that his leisure hours during this period, when not
engaged in museum work and the preparation of his
lectures, were devoted to meditations on physical and
meteorological subjects, and most probably it was
towards the end of this period that he brooded over
and conceived his views on organic evolution.

It appears that he was led, in the first place, to
conchological studies through his warm friendship
for a fellow naturalist, and this is one of many
proofs of his affectionate, generous nature. The
touching story is told by Etienne Geoffroy St.
Hilaire.*

“Tt 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; be-
cause it was, indeed, a heavy load, this branch of
natural history, where, with so varied relations, every-

* Fragments Biographiques, p. 213.

40 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

thing 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 Bruguiére 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 zodlogical
geniuses of our epoch.”

Once settled in his new line of work, Lamarck, the
incipient zodlogist, at a period in life when many
students of less flexible and energetic natures become
either hide-bound and conservative, averse to taking
up a different course of study, or actually cease all
work and rust out—after a half century of his life
had passed, this rare spirit, burning with enthusiasm,
charged like some old-time knight or explorer into a
new realm and into “ fresh fields and pastures new.”
His spirit, still young and fresh after nearly thirty
years of mental toil, so unrequited in material things,
felt a new stimulus as he began to investigate 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

PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY 4I

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 alw ays 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 dis-
covery of her laws, and to determine her course.”

After a year of preparation he opened his course
at the Museum in the spring of 1794. In his intro-
ductory lecture, given in 1803, after ten years of work
on the lower animals, he addressed his class in these
words:

“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 herinnumerable productions. In this case
we perceive that, relatively to the animal kingdom,
we should chiefly devote our attention to the inverte-
brate animals, because their enormous multiplicity in
nature, the singular diversity of their systems of or-
ganization 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 suc-
ceeding, Lamarck’s mind grew and expanded. Be-

42 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

fore 1801, however much he may have brooded over
the matter, we have no utterances in print on the
transformation theory. His studies on the lower
animals, and his general knowledge of the vertebrates
derived from the work of his contemporaries and his
observations in the Museum and menagerie, gave him
a broad grasp of the entire animal kingdom, such as
no one before him had. As the result, his compre-
hensive mind, with its powers of rapid generalization,
enabled him to appreciate the series from monad (his
ébauche) to man, the range of forms from the simple
to the complex. Even though not a comparative
anatomist like Cuvier, he made use of the latter’s
discoveries, and could understand and appreciate the
gradually increasing complexity of forms; and, unlike
Cuvier, realize that they were blood relations, and
not separate, piece-meal creations. Animal life, so
immeasurably higher than vegetable forms, with its
highly complex physiological functions and varied
means of reproduction, and the relations of its forms
to each other and to the world around, affords facts
for evolution which were novel to Lamarck, the
descriptive botanist.

In accordance with the rules of the Museum, which
required that all the professors should be lodged
within the limits of the Jardin, the choice of lodgings
being given to the oldest professors, Lamarck, at the
time of his appointment, took up his abode in the
house now known as the Maison de Buffon, situated
on the opposite side of the Jardin des Plantes from
the house afterwards inhabited by Cuvier, and in the
angle between the Galerie de Zoologie and the Museum

From a photograph by the author.

BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK. REAR VIEW, FROM THE WEST

From a photograph by F. E. P., 1899.

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

Oat a vo
ee

PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY 43

library.* With little doubt the windows of his study,
where his earlier addresses, the Recherches sur Ll Or-
ganization des Corps Vivans, and the Philosophie Zo-
ologique, were probably written, looked out upon
what is now the court on the westerly side of the
house, that facing the Rue Geoffroy St. Hilaire.

At the time of his entering on his duties as pro-
fessor of zodlogy, Lamarck was in his fiftieth year.
He had married twice and was the father of six
children, and without fortune. He married for a
third, and afterwards for a fourth time, and in all,

*A few years ago, when we formed the plan of writing his life,
we wrote to friends in Paris for information as to the exact house in
which Lamarck lived, and received the answer that it was unknown;
another proof of the neglect and forgetfulness that had followed
Lamarck so many years after his death, and which was even mani-
fested before ne died. Afterwards Professor Giard kindly wrote that
by reference to the proces verbaux of the Assembly, it had been found
by Professor Hamy that he had lived in the house of Buffon.

The house is situated at the corner of Rue de Buffon and Rue
Geoffroy St. Hilaire. The courtyard facing Rue Geoffroy St. Hilaire
bears the number 2 Rue de Buffon, and is in the angle between the
Galerie de Zoologie and the Bibliotheque. The edifice isa large four-
storied one. Lamarck occupied the second éfage, what we should
call the third story; it was first occupied by Buffon. His bedroom,
where he died, was on the premier ctage. 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 éage, or second
story, and Dr. J. Deniker, the éb/othécaire and learned anthro-
pologist, in the third. The second etage was, about fifty years ago
(1840-50), renovated forthe use of I'remy the chemist, so that the
exact room occupied by Lamarck as a study cannot be identified.

This ancient house was originally called Za Croix de Fer, and
was built about two centuries before the foundation of the Jardin du
Roi. It appears from an inspection of the notes on the titles and
copies of the original deeds, preserved in the Archives, and kindly
shown me by Professor G. T. Hamy, the Archivist of the Museum,
that this house was erected in 1468, the deed being dated Lrédre, 1468.
The house is referred 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 over-
looked by it was called de Jardin de la Croix. It was originally the
first structure erected on the south side of the Jardin du Roi.

44 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

seven children were born to him, as in the year (1794)
the minute referring to his request for an indem-
nity states: “Il est chargé de sept enfans dont un
est sur les vaisseaux de la République.’” Another
son was an artist, as shown by the records of the
Assembly of the Museum for September 23, 1814,
when he asked for a chamber in the lodgings of
Thouin, for the use of his son, “ pezntre.”’

Geoffroy St. Hilaire, in 1829, spoke of one of his
sons, M. Auguste de Lamarck, asa skilful and highly
esteemed engineer of Ponts-et-Chaussées, then advan-
tageously situated.

But man cannot live by scientific researches and
philosophic meditations alone. The history of La-
marck’s life is painful from beginning to end. With
his large family and slender salary he was never free
from carking cares and want. On the 30 fructidor,
an II. of the Republic, the National Convention voted
the sum of 300,000 livres, with which an indemnity
was to be paid to citizens eminent in literature and
art. Lamarck had sacrificed much time and doubt-
less some money in the preparation and publication
of his works, and he felt that he had a just claim to
be placed on the list of those who had been useful to
the Republic, and at the same time could give proof
of their good citizenship, and of their right to receive
such indemnity or appropriation.

Accordingly, in 1795 he sent in a letter, which pos-
sesses much autobiographical interest, to the Com-
mittee of Public Instruction, in which he says:

“ During the twenty-six years that he has lived in
Paris the citizen Lamarck has unceasingly devoted

PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY 45

himself to the study of natural history, and particu-
larly botany. He has done it successfully, for it is
fifteen years since he published under the title of
Flore Francaise the history and description of the
plants of France, with the mention of their proper-
ties 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 bo-
tanical undertaking, the Azcyclopedia and [lustra-
tion 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 lec-
tures.”

The petition was granted. At about this period
a pension of twelve hundred francs from the Academy
of Sciences, and which had increased to three thou-
sand francs, had ceased eighteen months previously
to be paid to him. But at the time (an IH.) 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 sim1-
lar allowance from the funds providing an indemnity
for men of letters and artists “ whose talents are use-
ful to the Republic.” Again referring to the Flore
Francaise, and his desire to prepare a second edition
of it, and his other works and travels in the interest
of botanical science, he says:

“Tf I had been less overburdened by needs of all
kinds for some years, and especially since the sup-
pression 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,

46 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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 in-
deed 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 thirty years,* was purchased by the govern-
ment at the price of five thousand livres. This sum
was used by him to balance the price of a national
estate for which he had contracted by virtue of the
law of 28 ventose de l’an IV.t This little estate,
which was the old domain of Beauregard, was a
modest farm-house or country-house at Héricourt-

* In the ‘‘ avertissement ” to his Systeme des Animaux sans Ver-
tébres (1801), after stating that he had at his disposition the magnifi-
cent collection of invertebrate animals of the museum, he refers to his
private collection as follows: ‘*‘Et une autre assez riche que j’ai
formée moi-méme par prés de trente années de recherches,” p. vii.
Afterwards he formed another collection of shells named according
to his system, and containing a part of the types described in his
flistoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Vertébres and in his minor arti-
cles. This collection the government did not acquire, and it is now in
the museum at Geneva. The Paris museum, however, possesses a
good many of the Lamarckian types, which are on exhibition (Perrier,
IE Cry (0s 20)

+ Lettre du Ministre des Finances (de Ramel) au Ministre de 0 In-
lérieurA(TS pr. an Vi). poee kerrien: lc). p20:

PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY 47

Saint-Samson, in the 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
of a landed property he passed the summer season,
or a part of it, on this estate.

This request was, we may believe, made from no
unworthy or mercenary motive, but because he
thought that such an indemnity was his due. Some
years after (in 1809) the chair of zodlogy, newly
formed by the Faculté des Sciences in Paris, was
offered to him. Desirable as the salary would have
been in his straitened circumstances, he modestly re-
fused the offer, because he felt unable at that time of
life (he was, however, but sixty-five years of age) to
make the studies required worthily to occupy the
position.

One of Lamarck’s projects, which he was never
able to carry out, for it was even then quite beyond
the powers of any man single-handed to undertake, was
his Systéme de la Nature. We will let him describe it
in his own words, especially since the account is some-
what autobiographical. It is the second memoir he
addressed to the Committee of Public Instruction of
the National Convention, dated 4 vendémiaire, l’an

III. (179):

“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 natu-
ral history; also of the travels and researches which I
have made.

“ But for a long time I have had in view a very im-
portant work—perhaps better adapted for education

48 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

in France than those I have already composed or un-
dertaken—a work, in short, which the National Con-
vention 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 Systeme de la Nature, a work analogous
to the Systema nature of Linneus, but written in
French, and presenting the picture complete, con-
cise, and methodical, of all the natural productions
observed up to this day. This important work (of
Linneus), 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 dif-
ferent 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 inex-
act or imperceptible and many series badly divided,
or genera too numerous in species, and difficulties in-
surmountable to students.

“Tf 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 en-
terprise. Iam, I believe, as well aware of them, and
better, than any one else; but I feel that I can over-
come them without descending to a simple and dis-
honorable compilation of what foreigners have writ-

PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY 49

ten 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 to-
gether, I can then hope to prepare in a suitable man-
ner this interesting work.

“T 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 ency yclopzedia, 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 quad-
rupeds 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 na-
tion, because the expense of printing (on account of
the enormous quantity of citations and figures which
it would contain) would be such that any arrange-
ment with the printer or the manager of the edition
could not remunerate the author for writing such an
immense work.

“Tf the nation should wish to print the work at its
own expense, and then give to the author the profits

4

50 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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 re-
sponsibility, and I agree, if I live, that before the
expiration of seven years the Systeme de la Nature in
French, with the complemental addition, the correc-
tions, and the convenient explanations, shall be at the
disposition of all those who love or study natural
history.”

CHARTER. 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;* also by the rigid economy he had
to practise and the unending poverty of his whole
existence. A very heavy blow to him and to science
was the loss, at an advanced age, of his eyesight.

It was, apparently, not a sudden attack of blind-
ness, for we have hints that at times he had to call
in Latreille and others to aid him in the study of the
insects. The continuous use of the magnifying lens
and the microscope, probably, was the cause of en-
feebled eyesight, resulting in complete loss of vision.
Duval + states that he passed the last ten years of his
life in darkness; that his loss of sight gradually came
on until he became completely blind.

* I have been unable to ascertain the names of any of his wives, or
of his children, except his daughter, Cornelie.

+‘ L’examen minutieux de petits animaux, analysés a l’aide d’in-
struments grossissants, fatigua, puis affaiblait,sa vue. Bientot il fut
complétement aveugle. Il passa les dix derniérs années de sa vie
plongé dans les ténébres, entouré des soins de ses deux filles, a l'une
desquelles il dictait le dernier volume de son Azstotre des Animaux
sans Vertebres.’"—Le Transformiste Lamarck, Bull, Soc. Anthro-
pologie, xii., 1889, p. 341. Cuvier, also, in his history of the progress
of natural science for 1819, remarks: ‘‘M. de La Marck, male é
laffoiblissement total de sa vue, poursuit avec un courage inaltérav.e
la continuation de son grand ouvrage sur les animaux sans vertebres.”

(p. 406).

52 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

In the reports of the meetings of the Board of
Professors there is but one reference to his blind-
ness. Previous to this we find that, at his last ap-
pearance at these sessions—z.e., April 19, 1825—since
his condition did not permit him to give his course
of lectures, he had asked 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 ani-
mals. This was agreed to.

The next’ reference, and the only explicit one is
that) in the Gecords for May. 23511826, as follows:
“Vu la cécité dont M. de Lamarck est frappé, M.
Bosc * continuera d’exercer sur les parties confiert a
M. Audouin la surveillance attribuée au Professeur.”

But, according to Duval, long before this he had
been unable to use his eyes. In his Systeme analy-
tique acs Connotssances positives de 1’ Homme, published
in 1820, he refers to the sudden loss of his eyesight.

* Louis Auguste Guillaume Bosc, born in Paris, 1759; died in 1828.
Author of now unimportant works, entitled : 7/¢stodre Naturelle des
Coguilles (1801); Hist. Nat. des Vers (1802); Hist. Nat. des Crius-
tacés (1828), and papers on insects and plants. He was associ-
ated with Lamarck in the publication of the Journal d’ Histoire
Naturelle, During the Reign of Terror in 1793 he was a friend of
Madame Roland, was arrested, but afterwards set free and placed
first on the Directory in 1795. In 1798 he sailed for Charleston, S.C.
Nominated successively vice-consul at Wilmington and consul at New
York, but not obtaining his exequatur from President Adams, he
went to live with the botanist Michaux in Carolina in his botanical
garden, where he devoted himself to natural history until the quarrel
in 1800 between the United States and France caused him to return
to France. On his return he sent North American insects to his
friends Fabricius and Olivier, fishes to Lacépéde, birds to Daudin.
reptiles to Latreille. Not giving all his time to public life, he devoted
himself to natural history, horticulture, and agriculture, succeeding
Thouin in the chair of horticulture, where he was most usefully em-
ployed until his death.—(Cuvier’s £ loge.)

LAST DAYS AND DEATH 52

Even in advanced life Lamarck seems not to have
suffered from ill-health, despite the fact that he ap-
parently during the last thirty years of his life lived
in a very secluded way. Whether he went out into
the world, to the theatre, or even went away from
Paris and the Museum into the country in his later
years, isa matter of doubt. It is said that he was fond
of novels, his daughters reading to him those of the best
French authors. After looking with some care through
the records of the sessions of the Assembly of Profes-
sors, we are struck with the evidences of his devotion
to routine museum work and to his courses of lectures.

At that time the Museum sent out to the Ecoles
centrales of the different departments of France named
collections made up from the duplicates, and in this
sort of drudgery Lamarck took an active part. He
also took a prominent share in the business of the
Museum, in the exchange and in the purchase of
specimens and collections in his department, and even
in the management of the menagerie. Thus he re-
ported on the dentition of the young lions (one dying
from teething), on the illness and recovery of one of
the elephants, on the generations of goats and kids
in the park; also on a small-sized bull born of a small
cow covered by a Scottish bull, the young animal
having, as he states, all the characters of the original.

For one year (1794) he was secretary of the Board
of Professors of the Museum.* The records of the

* The first director of the Board or Assembly of Professors-admin-
istrative of the Museum was Daubenton, Lacépéde being the secre-
tary, Thouin the treasurer. Daubenton was succeeded by Jussieu ;
and Lacépéde, first by Desfontaines and afterwards by Lamarck, who
was elected secretary 18 fructidor, an II. (1794).

vn LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

meetings from 4 vendémiaire, l’an IIL., until 4 vendé-
miaire, l’an IV., are each written in his bold, legible
handwriting or signed by him. He signed his name
Lamarck, this period being that of the first republic.
Afterwards, in the records, his name is written De
Lamarck. We was succeeded by E. Geoffroy St.
Hilaire, who signed himself plain Geoffroy.

In 1802 he acted as treasurer of the Assembly, and
again for a period of six years, until and including
1811, when he resigned, the reason given being: “ Il
s’occupe depuis six ans et que ses travaux et son age
lui rendent penibles.”

Lamarck was extremely regular in his attendance
at these meetings. From 1793 until 1818 he rarely,
if ever, missed a meeting. We have only observed in
the records of this long period the absence of his
name on two or three occasions from the list of those
present. During 1818 and the following year it was
his blindness which probably prevented his regular
attendance. July 15, 1818, he was present, and pre-
sented the fifth volume of his Anzmaux sans Verte-
bres; and August 31, 1819, he was present * and laid
before the Assembly the sixth volume of the same
great work.

From the observations of the records we infer that

* His attendance this year was infrequent. July 10, 1820, he was
present and made a report relative to madrepores and molluscs. In
the summer of 1821 he attended several of the meetings. August 7.
1821, he was present, and referred to the collection of shells of Struthi-
olaria. He was present May 23d and June gth, when it was voted that
he should enjoy the garden of the house he occupied and that a cham-
ber should be added to his lodgings. He was frequent in attendance
this year, especially during the summer months. He attended a few

meetings at intervals in 1822, 1823, and only twice in 1824.
At a meeting held April 19, 1825, he was present, and, stating that

PORTRAIT OF LAMARCK, WHEN OLD AND BLIND, IN THE COSTUME
OF A MEMBE

OF THE INSTITUTE, ENGRAVED IN 1824

EAST DAVS AND DEATH 55
Lamarck never had any long, lingering illness or
suffered from overwork, though his life had little sun-
shine or playtime in it. He must have had a strong
constitution, his only infirmity being the terrible one
(especially to an observer of nature) of total blind-
ness.

Lamarck’s greatest work in systematic zodlogy
would never have been completed had it not been for
the self-sacrificing spirit and devotion of his eldest
daughter.

A part of the sixth and the whole of the last
volume of the Anximaux sans Vertibres were pre-
sented to the Assembly of Professors September Io,
1822. This volume was dictated to and written out
by one of his daughters, Mlle. Cornelie De Lamarck.
On her the aged savant leaned during the last ten
years of his life—those years of failing strength and
of blindness finally becoming total. The frail woman
accompanied him in his hours of exercise, and when
he was confined to his 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 nearly
overcome by the fresh air, to which she had become
so unaccustomed. She, indeed, practically sacrificed
her life to her father. It is one of the rarest and
most striking instances of filial devotion known in the
annals of science or literature, and is a noticeable con-

his condition did not permit him to lecture, asked to have Audouin
take his place, as Latreille’s health did not allow him to take up the
work. The next week (26th) he was likewise present. On May 10
he was present, as also on June 28, October 11, and also through De-
cember, 1825. His last appearance at these business meetings was
on July 11, 1828.

56 LAMARCK, HiS LIPE AND) WORK

trast to the daughters of the blind Milton, whose
domestic life was rendered unhappy by their unduti-
fulness, as they were impatient of the restraint and
labors his blindness had imposed upon them.

Besides this, the seventh volume is a voluminous
scientific work, filled with very dry special details,
making the labor of writing out from dictation, of
corrections and preparation for the press, most weari-
some and exhausting, to say nothing of the correc-
tions of the proof-sheets, a task which probably fell
to her—work enough to break down the health of a
strong man.

It was a natural and becoming thing for the As-
sembly of Professors of the Museum, in view of the
“‘malheureuse position de la famille,”’ to vote to give
her employment in the botanical laboratory in arrang-
ing and pasting the dried plants, with a salary of 1,000
francs.

Of the last illness of Lamarck, and the nature of
the sickness to which he finally succumbed, there is
no account. It is probable that, enfeebled by the
weakness of extreme old age, he gradually sank away
without suffering from any acute disease.

The exact date of his death has been ascertained
by Dr. Mondiére,* with the aid of M. Saint-Joanny,
archiviste du Départment de la Seine, who made
special search fortherecord. The “acte ‘states that
December 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 Monzteur Universel

* See, for the Acte de décées, L Homme, iv. p. 289, and Lamarck.
Par un Groupe de Transformistes, etc., p. 24.

LAST DANS AND DEATH 57

of Paris for December 23, 1829, were celebrated on the
Sunday previous in the Church of Saint-Médard, his
parish. From the church the remains were borne to
the cemetery of Montparnasse. At the interment,
which took place December 30, M. Latreille, in the
name of the Academy of Sciences, and M. Geoffroy
St. Hilaire, in the name and on behalf of his col-
leagues, the Professors of the Museum of Natural
History, pronounced eulogies at the 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 read with aston-
ishment, in the account by Dr. A. Mondiére, who
made zealous inquiries for the exact site of the grave
of Lamarck, that it is and forever will be unknown.
It is a sad and discreditable, and to us inexplicable,
fact that his remains did not receive decent burial.
They were not even deposited in a separate grave,
but were thrown into a trench apparently situated
apart from the other graves, and from which the bones
of those thrown there were removed every five years.
They are probably now in the catacombs of Paris,
mingled with those of the thousands of unknown or
paupers in that great ossuary. *

* Dr. Mondicre in ZL’ Homme, iv. p. 291, and Lamarck. Par un
Groupe de Transformistes, p. 271. A somewhat parallel case is that
of Mozart, who was buried at Vienna in the common ground of St,
Marx, the exact position of his grave being unknown. There were no
ceremonies at his grave, and even his friends followed him no farther
than the city gates, owing to a violent storm.—(7%e Century Cyclo-
pedia of Names.)

58 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

Dr. Mondiére’s account is as follows. Having
found in the Wonzteur the notice 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 in-
terested 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 ina ¢vench off on one side
(fosse a part), that is to say, one which should change
its occupant at the end of five years. Was it neg-
ligence, 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 men-
tion:

“« De Monnet de Lamarck buried this 20 Decem-
ber 1829 (85 years, 3d square, Ist division, 2d line,
trenehi 22.7

“ 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, Ist 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

LAST: DAMS AND DEATH 59

by which we could trace the site after the changes
wrought since 1829. After several ineffectual at-
tempts, I finally perceived a flat grave, surrounded
by an iron railing, and covered with weeds. Its sur-
face seemed to me very regular, and I probed this lot.

772
PJPUP2A Z

avbpp PPIPAIINO LL
aNUMIAD

Ivy?

1 Division

peum Q
oe

720 a,

rs. a eee,

-

POSITION OF THE BURIAL PLACE OF LAMARCK IN THE CEMETERY
OF MONTPARNASSE,

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.

“We found the place, but unfortunately, as I have

60 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

previously said, the remains of Lamarck are no longer
EHere..*

Mondiére added to his letter a little plan (p. 59),
which he drew on the spot.*

But the life-work of Lamarck and his theory of
organic evolution, as well as the lessons of his simple
and noble character, are more durable and lasting
than any monument of stone or brass. His name
will never be forgotten either by his own countrymen
or by the world of science and philosophy. After
the lapse of nearly a hundred years, and in this first
year of the twentieth century, his views have taken
root and flourished with a surprising strength and
vigor, and his name is preéminent among the natu-
ralists of his time.

No monument exists in Montparnasse, but within
the last decade, though the reparation has come tar-
dily, the bust of Lamarck may be seen by visitors
to the Jardin des Plantes, on the outer wall of the
Nouvelle Galerie, containing the Museums of Com-
parative Anatomy, Paleontology, and Anthropology.

Although the city of Paris has not yet erected
a monument to its greatest naturalist, some public
recognition of his eminent services to the city and
nation was manifested when the Municipal Council of

* Still hoping that the site of the grave might have been kept open,
and desiring to satisfy myself as to whether there was possibly space
enough left on which to erect a modest monument to the memory of
Lamarck, I took with me the évochure containing the letter and plan
of Dr. Mondiére to the cemetery of Montparnasse. With the aid of one
of the officials I found what he told me was the site, but the entire place
was densely covered with the tombs and grave-stones of later inter-
ments, rendering the erection of a stone, however small and simple,
quite out of the question.

LAST DAVS AND DEATH 61

Paris, on February 10, 1875, gave the name Lamarck
toastreet.* This isa long and not unimportant street
on the hill of Montmartre in the XVIII* arrondisse-
ment, and in the zone of the old stone or gypsum
quarries which existed before Paris extended so far
out in that direction, and from which were taken the
fossil remains of the early tertiary mammals described
by Cuvier.

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

Inthe meetings of the Assembly of Professors no
one took the trouble to prepare and enter minutes,
however brief and formal, relative to his decease.
The death of Lamarck is not even referred to in the
Procés-verbaux. This is the more marked because
there is an entry in the same records for 1820,
and about the same date, of an extraordinary séance
held November 19, 1829, when “the Assembly’”’
was convoked to take measures regarding the
death of Professor Vauquelin relative to the choice
Of a candidate, Chevreul’ being elected (toc fill iis
chair.

Lamarck’s chair was at his death divided, and the

* The Rue Lamarck begins at the elevated square on which is situ-
ated the Church of the Sacré-Cceur, now in process of erection, and
from this point one obtains a commanding and very fine view over-
looking the city ; from there the street curves round to the westward,
ending in the Avenue de Saint-Ouen, and continues as a wide and long
thoroughfare, ending to the north of the cemetery of Montmartre. A
neighboring street, Rue Becquerel, is named after another French
savant, and parallel to it is a short street named Rue Darwin.

62 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

two professorships thus 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 the department of
invertebrate animals be divided into two, and referred
to the bad state of preservation of the insects, the
force of assistants to care for these being insufficient.
He also, in his usual tactful way, referred to the
“complaisance extrime de la parte de M. De La-
marck””’ in 1793, in assenting to the reunion in a
single professorship of the mass of animals then
called “ znusectes et vermes.”

The two successors of the chair held by Lamarck
were certainly not dilatory in asking for appoint-
ments. At asession of the Professors held December
22, 1820, the first meeting after his death, we find the
following entry: “M. Latreille écrit pour exprimer
son desir d’étre présenté comme candidat a la chaire
vacante par le décés de M. Lamarck et pour rappeler
Sesititnes a-cetterplace: |

M. de Blainville also wrote in the same manner:
“Dans le cas que la chaire serait divisée, il demande
la place de Professeur de lhistoire des animaux inar-
ticulés. Dans le cas contraire il se présente égale-
ment comme candidat, voulant, tout en respectant
les droits acquis, ne pas laisser dans l’oubli ceux qui
lui appartiennent.”

January 12, 1830, Latreille* was unanimously elected

* Latreille was born at Brives, November 29, 1762, and died Feb-
ruary 6, 1833. He was the leading entomologist of his time, and to
him Cuvier was indebted for the arrangement of the insects in the

LAST DAVS AND DEATH 63

by the Assembly a candidate to the chair of entomol-
ogy, and at a following session (February 16th) De
Blainville was unanimously elected a candidate for
the chair of Molluscs, Vers et Zoophytes, and on the
16th of March the royal ordinance confirming those
elections was received by the Assembly.

There could have been no fitter appointments made
for those two positions. Lamarck had long known
Latreille “and loved him as a son.” De Blainville
honored and respected Lamarck, and fully appreciated
his commanding abilities as an observer and thinker.

Régsne Animal. Vis bust is to be seen on the same side of the Nou-
velle Galerie in the Jardin des Plantes as those of Lamarck, Cuvier,
De Blainville, and D’Orbigny. His first paper was introduced by
Lamarck in 1792. In the minutes of the session of 4 thermidor,
l’'an VI. (July, 1798), we find this entry: ‘* The citizen Lamarck an-
nounces that the citizen Latreille offered to the administration to work
under the direction of that professor in arranging the very numerous
collection of insects of the Museum, so as to place them under the
eye of the public.” And here he remained until his appointment.
Several years (1825) before Lamarck’s death he had asked to have
Latreille fill his place in giving instruction.

Audouin (1797-1841), also an eminent entomologist and mor-
phologist, was appointed atde-naturaliste-adjointin charge of Mollusca,
Crustacea, Worms, and Zoéphytes. He was afterwards associated with
H. Milne Edwards in works on annelid worms. December 26, 1827,
Latreille asked to be allowed to employ Boisduval as a préparateur ;
he became the author of several works on injurious insects and Lepi-
doptera.

CHER Nal

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

DE BLAINVILLE, a worthy successor of Lamarck,
in his posthumous book, Cuvier et Geoffroy Saint-
ffilatre, pays the highest tribute to his predecessor,
whose position as the leading naturalist of his time he
fully and gratefully acknowledges, saying: ‘“ Among
the men whose lectures I have had the advantage of
hearing, I truly recognize only three masters, M. de
Lamarck, M. Claude Richard, and M. Pinel” (p. 43).
He also speaks of wishing to write the scientific
biographies of Cuvier and De Lamarck, the two zo-
ologists of this epoch whose lectures he most fre-
quently attended and whose writings he studied, and
“who have exercised the greatest influence on the
zodlogy of our time” (p. 42). Likewise in the open-
ing words of the preface he refers to the rank taken
by Lamarck:

“The aim which I have proposed to myself in my
course on the principles of zodlogy 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

POSITION IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 65

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 Auguste Comte, who, in his Cours de
Philosophie Positive, has anticipated and even sur-
passed himself in the high esteem he felt for “the
celebrated author of the Philosophie Zoologique.”

The eulogy by Cuvier, which gives most fully the
details of the early life of Lamarck, and which has
been the basis for all the subsequent biographical
sketches, was unworthy of him. Lamarck had, with
his customary self-abnegation and generosity, aided
and favored the young Cuvier in the beginning of his
career,” who in his Régue Animal adopted the classes
founded by Lamarck. Thoroughly convinced of the
erroneous views of Cuvier in regard to cataclysms,
he criticised and opposed them in his writings in a
courteous and proper way without directly mention-
ing Cuvier by name or entering into any public
debate with him.

When the hour came for the great comparative
anatomist and palaontologist, from his exalted posi-
tion, to prepare a tribute to the memory of a natural-
ist of equal merit and of a far more thoughtful and

* For example, while Cuvier’s chair was in the field of vertebrate
zodlogy, owing to the kindness of Lamarck (‘‘ par gracieuseté de la
part de M. de Lamarck”) he had retained that of Mollusca, and yet it
was in the special classification of the molluscs that Lamarck did his
best work (Blainville, 1. c., p. 116).

5

66 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

profound spirit, to be read before the French Academy
of Sciences, what a eulogy it was—as De Blainville
exclaims, e¢ guel cloge/ It was not printed until
after Cuvier’s death, and then, it is stated, portions
were omitted as not suitable for publication.* This
is, we believe, the only stain on Cuvier’s life, and it
was unworthy of the great man. In this eoge, so
different in tone from the many others which are col-
lected in the three volumes of Cuvier’s eulogies, he
indiscriminately ridicules all of Lamarck’s theories.
Whatever may have been his condemnation of La-
marck’s essays on physical and chemical subjects, he
might have been more reserved and less dogmatic
and sarcastic in his estimate of what he supposed to
be the value of Lamarck’s views on evolution. It
was Cuvier’s adverse criticisms and ridicule and _ his
anti-evolutional views which, more than any other
single cause, retarded the progress of biological
science and the adoption of a working theory of
evolution for which the world had to wait half a
century.

It even appears that Lamarck was in part instru-
mental in inducing Cuvier in 1795 to go to Paris from
Normandy, and become connected with the Museum.
De Blainville relates that the Abbé Tessier met the
young zoélogist at Valmont near Fécamp, and wrote
to Geoffroy that “he had just discovered in Nor-

* De Blainville states that ‘‘the Academy did not even allow it to
be printed in the form in which it was pronounced” (p. 324); and
again he speaks of the lack of judgment in Cuvier’s estimate of La-
marck, ‘‘ the naturalist who had the greatest force in the general con-
ception of beings and of phenomena, although he might often be far

from the path” (p. 323).

POSITIONING: THESHISTLORY: OF (SCIEN CE. 67

mandy a pearl,” and invited him to do what he could
to induce Cuvier to come to Paris. ‘I made,” said
Geoffroy, “the proposition to my cozfreres, but I was
supported, and only feebly, by M. de Lamarck, who
slightly knew M. Cuvieras the author of a memoir on
entomology.”

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

“Ves [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 sucha loss leaves in our ranks
animmense void. From the blessings of sucha 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 hap-
pened, with great opposition, he spoke of it as a con-
dition imposed on every one who begins a reform.
Moreover, the great age, the infirmities, but especially
the grievous blindness of M. de Lamarck had re-
served 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 sub-
jected to rivalry, envy and passion became extin-
guished 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

68 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

both merited a triple crown by their works on general
natural history, zodlogy and botany, and whose
names, increasing in fame from age to age, will both
be handed down to the remotest posterity.’’*

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

“Attacked on all sides, injured likewise by odious
ridicule, Lamarck, too indignant to answer these cut-
ting epigrams, submitted to the indignity with a
Sorrowful patience, 70.4.) deamanele Shivedia long
while poor, blind, and forsaken, but not by me; I
shall ever love and venerate him.” f

The following evidently heartfelt and sincere trib-
ute to his memory, showing warm esteem and
thorough respect for Lamarck, and also a confident
feeling that his lasting fame was secure, is to be
found in an obscure little book { containing satirical,
humorous, but perhaps not always fair or just, char-
acterizations and squibs concerning the professors
and aid-naturalists of the Jardin des Plantes.

“What head will not be uncovered on hearing pro-
nounced 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.

* Fragments Biographiques, pp. 209-219.

tale Comp anole

t Histoire Naturelle Drolatique et Philosophique des Professeurs du
Jardin des Plantes, etc. Par Isid, S. de Gosse. Avec des Annota-
tions de M. Frédéric Gerard, Paris, 1847.

POSITION IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 69

“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 tothee! Respect tothy 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 years after his death. Had
Goethe, his contemporary (1749-1832), known of
them, he would undoubtedly have welcomed his
speculations, have expressed his appreciation of
them, and Lamarck’s reputation would, in his own
lifetime, have raised him from the obscurity of his
later years at Paris.

Hearty appreciation, though late in the century,
came from Ernst Haeckel, whose bold and suggestive
works have been so widely read. In his Hestory of
Creation (1868) he thus estimates Lamarck’s work
as a philosopher:

“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 ex-
position 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

70 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

work, which appeared just half a century later, we
know of none which we could, in this respect, place
by the side of the Ph2losophte 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 Sctence, 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 LP%zlosophie Zo-
ologique at all.”

Again in 1882 Haeckel writes :*

“ We regard it as a truly tragic fact that the Pfz-
losophie Zoologique of Lamarck, one of the greatest
productions of the great literary period of the begin-
ning of our century, received at first only the slight-
est notice, and within a few years became wholly
forgotten. . . . Not until fully fifty years later,
when Darwin breathed new life into the transforma-
tion views founded therein, was the buried treasure
again recovered, and we cannot refrain from regarding
it as the most complete presentation of the develop-
ment 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 mor-
phological knowledge, he none the less surprises us
by the prophetic (vorausschauende) clearness of his
physiological conceptions.”

* Die Naturanschauung von Darwin, Goethe und Lamarck, Jena,
1882.

ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER AND WORK 7h

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

Je-Victor’ Carus* also claims for Lamarck “the
lasting merit of having been the first to have placed
the theory (of descent) on a scientific foundation.”

The best, most catholic, and just exposition of La-
marck’s views, and which is still worth reading, is that
by Lyell in Chapters XXXIV.-XXXVI. of his
Principles of Geology, 1830, and though at that time
one would not look for an acceptance of views which
then seemed extraordinary and, indeed, far-fetched,
Lyell had no words of satire and ridicule, only a
calm, able statement and discussion of his principles.
Indeed, it is well known that when, in after years,
his friend Charles Darwin published his views, Lyell
expressed some leaning towards the older specula-
tions of Lamarck.

Lyell’s opinions as to the interest and value of
Lamarck’s ideas may be found in his Life and Letters,
and also in the Lzfe and Letters of Charles Darwin.
In the chapter, Ox the Reception of the Origin of
Species, by Huxley, are the following extracts
from Lyell’s Leézers (ii., pp. 179-204). In a letter ad-
dressed to Mantell (dated March 2, 1827), Lyell
speaks of having just read Lamarck; he expresses
his delight at Lamarck’s theories, and his personal
freedom from any objections based on theological

* Geschichte der Zeologie bis auf Fok. Miiller und Charles Darwin,
1872.

a2, LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

grounds. And though he is evidently alarmed at the
pithecoid origin of man involved in Lamarck’s doc-
trine, he observes: ‘“ But, after all, what changes
species may really undergo! How impossible will it
be to distinguish and lay down a line beyond which
some of the so-called extinct species have never
passed into recent ones?”

He also quotes a remarkable passage in the post-
script to a letter written to Sir John Herschel in
1836: “In regard to the origination of new species,
Iam very glad to find that you think it probable it
may be carried on through the intervention of inter-
mediate causes.”

How nearly Lyell was made a convert to evolution
by reading Lamarck’s works may be seen by the fol-
lowing extracts from his letters, quoted by Huxley:

fT think’ the old ‘creation’ 4s almost as) miuchjre-
quired 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 Con-
stant 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 as-
suming that they were so.’”

“When I came to the conclusion that after all La-
marck was going to be shown to be right, that we
must ‘go the whole orang,’ I re-read his book, and

ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER AND WORK 73

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,’ ete. (and in plants even
volition was not called in), isin some respects only
a change of names. Call a new variety a new crea-
tion, 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 or-
ganic 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 Pou-
chet, who converted him at Rouen to ‘spontaneous
generation.’

“Have I not, at p. 412, put the vast distinction be-
tween you and Lamarck as to ‘necessary progres-
sion’ strongly enough?” (To Darwin, March 15, 1863.
Wiyell, s Letters, ii. p. 305.)

Darwin, in the freedom of private correspondence,
paid scant respect to the views of his renowned pre-
decessor, as the following extracts from his 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 Lzfe
and Letters, ii., p. 23, 1844.)

74 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

“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 Anzmaux sans
Vertebres should have written that insects, which
never see their eggs, should we// (and plants, their
seeds) to be of particular forms, so as to become at-
tached to particular objects.” * (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 per-
manent 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.”
(isiped21, 1358.)

On the other hand, another great English thinker
and naturalist of rare breadth and catholicity, and
despite the fact that he rejected Lamarck’s peculiar
evolutional views, associated him with the most em1-
nent biologists.

In a letter to Romanes, dated in 1882, Huxley
thus estimates Lamarck’s position in the scientific
world:

‘Tam 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.

*We have been unable to find these statements in any of La-
marck’s writings.

ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER AND WORK 75

Von Bar was another man of the same stamp;
Cuvier, in a somewhat lower rank, another; and J.
Miiller another.” (Lzfe and Letters of Thomas
Henry tiuxley, i.,° p42, 1oao:

The memory of Lamarck is deeply and warmly
cherished throughout France. He gave his country
a second Linné. One of the leading botanists in Eu-
rope, and the greatest zodlogist of his time, he now
shares equally with Geoffroy St. Hilaire and with
Cuvier the distinction of raising biological science to
that eminence in the first third of the nineteenth
century which placed France, as the mother of biolo-
gists, in the van of all the nations. When we add
to his triumphs in pure zodlogy the fact that he was
in his time the philosopher of biology, it is not going
too far 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 perusal of the following letter,
with its delightful reminiscences, for which we are in-
debted to the venerable and distinguished zodélogist and
comparative anatomist who formerly occupied the chair
made illustrious by Lamarck, and by his successor,
De Blainville, and who founded the Laboratoire
Arago on the Mediterranean, also that of Experi-
mental Zodlogy at Roscoff, and who still conducts
the Journal de Zoologie Expérimentale.

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

70 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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 a
vos désirs.

Lorsque je commengai mes études a Paris, on ne
s’occupait guére 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 legons et
qui le citaient souvent, on parlait peu de la philosophie
zoologique.

Il m’a été possible de causer avec des anciens col-
légues du grand naturaliste; au Jardin des Plantes de
trés 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 la cherchait d’aprés la direction des nuages
a 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’étre nommé professeur au
Jardin des Plantes en 1865, je fis lhistorique de la
chaire que j’occupais, et qui avait été illustrée par De
Lamarck et De Blainville. Je crois que je suis le
premier & avoir fait l’histoire de notre grand naturaliste
dans un cours public. Je dus travailler pas mal pour
arriver a bien saisir l’idée fondamentale de la philoso-
phie. Les définitions de la nature et des forces qui
président aux changements qui modifient les étres
d’aprés les conditions auxquelles ils sont soumis ne
sont pas toujours faciles 4 rendre claires pour un
public souvent difficile.

Ce qui frappe surtout dans ses raisonnements, c’est

ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER AND WORK 1

que De Lamarck est parfaitement logique. Il com-
prend trés bien ce que plus d’un transformiste de nos
jours ne cherche pas a éclairer, que le premier pas, le
pas difficile & faire pour arriver 4 expliquer la création
par des modifications successives, c’est le passage de
la matiére inorganique a la matiére 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.

Voila 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’Espéce. I] y aurait beaucoup
a dire sur cette expression—l’instinct de l’espéce—il
m’est difficile dans une simple lettre de développer des
idées philosophiques que j'ai sur cette question,—
laquelle suppose la notion de Vindividu parfaitement
définie et acquis.

Je ne vous citeraiqu’un exemple. Je nel’aivu signalé
nulle part dans les ouvrages anciens sur De Lamarck.

Qu'étaient nos connaissances a l’époque de De
Lamarck sur les Polypiers? Les Hydraires étaient
loin d’avoir fourni les remarquables observations qui
parurent dans le milieu & peu prés du siécle qui vient
de finir, et cependant De Lamarck déplace hardiment
la Lucernaire—l’€loigne des Coralliaires, et la rap-
proche des étres qui forment le grand groupe des
Hydraires. Ce trait me parait remarquable et le rap-
porte a cette réputation qu'il avait au Museum de
jouir de l’instinct de l’espéce.

De toute part on acclame le grand naturaliste, et’il
n’y a pas méme une rue portant son nom aux environs
du Jardin des Plantes? J’ai eu beau réclamer le
conseil municipal de Paris 4 d’autres favoris que De
Lamarck.

78 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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. II] fut 4 cet age
chargé de l'histoire de la partie du régne animal
renfermant les animaux invertébres sauf les Insectes
et les Crustacés. Wa'chaire est restée la meme; elle
comprend les vers, les helminthes, les mollusques, et
ce qu’on appelait autrefoisles Zoophytes ou Rayonnées,
enfin les Infusoires. Quelle puissance de travail! Ne
fallait-il pas pour passer de la Botanique, 4 50 ans, a
la Zoologie, et laisser un ouvrage semblablea 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 ot 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 connaitre de nos contemporains.

Recevez, mon cher coilégue, expression de mes
sentiments d’estime pour vos travaux remarquables et
croyez-moi—tout a vous,

H. DE LACAZE DUTHIERS.

CLUAP aie Vill

LAMARCK’S WORK IN METEOROLOGY AND PHYSICAL
SCIENCE

WHEN a medical student in Paris, Lamarck, from
day to day watching the clouds from his attic windows,
became much interested in meteorology, and, indeed,
at first this subject had nearly as much attraction for
him as botany. Fora long period he pursued these
studies, and he was the first one to foretell the prob-
abilities of the weather, thus anticipating by over
half a century the modern idea of making the science
of meteorology of practical use to mankind.

His article, ‘‘ De linfluence de la lune sur l’atmos-
phere terrestre,” appeared in the Journal de Physique
for 1798, and was translated in two English journals.
The titles of several other essays will be found in the
Bibliography at the close of this volume.

From 1799 to 1810 he regularly published an an-
nual meteorological report containing the statement
of probabilities acquired by a long series of observa-
tions on the state of the weather and the variations
of the atmosphere at different times of the year,
giving indications of the periods when to expect
pleasant weather, or rain, storms, tempests, frosts,
thaws, etc.; finally the citations of these probabilities
of times favorable to fétes, journeys, voyages, har-

80 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

vesting crops, and other enterprises dependent on
good weather.

Lamarck thus explained the principles on which
he based his probabilities: Two kinds of causes, he
says, displace the fluids which compose the atmos-
phere, some being variable and irregular, others con-
stant, whose action is subject to progressive and
fixed laws.

Between the tropics constant causes exercise an
action so considerable that the irregular effects of vari-
able causes are there in some degree lost ; hence result
the prevailing winds which in these climates become
established and change at determinate epochs.

Beyond the tropics, and especially toward the
middle of the temperate zones, variable causes pre-
dominate. We can, however, still discover there the
effects of the action of constant causes, though much
weakened ; we can assign them the principal epochs,
and in a great number of cases make this knowledge
turn to our profit. It is in the elevation and depres-
sion (abazssement) of the moon above and below the
celestial equator that we should seek for the most
constant of these causes.

With his usual facility in such matters, he was not
long in advancing a theory, according to which the
atmosphere is regarded as resembling the sea, having
a surface, waves, and storms; it ought likewise to
have a flux and reflux, for the moon ought to ex-
ercise the same influence upon it that it does on the
ocean. In the temperate and frigid zones, therefore,
the wind, which is only the tide of the atmosphere,
must depend greatly on the declination of the moon;

SPECULATIONS ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE SI

it ought to blow toward the pole that is nearest to it,
and advancing in that direction only, in order to
reach every place, traversing dry countries or ex-
tensive seas, it ought then to render the sky serene
or stormy. If the influence of the moon on the
weather is denied, it is only that it may be referred
to its phases, but its position in the ecliptic is re-
garded as affording probabilities much nearer the
truth.*

In each of these annuals Lamarck took great care
to avoid making any positive predictions. ‘ No one,”
he says, “ could make these predictions without deceiv-
ing himself and abusing the confidence of persons who
might place reliance on them.” He only intended to
propose simple probabilities.

After the publication of the first of these annuals,
at the request of Lamarck, who had made it the sub-
ject of a memoir read to the Institute in 1800 (g
ventose, l’an IX.), Chaptal, Minister of the Interior,
thought it well to establish in France a regular cor-
respondence of meteorological observations made
daily at different points remote from each other, and
he conferred the direction of it on Lamarck. This
system of meteorological reports lasted but a short
time, and was not maintained by Chaptal’s successor.
After three of these annual reports had appeared,
Lamarck rather suddenly stopped publishing them,
and an incident occurred in connection with their
cessation which led to the story that he had suffered
ill treatment and neglect from Napoleon I.

* ‘© On the Influence of the Moon on the Earth’s Atmosphere,”
Journal de Physique, prairial, l’an VI. (1798).

6 ;

82 LAMARCE, HIS LILLE AND WOK

It has been supposed that Lamarck, who was frank
and at times brusque in character, had made some
enemies, and that he had been represented to the
Emperor as a maker of almanacs and of weather
predictions, and that Napoleon, during a reception,
showing to Lamarck his great dissatisfaction with
the annuals, had ordered him to stop their publica-
tion.

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, w ho really liked Lamarck, spoke to him in
a jocular way about his weather probabilities, and
Lamarck, very much provoked (¢rés contrarté) 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 an-
nual 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 periodi-
cal work. He ended by inviting those who had the
taste for meteorological een tions: and the means
of devoting their time to it, to take up with con-
fidence an enterprise good in itself, based on a
eenuine foundation, and from which the public would
derive advantageous results.”

These opuscles, such as they were, in which
Lamarck treated different subjects bearing on the
winds, great droughts, rainy seasons, tides, etc., be-

SPECULATIONS ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE 83
came the precursors of the Axnuaires du Bureau des
Longitudes.

An observation of Lamarck’s on a rare and curious
form of cloud has quite recently been referred to by
a French meteorologist. It is probable, says M. E.
Durand-Greville in La Nature, November 24, 1900,
that Lamarck was the first to observe the so-called
pocky or festoon cloud, or mammato-cirrus cloud,
which at rare intervals has been observed since his
ties:

Full of over confidence in the correctness of his
views formed without reference to experiments,
although Lavoisier, by his discovery of oxygen in
the years 1772-85, and other researches, had laid
the foundations of the antiphlogistic or modern
chemistry, Lamarck quixotically attempted to sub-
stitute his own speculative views for those of the
discoverers of oxygen—Priestley (1774) and the
great French chemist Lavoisier. Lamarck, in his
fHydrogéologte (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).

* Nature, Dec. 6, Igoo.

84 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

After paying his respects to Priestley, he asks:
“What, then, can be the reason why the views of
chemists and mine are so opposed?” and complains
that the former have avoided all written discussion
on this subject. And this after his three physico-
chemical works, the Refutation, the Recherches, and
the AZémotres had appeared, and seemed to chemists
to be unworthy of a reply.

It must be admitted that Lamarck was on this
occasion unduly self-opinionated and stubborn in ad-
hering to such views at a time when the physical
sciences were being placed on a firm and lasting
basis by experimental philosophers. The two great
lessons of science—to suspend one’s judgment and to
wait for more light in theoretical matters on which
scientific men were so divided—and the necessity of
adhering to his own line of biological study, where
he had facts of his own observing on which to rest
his opinions, Lamarck did not seem ever to have
learned.

The excuse for his rash and quixotic course in re-
spect to his physico-chemical vagaries is that he had
great mental activity. Lamarck was a synthetic
philosopher. He had been brought up in the ency-
clopedic period of learning. He had from his early
manhood been deeply interested in physical subjects.
In middle age he probably lived a very retired life,
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 of
discussion.

SRE CULATLONS ON EPHVSICAL SCIEN CL 85

A very just and discriminating judge of Lamarck’s
work, Professor Cleland, 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 vol-
umes of worthless chemistry without experimental
basis, as well as into spending much time in fruitless
meteorological predictions.” (Auzcye. Brit., Art. La-
MARCK.)

How a modern physicist regards Lamarck’s views
on physics may be seen by the following statement
kindly written for this book by Professor Carl Barus
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 inter-
est 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 oc-
cult 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 few calorique, et le feu fixé”’ might be in-

“86 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

terpreted with reference to the modern doctrine of
energy; but it is certain that Lamarck, antedating
Fresnel, Carnot, Ampére, not to mention their great
followers, had not the faintest inkling of the possi-
bility 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 commer-
cially 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, I1go0:

“Excuse delay in replying to your inquiry as to
the chemical status of the French naturalist, La-
marck. Not until this morning have I found it con-
venient to go to the Library of Congress. That Li-
brary has not the Recherches nor the Mémotres, but
the position of Lamarck is well known. He had no
influence on chemistry, and his name is not men-

SPECULATIONS (ON@PTV SICAL SCIENCE 37

tioned in the principal histories cf chemistry. He
made no experiments, but depended upon his imagi-
nation for his facts; he opposed the tenets of the
new French school founded by Lavoisier, and _ pro-
posed a fanciful scheme of abstract principles that
remind one of alchemy.

“Cuvier, in his loge (Mémoires Acad. Royale des
Sciences, 1832), estimates Lamarck correctly as re-
spects his position in physical science.”

Lamarck boldly carried the principle of change and
evolution into inorganic nature by the same law of
change of circumstances producing change of species.

Under the head, “ De l’espéce parmi les minéraux,”
p. 149, the author states that he had for a long time
supposed that there were no species among minerals.
Here, also, he doubts, and boldly, if not rashly, in
this case, opposes accepted views, and in this field,
as elsewhere, shows, at least, his independence of
thought.

"hey 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 com-
Osea.

He enlarges on this subject through eight pages.
He was evidently led to take this view from his as-
sumption that everything, every natural object, or-
ganic or inorganic, undergoes a change. But it may

88 LAMARKCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

be objected that this view will not apply to minerals,
because those of the archzan rocks do not differ, and
have undergone no change since then to the present
time, unless we except such minerals as are alteration
products due to metamorphism. The primary laws
of nature, of physics, and of chemistry are unchange-
able, while change, progression from the generalized
to the specialized, is distinctly characteristic of the
organic as opposed to the inorganic world.

Crear iE. Whi
LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY

WHATEVER may be said of his chemical and phy-
sical lucubrations, Lamarck in his geological and
paleontological writings is, despite their errors, al-
ways suggestive, and in some most important respects
in advance of his time. And this largely for the rea-
son that he had once travelled, and to some extent
observed geological phenomena, in the central regions
of France, in Germany, and Hungary ; visiting mines
and collecting ores and minerals, besides being in a
degree familiar with the French cretaceous fossils,
but more especially those of the tertiary strata of
Paris and its vicinity. He had, therefore, from his
own experience, slight as it was, some solid grounds
of facts and observations on which to meditate and
from which to reason.

He did not attempt to touch upon cosmological
theories—chaos and creation—but, rather, confined
himself to the earth, and more particularly to the ac-
tion of the ocean, and to the changes which he believed
to be due to organic agencies. The most impressive
truth in geology is the conception of the immensity
of past time, and this truth Lamarck fully realized.
His views are to be found in a little book of 268
pages, entitled Hydrogéologie. It appeared in 1802

90 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

(an X.), or ten years before the first publication of
Cuvier’s famous Descours sur les Revolutions de la
Surface du Globe (1812). Written in his popular and
attractive style, and thoroughly in accord with the
cosmological and theological prepossessions of the
age, the Discours was widely read, and passed through
many editions. On the other hand, the Aydro-
géologie died stillborn, with scarcely a friend or a
reader, never reaching a second edition, and is now,
like most of his works, a bibliographical rarity.

The only writer who has said a word in its favor,
or contrasted it with the work of Cuvier, is the ju-
dicious and candid Huxley, who, though by no 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 Dzscours 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.” *

Before summarizing the contents of this book, let
us glance at the geological atmosphere—thin and
tenuous as it was then—in which Lamarck lived.
The credit of being the first observer, before Steno
(1669), to state that fossils are the remains of animals
which were once alive, is due to an Italian, Frasca-
tero, of Verona, who wrote in 1517.

* Evolution in Biology, in Darwiniana, New York, 1896, p. 212.

LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY gI

“But, says Wyell\* “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 and executed some
navigable canals in Northern Italy, and who was an
observer of rare penetration and judgment, saw how
fossil shells were formed, saying that the mud of
rivers had covered and penetrated into the interior of
fossil shells at a time when these were still at the
bottom of the sea near the coast.t

That versatile and observing genius, Bernard
Palissy, as early as 1580, in a book entitled The Orz-
gin of Springs from Rain-water, and in other writings,
criticized the notions of the time, especially of Italian
writers, that petrified shells had all been left by the
universal deluge.

“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 pres-
ence of all the doctors, that fossil shells were veritable
shells deposited at some time by the sea in the places

* Principles of Geology.
t Lyell’s Principles of Geology, 8th edit., p. 22.

92 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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.” *

Then succeeded, at the end) of ‘the seventeenth
century, the forerunners of modern geology: Steno
(1669), Leibnitz (1683), Ray (1692), Woodward (1695),
Vallisneri (1721), while Moro published his views in
1745. In the eighteenth century Réaumur + (1720)
presented a paper on the fossil shells of Touraine.

Cuvier ¢ thus pays his respects, in at least an un-
sympathetic way, to the 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 pre-
tended 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, alto-
gether ‘seemed tomrender it foreion. 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 with glaring errors and fantastic
misconceptions, but were none the less germinal.
Leibnitz was the first to propose the nebular hypoth-
esis, which was more fully elaborated by Kant and
Laplace. Buffon, influenced by the writing of Leib-

* Quoted from Flouren’s Eloge Historique de Georges Cuvier,
Hoefer’s edition. Paris, 1854.

+ Remargques sur les Coguilles fossiles de quelques Cantons de la
Touraine. Mém. Acad. Sc. Paris, 1720, pp. 400-417.

t Eloge Historique de Werner, p. 113.

LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY 93

nitz, in his 7kéorte de la Terre, published in 1740,
adopted his notion of an original volcanic nucleus
and a universal ocean, the latter as he thought leav-
ing the land dry by draining into subterranean cav-
erns. He also dimly saw, or gathered from his read-
ing, that the mountains and valleys were due to
secondary causes; that fossiliferous strata had been
deposited by ocean currents, and that rivers had
transported materials from the highlands to the low-
lands. He also states that many of the fossil shells
which occur in Europe do not live in the adjacent
seas, and that there are remains of fishes and of
plants not now living in Europe, and which are
either extinct or live in more southern climates, and
others in tropical seas. Also that the bones and
teeth of elephants and of the rhinoceros and hippo-
potamus found in Siberia and elsewhere in northern
Europe and Asia indicate that these animals must
have lived there, though at present restricted to the
tropics. In his last essay, Epogues de la Nature
(1778), he claims that the earth’s history may be
divided into epochs, from the earliest to the present
time. The first epoch was that of fluidity, of incan-
descence, when the earth and the planets assumed
their form; the second, of cooling; the third, when
the waters covered the earth, and volcanoes began
to be active; the fourth, that of the retreat of the
seas, and the fifth the age when the elephants, the
hippopotamus, and other southern animals lived in
the regions of the north; the sixth, when the two
continents, America and the old world, became sepa-
rate; the seventh and last being the age of man.

04 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

Above all, by his attractive style and bold sugges-
tions he popularized the subjects and created an in-
terest in these matters and a spirit of inquiry which
spread throughout France and the rest of Europe.
But notwithstanding the crude and uncritical na-
ture of the writings of the second half of the eight-
eenth century, resulting from the lack of that more
careful and detailed observation which characterizes
our day, there was during this period a widespread
interest in physical and natural science, and it led up
to that more exact study of nature which signal-
izes the nineteenth century. ‘ More new truths
concerning the external world,” says Buckle, ‘were
discovered in France during the latter half of the
eighteenth century than during all preceding periods
put ogether./ * As Perkins }osayse co alnterest sin
scientific study, as in political investigation, seemed
to rise suddenly from almost complete inactivity to
extraordinary development. In both departments
English thinkers had led the way, but if the impulse
to such investigations came from without, the work
done in France in every branch of scientific research
during the eighteenth century was excelled by no
other nation, and England alone could assert any
claim to results of equal importance. The researches
of Coulomb in electricity, of Buffon in geology, of
Lavoisier in chemistry, of Daubenton in comparative
anatomy, carried still farther by their illustrious suc-
cessors towards the close of the century, did much
to establish conceptions of the universe and its laws

* HTistory of Civilization, i. p. 627.
+ France under Louis XV., p. 359.

LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY 95

upon a scientific basis.”” And not only did Rousseau
make botany fashionable, but Goldsmith wrote from
Paris; in 1755 0 have Sceneas-brieht a. circle’ of
beauty at the chemical lectures of Rouelle as gracing
the court of Versailles.” Petit lectured on astron-
omy to crowded houses, and among his listeners were
gentlemen and ladies of fashion, as well as profes-
sional students.* The popularizers of science during
this period were Voltaire, Montesquieu, Alembert,
Diderot, and other encyclopzdists.

Here should be mentioned one of Buffon’s contem-
poraries and countrymen ; one who was the first true
field geologist, an observer rather than a compiler or
theorist. This was Jean E. Guettard (1715-1786).
He published, says Sir Archibald Geikie, in his valu-
able work, Zhe Founders of Geology, about two hun-
dred papers on a wide range of scientific subjects,
besides half a dozen quarto volumes of his observa-
tions, together with many excellent plates. Geikie
also states that he is undoubtedly entitled to rank
among the first great pioneers of modern geology.
He was the first (1751) to make a geological map of
northern France, and roughly traced the limits of his
three bands or formations from France across the
southeastern English counties. In his work on “ The
degradation of mountains effected in our time by
heavy rains, rivers, and the sea,’+ he states that the

* France under Louts XV., p. 300.

+See vol. iii, of his A/émotres sur differentes Parties des
Sctences et des Arts, pp. 209-403. Geikie does not give the date
of the third volume of his work, but it was apparently about 1771,
as vol. ii. was published in 1770. I copy Geikie’s account of Guet-
tard’s observations often in his own words,

96 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

sea is the most potent destroyer of the land, and that
the material thus removed is deposited either on the
land or along the shores of the sea. Hethought that
the levels of the valleys are at present being raised,
owing to the deposit of detritus in them. He points
out that the deposits laid down by the ocean do not
extend far out to sea, “that consequently the eleva-
tions of new mountains in the sea, by the deposition
of sediment, is a process very difficult to conceive ;
that the transport of the sediment as far as the equa-
tor is not less improbable; and that still more diffi-
cult to accept is the suggestion that the sediment
from our continent is carried into the seas of the
New World. In short, we are still very little ad-
vanced towards the theory of the earth as it now
exists.” Guettard was the first to discover the vol-
canoes 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 was
thus the first Neptunist, while, as Geikie states, his
“observations in Auvergne practically started the
Vulcanist camp.”

We now come to Lamarck’s own time. He must
have been familiar with the results of Pallas’s travels
in Russia and Siberia (1793-94). The distinguished
German zoélogist and geologist, besides working out
the geology of the Ural Mountains, showed, in 1777,
that there was a general law in the formation of all
mountain chains composed chiefly of primary rocks; *
the granitic axis being flanked by schists, and these

* Lyell’s Principles of Geoloczy.
P, or,

LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY 97

by fossiliferous strata. From his obsérvations made
on the Volga and about its mouth, he presented
proofs of the former extension, in comparatively re-
cent times, of the Caspian Sea. But still more preg-
nant and remarkable was his discovery of an entire
rhinoceros, with its flesh and skin, in the frozen soil
of Siberia. His memoir on this animal places him
among the forerunners of, if not within the ranks of,
the founders of palzontology.

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

Lamarck must have taken much interest in the
famous controversy between the Vulcanists and Nep-
tunists. He visited Freyburg in 1771; whether he
met Werner is not known, as Werner began to
lecture in 1775. He must have personally known
Faujas of Paris, who, in 1779, published his description
of the volcanoes of Vivarais and Velay; while Des-
marest’s (1725-1815) elaborate work on the volcanoes
of Auvergne, published in 1774, in which he proved
the igneous origin of basalt, was the best piece of
geological exploration which had yet been accom-
plished, and is still a classic.*

Werner (1750-1817), the propounder of the Nep-
tunian theory, was one of the founders of modern
geology and of paleontology. His work entitled

* Geikie states that the doctrine of the origin of valleys by the
erosive action of the streams which flow through them, though it has
been credited to various writers, was first clearly taught from actual
concrete examples by Desmarest. L.c., p. 65.

if

93 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

Ueber adie atissern Kennzetchen der Fossilien ap-
peared in 1774; his Kurze Klassifikation und Be-
schretbung der Gebtrgsarten in 1787. He discovered
the law of the superposition of stratified rocks,
though he wrongly considered volcanic rocks, such as
basalt, to be of aqueous origin, being as he supposed
formed of chemical precipitates from water. But he
was the first to state that the age of different forma-
tions can be told by their fossils, certain species
being confined to particular beds, while others ranged
throughout whole formations, and others seemed to
occur in several different formations; “the original
species found in these formations appearing to have
been so constituted as to live through a variety of
changes which had destroyed hundreds of other
species which we find confined to particular beds.” *
His views as regards fossils, as Jameson states, were
probably not known to Cuvier, and it is more than
doubtful whether Lamarck knew of them. He
observed that fossils appear first in “ transition” or
palaozoic strata, and were mainly corals and molluscs;
that in the older carboniferous rocks the fossils are
of higher types, such as fish and amphibious animals ;
while in the tertiary or alluvial strata occur the re-
mains of birds and quadrupeds. He thought that
marine plants were more ancient than land plants.
His studies led him to infer that the fossils con-
tained in the oldest rocks are very different from any
of the species of the present time; that the newer the
formation, the more do the remains approach in form

* Jameson's Cuvier’s Theory of the Earth, New York, 1818.

A

LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY 99

to the organic beings of the present creation, and
that in the very latest formations, fossil remains of
species now existing occur. Such advanced views as
these would seem to entitle Werner to rank as one of
the founders of palaontology.*

Hutton’s Theory of the Earth appeared in 1785,
and in a more developed state, as a separate work, in
1795.{ ‘‘ The ruins of an older world,” he said, “are
visible in the present structure of our planet, and the
strata which now compose our continents have been
once beneath the sea, and were formed out of the
waste of preéxisting continents. The same forces are
still destroying, by chemical decomposition or mechan-
ical violence, even the hardest rocks, and transport-
ing the materials to the sea, where they are spread
out and form strata analogous to those of more
ancient date. Although loosely deposited along the
bottom of the ocean, they became afterwards altered
and consolidated by volcanic heat, and were then
heaved up, fractured, and contorted.” Again he said:
‘In the economy of the world I can find no traces of
a beginning, no prospect of an end.” As Lyell re-
marks: “ Hutton imagined that the continents were
first gradually destroyed by aqueous degradation,
and when their ruins had furnished materials for new

* J. G. Lehmann of Berlin, in 1756, first formally stated that there
was some regular succession in the strata, his observations being
based on profiles of the Hartz and the Erzgebirge. He proposed
the names Zechstein, Kupferschiefer, rothes Todtliegendes, which
still linger in German treatises. G. C. Fuchsel (1762) wrote on the
stratigraphy of the coal measures, the Permian and the later systems
in Thuringia. (Zittel.)

+ James Hutton was born at Edinburgh, June 3, 1726, where he died
March 26, 1797.

100 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

continents, they were upheaved by violent convul-
sions. He therefore required alternate periods of
general disturbance and repose.”

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

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

Lamarck’s Contributions to Physical Geology; his
Theory of the Earth.

Such were the amount and kind of knowledge re-
garding the origin and structure of our earth which
existed at the close of the eighteenth century, while
Lamarck was meditating his Hydrog¢ologie, and had
begun to study the invertebrate fossils of the Paris
tertiary basin.

His object, he says in his work, is to present cer-
tain considerations which he believed to be new and
of the first order, which. had escaped the notice of
physicists, and which seemed to him should serve as
the foundations for a good theory of the earth. His
theses are:

1. What are the natural consequences of the in-

fluence and the movements of the waters on the sur-
face of the globe?

LAMARCE’S WORK IN GEOLOGY IOI

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 pro-
jecting 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 hypotheses based on supposititious princi-
ples, but nevertheless, as we shall see, he falls into this
same error, and like others of his period makes some
preposterous hypotheses, though these are far less so
than those of Cuvier’s Descours. He distinguishes
between the action of rivers or of fresh-water cur-
rents, torrents, storms, the melting of snow, and the
work of the ocean. The rivers wear away and bear
materials from the highlands to the lowlands, so that
the plains are gradually elevated; ravines form and
become immense valleys, and their sides form ele-
vated crests and pass into mountains ranges.

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

“Tt 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 froma
plain, where its mass is gradually formed, and was a

102 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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 re-
duced its herent.”

Now this will apply perfectly well to our table-
lands, mesas, the mountains of our bad-lands, even
to our Catskills and to many elevations of this nature
in France and in northern Africa. But Lamarck un-
fortunately does not stop here, but with the zeal of
an innovator, by no means confined to his time alone,
claims that the mountain masses of the Alps and the
Andes were carved out of plains which had been
raised above 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 sit-
uated 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 riv-
ers; 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 op-
posite shores which the sea tends to invade.

“The other cause, as we shall see, is found in the

LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY 103
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 situa-
tion 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 (¢fazsseur) 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 in-
crease 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 with-
out 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, cradually increases the thickness
of its external bed, multiplies there the mineral mat-
ters of all kinds and gradually elevates the formation.”

Our author, as is evident, had no conception, nor
had any one else at the time he wrote, of the slow

104 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

secular elevation of a continental plateau by crust-
movements, and Lamarck’s idea of the formation of
elevated plains on land by the accumulation of débris
of organisms is manifestly inadequate, our aérial or
eolian rocks and loess being wind-deposits of sand
and silt rather than matters of organic origin. ‘Thus
he cites as an example of his theory the vast elevated
plains of Tartary, which he thought had been dry
land from time immemorable, though we now know
that the rise took place in the quaternary or present
period. On the other hand, given these vast elevated
plains, he was correct in affirming that rivers flowing
through them wore out enormous valleys and carved
out high mountains, left standing by atmospheric
erosion, for examples of such are to be seen in the
valley of the Nile, the Colorado, the Upper Missouri,
GUC:

He then distinguishes between granitic or crystal-
line mountains, and those composed of stratified
rocks and volcanic mountains.

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

Our author did not at all understand the causes of
the inclination or tilting up of strata. Little close
observation or field work had yet been done, and the
rocks about Paris are but slightly if at all disturbed.
He attributes the dipping down of strata to the in-
clination of the shores of the sea, though he adds
that nevertheless it is often due to local subsi-
dences. And then he remarks that “indeed in many

LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY 105

mountains, and especially in the Pyrenees, in the very
centre of these mountains, we observe that the strata
are for the most part either vertical 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 catas-
trophe, 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 moun-
tains may have been produced by other causes, and
especially by causes more natural and less hypotheti-
cal than a general overturning of strata.”

While streams of fresh water tend to fill up and
destroy the ocean basins, he also insists that the
movements of the sea, such as the tides, currents,
storms, submarine volcanoes, etc., on the contrary,
tend to unceasingly excavate and reéstablish these
basins. Of course we now know that tides and
currents have no effect in the ocean depths, though
their scouring effects near shore in shallow waters have
locally had a marked effect in changing the relations
of land and sea. Lamarck went so far as to insist
that the ocean basin owes its existence and its preser-
vation to the scouring action of the tides and currents.

The earth’s interior was, in Lamarck’s opinion,
solid, formed of quartzose and silicious rocks, and its
centre of gravity did not coincide with its geograph-
ical centre, or what he calls the centre de forme. He
imagined also that the ocean revolved around the
globe from east to west, and that this movement, by

106 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

its continuity, displaced the ocean basin and made it
pass successively over all the surface of the earth.
Then, in the third chapter, he asks if the basin of
the sea has always been where we now actually see it,
and whether we find proofs of the sojourn of the sea
in the place where it is now absent; if so, what are
the causes of these changes. He reiterates his strange
idea of a general movement of the ocean from east to
west, at the rate of at least three leagues in twenty-
four hours and due to the moon’s influence. And
here Lamarck, in spite of his uniformitarian principles,
is strongly cataclysmic. What he seems to have in
mind is the great equatorial current between Africa
and the West Indies. To this perpetual movement of
the waters of the Atlantic Ocean he ventures to at-
tribute the excavation of the Gulf of Mexico, and
presumes that at the end of ages it will break through
the Isthmus of Panama, and transform America into
two great islands or two small continents. Not under-
standing that the islands 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, and the currents thus formed “in their
efforts to move westward, arrested by America and by
the eastern coasts of China, were in great part diverted
towards the South Pole, and seeking to break through
a passage across the ancient continent have, a long time
since, reduced the portion of this continent which
united New Holland to Asia into an archipelago
which comprises the Molucca, Philippine, and Mariana
Islands.” The West Indies and Windward Islands

LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY 107

were formed by the same means, and the sea not
breaking through the Isthmus of Panama was turned
southward, and the action of its currents resulted in
detaching the island of Tierra del Fuego from South
America. In like manner New Zealand was separated
from New Holland, Madagascar from Africa, and
Ceylon from India.

He then refers to other “displacements of the
ocean basin,’ to the shallowing of the Straits of
Sunda, of the Baltic Sea, the ancient subsidence of
the coast of Holland and Zealand, and states that
Sweden offers all the appearance of having recently
emerged from the sea, while the Caspian Sea, formerly
much larger than at present, was once in communi-
cation with the Black Sea, and that some day the
Straits of Sunda and the Straits of Dover will be dry
land, so that the union of England and France will
be formed anew.

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

This idea, that the sea and not the land has changed
its levél, was generally held at the time Lamarck wrote,
though Strabo had made the shrewd observation that
it was the land which moved. The Greek geographer
threw aside the notion of some of his contemporaries,

108 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

and with wonderful prevision, considering the time he
wrote and the limited observations he could make,
claimed that it is not the sea which has risen or fallen,
but the land itself which is sometimes raised up and
sometimes depressed, while the sea-bottom may also
be elevated or sunk down. He refers to such facts
as deluges, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions, 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 conti-
nents 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.” *

But it was not until eighteen centuries later that
this doctrine, under the teachings of Playfair, Leo-
pold von Buch, and Elie de Beaumont (1829-30)
became generally accepted. In 1845 Humboldt re-
marked, “It is a fact to-day recognized by all geolo-
gists, that the rise of continents is due to an actual
upheaval, and not to an apparent subsidence occa-
sioned by a general depression of the level of the
sea.’ (Cosmas, 1). Yet) as late as+ 1860 we have an
essay by H. Trautschold ¢ in which is a statement
of the arguments which can be brought forward in
favor of the doctrine that the increase of the land
above sea level is due to the retirement of the sea.

x
* Quoted from Lyell’s Principles of Geology, eighth edit., p. 17.
+ Bulletin Société Imp. des Naturalistes de Moscou, xlii. (1869),
pt. I, p. 4, quoted from Geikie’s Geology, p. 276, footnote.
t Suess also, in his Antz, etc., substitutes for the folding of the
earth’s crust by tangential pressure the subsidence by gravity of por-
tions of the crust, their falling in obliging the sea to follow. Suess

LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY 109

As authentic and unimpeachable proofs of the
former existence of the sea where now it is absent,
Lamarck cites the occurrence of fossils in rocks in-
land. Lamarck’s first paper on fossils was read to
the Institute in 1799, or about three years previous
to the publication of the Hydrogcologie. Ue restricts
the term “ fossils’ to vegetable and animal remains,
since the word in his time was by some loosely ap-
plied to minerals as well as fossils; to anything dug
out of the earth. “We find fossils,” he says, ‘on
dry land, even in the middle of continents and large
islands; and not only in places far removed from the
sea, but even on mountains and in their bowels, at
considerable heights, each part of the earth’s surface
having at some time been a veritable ocean bottom.”
He then quotes at length accounts of such instances
from Buffon, and notices their prodigious number,
and that while the greater number are marine, others
are fresh-water and terrestrial shells, and the marine
shells may be divided into littoral and pelagic.

‘This distinction is very important to make, be-
cause 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

also explains the later transgressions of the sea by the progressive ac-
cumulation of sediments which raise the level of the sea by their de-
position at its bottom. Thus he believes that the true factor in the
deformation of the globe is vertical descent, and not, as Neumayr had
previously thought, the folding of the crust.

110 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

lives, the banks which are formed of them, the dif-
ferent 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 the globe are evident indications of a
long sojourn of the sea in the very places where we
observe them.’ Under this heading, after repeating
the statement previously made that fossils occur in
all parts of the dry land, in the midst of the conti-
nents and on high mountains, he inquires dy what
cause so many marine shells could be found in the
explored parts of the world. Discarding the old idea
that they are monuments of the deluge, transformed
into fossils, he denies that there was such a general
catastrophe as a universal deluge, and goes on to say
in his assured, 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 na-
ture, 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 sur-

LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY Tier

face 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 enor-
mous masses of water continually displace themselves,
both their bed and their limits.

“In truth these displacements, which are never in-
terrupted, 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.

“Tf 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 un-
interrupted transfer of the bed of the ocean over the
whole surface of the globe has given place to depos-
its 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 por-
tions 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 for-
mation 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 Pec-
tens, Tellinze, cockle shells, turban shells (sadots), etc.,

Tee LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

madrepores and other littoral polyps, the bones of
marine or of amphibious animals which have lived
near the sea, and which occur as fossils, are then un-
impeachable monuments of the sojourn of the sea on
the points of the dry parts of the globe where we
observe their deposits, and besides these occur deep-
water forms. ‘“ Thus the encrinites, the belemnites,
the orthoceratites, the ostracites, the terebratules,
etc., all animals which habitually live at the bottom,
found for the most part among the fossils deposited
on the point of the globe in question, are unimpeach-
able witnesses which attest that this same place was
once part of 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 he calls deep-
water (pélagiennes). He proves the truth of his thesis
by the following facts:

1. We are already familiar with a marine Gryphza,
and different Terebratulae, 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 pos-
sible 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

LAMARCK'’S WORK IN GEOLOGY 113
one to admit, with Bruguiére,* the existence of deep-
water shell-fish and polyps, which, like him, I distin-
guish 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 dif-
ferent beds in the same bank or in the same moun-

* Brugui¢re (1750-1799), a conchologist of great merit. His de-
scriptions of new species were clear and precise. In his paper on the
coal mines of the mountains of Cevennes (Choix de Mémoires d’ Hist.
Nat., 1792) he made the first careful study of the coal formation in the
Cevennes, including its beds of coal, sandstone, and shale. A. de
Jussieu had previously supposed that the immense deposits of coal
were due to sudden cataclysms or to one of the great revolutions of
the earth during which the seas of the East or West Indies, having
been driven as far as into Europe, had deposited on its soil all these
exotic plants to be found there, after having torn them up on their
way.

But Brugui¢re, who is to be reckoned among the early uniformi-
tarians, says that ‘‘ the capacity for observation is now too well-in-
formed to be contented with such a theory,” and he explains the
formation of coal deposits in the following essentially modern way :

‘* The stores of coal,-although formed of vegetable substances, owe
their origin to the sea. It is when the places where we now find
them were covered by its waters that these prodigious masses of
vegetable substances were gathered there, and this operation of nature,
which astonishes the imagination, far from depending on any extraor-
dinary commotion of the globe, seems, on the contrary, to be only the
result of time, of an order of things now existing, and especially that
of slow changes” (i, pp. 116, I17).

The proofs he brings forward are the horizontality of the beds, both
of coal and deposits between them, the marine shells in the sand-
stones, the fossil fishes intermingled with the plant remains in the
shales ; moreover, some of the coal deposits are covered by beds
of limestone containing marine shells which lived in the sea at a
very great depth. The alternation of these beds, the great mass of
vegetable matter which lived at small distances from the soil which
conceals them, and the occurrence of these beds so high up, show
that at this time Europe was almost wholly covered by the sea, the
summits of the Alps and the Pyrenees being then, as he says, so many
small islands in the midst of the 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 geo-
logical observation and reasoning over any previous writers, while its
suggestions were appreciated and adopted by Lamarck.

8

114 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

tains, 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 pres-
ence 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 any sudden catastrophe, because of
the necessarily long sojourn of the sea to account for
the extensive beds of fossil shells, the remains of
“infinitely multiplied generations of shelled animals
which have lived in this place, and have there succes-
sively deposited their débris.”. He therefore supposes
that these remains, “continually heaped up, have
formed these shell banks, become fossilized after the
lapse of considerable time, and in which it is often
possible to distinguish different beds.” He then con-
tinues his line of anti-catastrophic reasoning, and we
must remember that in his time facts in biology and

LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY 115

geology were feebly grasped, and scientific reasoning
or induction was in its infancy.

“T would again inquire how, in the supposition of
a universal catastrophe, there could have been pre-
served 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 cal-
careous 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 coral/igenous polyps, which
we might therefore call zestaceous 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 minut2 quantity of calca-
reous matter. But in this case what nature does not
obtain in any volume or in quanti'y from any one
individual, she simply receives by the number of ani-
mals in question, through the enormous multiplicity

116 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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 accumulat-
ing; 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, astraez, meandrine,
etc., prepare ona 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 cal-
careous 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 mille-
pores, heaped upon each other, covered and inter-
mingled with serpule, different kinds of oysters,
patella, 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, anda
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 ques-
tion continued to undergo, caused their structure to
gradually disappear, and their great porosity un-
ceasingly diminished the parts of these stony masses

LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY erg

by displacing and again bringing together the mole-
cules 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 przmzteve limestone, because, seeing
in it no traces of shells or corals, they have mistaken
these stony masses for deposits of a matter primi-
tively existing in nature.”

He then reiterates the view that these deposits
of marble and limestones, often forming mountain
ranges, could not have been the result of a universal
catastrophe, and in a very modern way goes on to
specify what the limits of catastrophism are. The
only catastrophes which a naturalist can reasonably
admit as having taken place are partial or local ones,
those dependent on causes acting in isolated places,
such as the disturbances which are caused by vol-
canic eruptions, by earthquakes, by local inundations,
by violent storms, etc. These catastrophes are with
reason admissible, because we observe their analogues,
and because we know that they often happen. He
then gives examples of localities along the coast of
France, as at Manche, where there are ranges of high
hills made up of limestones containing Gryphee,
ammonites, and other deep-water shells.

In the conclusion of the chapter, after stating that
the ocean has repeatedly covered the greater part of
the earth, he then claims that “the displacement
of the sea, producing a constantly variable inequality

TS LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

in the mass of the terrestrial radii, has necessarily
caused the earth’s centre of gravity to vary, as also
its two poles.* Moreover, since it appears that this
variation, very irregular as it is, not being subjected
to any limits, it is very probable that each point of
the surface of the planet we inhabit is really in
the case of successively finding itself subjected to
different climates.” He then exclaims 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 observa-
tions of the Egyptians.

“Oh, how great is the antiquity of the terrestrial
globe, and how small are the ideas of those who at-
tribute 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 i in such great numbers in
all the exposed parts of the globe, ‘both in elevated
situations and at considerable depths i 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

* Hooke had previously, in order to explain the presence of tropi-
cal fossil shells in England, indulged in a variety of speculations
concerning changes in the position of the axis of the earth’s rotation,
a shifting of the earth’s centre of gravity analogous to the revolu-
tions of the magnetic pole, etc.” (Lyell’s Przzciples). See also p. 132.

LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY 119

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.

““TfTow 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

D>
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 neces-
sary to give existence to all the living species such as

we actually see, he is himself the last result and the

120 LAMAKCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

actual maximum of this process of perfecting, the
limit (¢erme) 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 his earlier works on
physics and chemistry. He claims that the minerals
and rocks composing the earth’s crust are all of
organic origin, including even granite. The thick-
ness of this crust he thinks, in the absence of positive
knowledge, to be from three to four leagues, or from
nine to twelve miles.

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

While, then, the products of animals such as corals
and molluscs are limestones, those of vegetables are
humus and clay; and all of these deposits losing their
less fixed principles pass into a silicious condition, and
end by being reduced to quartz, which is the earthy
element in its purest form. The salts, pyrites, and
metals only differ from other minerals by the different
circumstances under which they were accumulated, in
their different proportions, and in their much greater
amount of carbonic or acidific fire.

Regarding granite, which, he says, naturalists very
erroneously consider as primztive, he begins by ob-
serving that it is only by conjecture that we should
designate as primitive any matter whatever. He
recognizes the fact that granite forms the highest

LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY ToT

mountains, which are generally arranged in more or
less regular chains. But he strangely assumes that
the constituents of granite, z.¢., felspar, quartz, and
mica, did not exist before vegetables, and that these
minerals and their aggregation into granite were the
result of slow deposition in the ocean.* He goes so far
as to assert that the porphyritic rocks were not thus
formed in the sea, but that they are the result of depos-
its carried down by streams, especially torrents flowing
down from mountains. Gneiss, he thinks, resulted from
the detritus of granitic rocks, by means of an inappre-
ciable cement, and formed in a way analogous to that
of the porphyries.

Then he attacks the notion of Leibnitz of a liquid
globe, in which all mineral substances were precipitated
tumultuously, replacing this idea by his chemical no-
tion of the origin of the crystalline and volcanic rocks.

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

In the “Addition” (pp. 173-188) following the fourth
chapter Lamarck states that, allowing for the varia-
tions in the intensity of the cause of elevation of the
land as the result of the accumulations of organic

* Cuvier, in a footnote to his Yzscours (sixth edition, p. 49), in
referring to this view, states that it originated with Rodig (Za Physique,
P. 106, Leipzig, t8or1) and De Maillet (Ze//iamed, tome ii, p. 169),

‘*also an infinity of new German works.”” Headds: ‘‘ M. de Lamarck
has recently expanded this system in France at great length in his
Hydrogéologie and in his Philosophie zoologique.” Is the Rodig re-
ferred to Ih. Chr. Rodig, author of Bettrdge sur Naturwissenschast
(Leipzig, 1803. 8°)? We have been unable to discover this view in De
Maillet ; Cuvier’s reference to p. 169 is certainly incorrect, as quite a
different subject is there discussed.

122 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

matter, he thinks he can, without great error, consider
the mean rate as 324 mm. (1 foot)a century. Asa
concrete example it has been observed, he says, that
one river valley has risen a foot higher in the space of
eleven years.

Passing by his speculations on the displacement of
the poles of the earth, and on the elevations of the
equatorial regions, which will dispense with the neces-
sity of considering the earth as originally in a liquid
condition, he allows that “the terrestrial globe is not
at all a body entirely and truly solid, but that it is
a combination (réunzzon) of bodies more or less solid,
displaceable in their mass or in their separate parts,
and among which there is a great number which
undergo continual changes in condition.”

It was, of course, too early in the history of geology
for Lamarck to seize hold of the fact, now so well
known, that the highest mountain ranges, as the Alps,
Pyrenees, the Caucasus, Atlas ranges, and the Moun-
tains of the Moon (he does not mention the Hima-
layas) are the youngest, and that the lowest mountains,
especially those in the more northern parts of the con-
tinents, are but the roots or remains of what were
originally lofty mountain ranges. His idea, on the
contrary, was, that the high mountain chains above
mentioned were the remains of ancient equatorial
elevations, which the fresh waters, for an enormous
multitude of ages, were in the process of progressively
eroding and wearing down.

What he says of the formation of coal is note-
worthy:

‘““Wherever there are masses of fossil wood buried

LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY 123

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 in his opening lecture of his
course given in the year IX. (1801), and which would
be the subject of his projected work, Bzologie, the
third and last part of the Terrestrial Physics, a work
which was not published, but which was probably
comprised in his Phzlosophie soologique.

The Hydrogéologie closes with a “ Mémoire sur la
matiere du feu” and one “sur la maticre du son,”
both being reprinted from the Journal de Physique.

Clabes Ved aia 1 DL€

LAMARCK THE FOUNDER OF INVERTEBRATE PALA-
ONTOLOGY

Ir was fortunate for paleontology that the two
createst zodlogists of the 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 cretaceous rocks packed with
fossil invertebrates. With their then unrivalled
knowledge of recent or existing forms, they could
restore the assemblages of extinct animals which
peopled the cretaceous ocean, and more especially the
tertiary seas and lakes.

Lamarck drew his supplies of tertiary shells from
the tertiary beds situated within a radius of from
twenty-five to thirty miles from the centre of Paris,
and chiefly from the village of Grignon, about ten
miles west of Paris, beyond Versailles, and still a rich
collecting ground for the students of the Museum
and Sorbonne. He acknowledges the aid received
from Defrance,* who had already collected at Grignon
five 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

* Although Defrance (born 1759, died in 1850) aided Lamarck in
collecting tertiary shells, his earliest paleontological paper (on Hip-
ponyx) did not appear until the year 1819.

WORK IN PALEZONTOLOGY 126

in general was published at the end of his Systeme
des Animaux sans Vertcbres (pp. 401-411), in 1801,
a year before the publication of the AHydrogéologie.
~ h sive the name fossils. he\says. «to. remains: of
living beings, changed by their long sojourn in the
earth or under water, 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 shell remains, being composed of cal-
careous matter. This shell, then, has lost its lustre,
its colors, and often even its nacre, if it had any;
and in this altered condition it is usually entirely
white. In some cases where the shells have remained
for a long period buried in a mud of some particular
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

126 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

of szlictous fossils, and examples of this kind are the
different oysters (‘des ostracites’), many terebratulz
(‘ des terebratulites ’), trigonia, 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 con-
tinents, 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.” *

Conchologists, he says, did not care to collect or
study fossil shells, because they had lost their lustre,
colors, and beauty, and they were rejected from col-
lections on this account as “ dead” and uninteresting.
“But,” he adds, “since attention has been drawn to
the fact that these fossils are extremely valuable
monuments for the study of the revolutions which have
taken place in different regions of the earth, and of
the changes which the beings living there have them-
selves successively undergone (in my lectures I have
always insisted on these considerations), consequently
the search for and study of fossils have excited
special interest, and are now the objects of the
greatest interest to naturalists.”

Lamarck then combats the views of several natu-
ralists, undoubtedly referring to Cuvier, that the fos-

*In a footnote Lamarck refers to an unpublished work, which
probably formed a part of the Wydrogéologie, published in the follow-
ing year. ‘‘Voves a ce sujet mon ouvrage intitulé: De linfluence du
mouvement des eaus sur la surface du globe terrestre, et des indices du
déplacement continuel du bassin des mers, ainsi que de son transport
successif sur les différens points de la surface du globe” (no date).

WORK IN PALAIONTOLOGY 127

sils are extinct species, and that the earth has passed
through a general catastrophe (wx bouleversement unt-
versel) with the result that a multitude of species
of animals and plants were consequently absolutely
lost or destroyed, and remarks in the following telling
and somewhat derisive language:

“A universal catastrophe (douleversement) 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 re-
spects its production and everything which constitutes
itsdomain. I have already elsewhere said what should
be thought of this so-called universal overturning of
the globe; I return to fossils.

“Tt is very true that, of the great quantity of fossil
shells gathered in the different countries of the earth,
there are yet but avery 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

“Tt 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 rig-
orously 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:

“Tam convinced that it is possible never to find,
among fresh or marine shells, any shells perfectly sim-
ilar 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 al-

128 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

though 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 individ-
uals whose fossil remains we have found.”

Then he goes on in the same strain as in the open-
ing discourse, saying that nothing terrestrial remains
constant, that geological changes are continually oc-
curring, and that these changes produce in living or-
ganisms a diversity of habits, a different mode of life,
and as the result modifications or developments in
their organs and in the shape of their 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, any-
thing 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 cf the ani-

WORK IN PALHZONTOLOGY 129

mals 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 un-
doubtedly possible that among the largest animals
some species have been destroyed asia fecult of the
‘multiplication of man in the regions where they live.
But this conjecture cannot be based on the consider-
ation 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 geological succession of organic forms. The
comparatively full and detailed view which we possess
of the different vast assemblages of plant and animal
life which have successively peopled the surface of
our earth is a vision on which his eyes never rested.
His slight, piecemeal glimpse of the animal life of the
Paris Basin, and of the few other extinct forms then
known, was all he had to depend upon or reason from.
He was not disposed to believe that the thread of life
once begun in the earliest times could be arbitrarily
broken by catastrophic means; that there was no re-
lation whatever between the earlier and later faunas.
He utterly opposed Cuvier’s view that species once
formed could ever be lost or become extinct without
ancestors or descendants. He on the contrary be-
lieved that species underwent a slow modification, and
that the fossil forms are the ancestors of the animals
now living. Moreover, Lamarck was the inventor of

9

130 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

the first genealogical tree; his phylogeny, in the
second volume of his Phzlosophie zoologique (p. 463),
proves that he realized that the forms leading up to
the existing ones were practically extinct, as we now
use the word. Lamarck in theory was throughout,
as Houssay well says, at one with us who are now
living, but a century behind us in knowledge of the
facts needed to support his theory.

In this first published expression of his views on
paleontology, we find the following truths enumerated
on which the science is based: (1) The great length of
geological time ; (2) The continuous existence of ani-
mal life all through the different geological periods
without sudden total extinctions and as sudden re-
creations of new assemblages; (3) The physical envi-
ronment remaining practically the same throughout in
general, but with (4) continual gradual but not catas-
trophic changes in the relative distribution of land
and sea and other modifications in the physical geog-
raphy, changes which (5) caused corresponding changes
in the habitat, and (6) consequently in the habits of
the living beings; so that there has been all through
geological history a slow modification of life-forms.

Thus Lamarck’s idea of creation is evolutzonal rather
than wnxtformitarian. There was, from his point of
view, not simply a uniform march along a dead level,
but a progression, a change from the lower or gener-
alized to the higher or specialized—an evolution or
unfolding of organic life. In his effort to disprove
catastrophism he failed to clearly see that species, as
we style them, became extinct, though really the
changes in the species practically amounted to extinc-

WORK IN PALAONTOLOGY it

tions of the earlier species as such. The little that
was known to Lamarck at the time he wrote, pre-
vented his knowing that species became extinct, as
we say, or recognizing the fact that while some
species, genera, and even orders may rise, culminate,
and die, others are modified, while a few persist from
one period to another. He did, however, see clearly
that, taking plant and animal life as a whole, it under-
went a slow modification, the later forms being the
descendants of the earlier; and this truth is the central
one of modern paleontology.

Lamarck’s first memoir on fossil shells, in which he
described many new species, was published in 1802,
after the appearance of his Hydrogcologie, to which
he refers. It was the first of aseries of descriptive
papers, which appeared at intervals from 1802 to
1806. He does not fail to open the series of memoirs
with some general remarks, which prove his broad,
philosophic spirit, that characterizing the founder of
a new science. He begins by saying that the fossil
forms have their analogues in the tropical seas. He
claims that there was evident proof that these
molluscs could not have lived in a climate like that
of places in which they now occur, instancing Mawtz-
linus pompilius, which now lives in the seas of warm
countries; also the presence of exotic ferns, palms,
fossil amber, fossil gum-elastic, besides the occurrence
of fossil crocodiles and elephants both in France and
Germany.*

* It should be stated that the first observer to inaugurate the com-
parative method was that remarkable forerunner of modern paleon-
tologists, Steno the Dane, who was for a while a professor at Padua.

132 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

Hence there have been changes of climate since
these forms flourished, and, he adds, the intervals
between these changes of climate were stationary
periods, whose duration was practically without
limit. He assigns a duration to these station-

In 1669, in his treatise entitled De Solido intra Solidum naturaliter
contento, which Lyell translates ‘‘On gems, crystals, and organic
petrefactions inclosed within solid rocks,” he showed, by dissecting a
shark from the Mediterranean, that certain fossil teeth found in Tus-
cany were also those of some shark. ‘‘ He had also compared the
shells discovered in the Italian strata with living species, pointed out
their resemblance, and traced the various gradations from shells merely
calcined, or which had only lost their animal gluten, to those petre-
factions in which there was a perfect substitution of stony matter”
(Lyell’s Principles, p. 25). About twenty years afterwards, the
English philosopher Robert Hooke, in a discourse on earthquakes,
written in 1688, but published posthumously in 1705, was aware that
the fossilammonites, nautili, and many other shells and fossil skeletons
found in England, were of different species from any then known ; but
he doubted whether the species had become extinct, observing that
the knowledge of naturalists of all the marine species, especially
those inhabiting the deep sea, was very deficient. In some parts of his
writings, however, he leans to the opinion that species had been lost.
Some species, he observes with great sagacity, ‘‘are fecultar to certain
places, and not to be found elsewhere.” Turtles and such large
ammonites as are found in Portland seem to have been the productions
of hotter countries, and he thought that England once lay under the
sea within the torrid zone (Lyell’s Principles).

Gesner the botanist, of Zurich, also published in 1758 an excellent
treatise on petrefactions and the changes of the earth which they
testify. He observed that some fossils, ‘‘such as ammonites,
gryphites, belemnites, and other shells, are either of unknown species
or found only in the Indian and other distant seas” (Lyell’s Prtzciples).

Geikie estimates very highly Guettard’s labors in paleontology, say-
ing that ‘‘ his descriptions and excellent drawings entitle him to rank
as the first great leader of the paleontological school of France.” He
published many long and elaborate memoirs containing brief de-
scriptions, but without specific names, and figured some hundreds of
fossil shells. He was the first to recognize trilobites (Illaenus) in the
Silurian slates of Angers, in a memoir published in 1762. Some of
his generic names, says Geikie, ‘‘ have passed into the languages of
modern paleontology, and one of the genera of chalk sponges which
he described has been named after him, Guetfardia. In his memoir
‘*On the accidents that have befallen fossil shells compared with those
which are found to happen to shells now living in the sea” (Trans.
Acad. Roy. Sciences, 1765, pp. 189, 329, 399) he shows that the

WORK IN PALZONTOLOGY 132
ary or intermediate periods of from three to five
million years each — “a duration infinitely small
relative to those required for all the changes of the
earth’s surface.”

He refers in an appreciative way to the first special
treatise on fossil shells ever published, that of an
Englishman named Brander,* who collected the shells
“out of the cliffs by the sea-coast between Christ
Church and Lymington, but more especially about
the cliffs by the village of Hordwell,” where the strata
are filled with these fossils. Lamarck, working upon
collections of tertiary shells from Grignon and also
from Courtagnon near Reims, with the aid of Bran-
der’s work showed that these beds, not known to
be Eocene, extended into Hampshire, England; thus
being the first to correlate by their fossils, though
in a limited way to be sure, the tertiary beds of
France with those of England.

How he at a later period (1805) regarded fossils

beds of fossil shells on the land present the closest possible analogy
to the flow of the present sea, so that it becomes impossible to doubt
that the accidents, such as broken and worn shells, which have affected
the fossil organisms, arose from precisely the same causes as those of
exactly the same nature that still befall their successors on the existing
ocean bottom. On the other hand, Geikie observes that it must be
acknowledged ‘‘ that Guettard does not seem to have had any clear
ideas of the sequence of formations and of geological structures.”

* Scheuchzer’s ‘‘ Complaint and Vindication of the Fishes” (Pisczum
Querelae et Vindiciae, Germany, 1708), ‘‘a work of zodlogical merit,
in which he gave some good plates and descriptions of fossil fish”’
(Lyell). Gesner’s treatise on pretrefactions preceded Lamarck’s work
in this direction, as did Brander’s Fossidlia 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 animals and testacea were, for the most part, of unknown
species, and of such as were known the living analogues now belonged
to southern latitudes” (Lyell’s Principles, eighth edition, p. 46).

134 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK
and their relations to geology may be seen in his
later memoirs, Sur les Fosstles des environs de Paris.*

“ 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 prog-
ress 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 ex-
isted, 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 rev-
olutions which the surface of our globe has under-
gone, 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 basin extended through the first eight vol-
umes of the Aznales, and were gathered into a
volume published in 1806. In his descriptions his
work was comparative, the fossil species being com-
pared with their living representatives. The thirty
plates, containing 483 figures representing 184 species
(exclusive of those figured by Brard), were afterwards
published, with the explanations, but not the descrip-
tions, as a separate volume inj1823.17 This (the text

* Annales du Muséum a’ Histoire Naturelle, vi., 1805, pp. 222-228.
t Recueil de Planches des Coguilles fossiles des environs de Paris
(Paris, 1823). There are added two plates of fossil fresh-water shells
(twenty-one species of Limnzea, etc.) by Brard, with sixty-two figures.

WORK IN PALZONTOLOGY 135

published in 1806) is the first truly scientific paleon-
tological work ever published, preceding Cuvier’s
Ossemens fossiles by six years.

When we consider Lamarck’s
rivalled—knowledge of molluscs, his philosophical
treatment of the relations of the study of fossils to
geology, his correlation of the tertiary beds of Eng-
land with those of France, and his comparative de-
scriptions of the fossil forms represented by the exist-
ing shells, it seems not unreasonable to regard him
as the founder of invertebrate paleontology, as Cuvier
was of vertebrate or mammalian paleontology.

We have entered the claim that Lamarck was one
of the chief founders of palazontology, and the first
French author of a genuine, detailed paleontological
treatise. It must be admitted, therefore, that the
statement generally made that Cuvier was the founder
of this science should be somewhat modified, though
he may be regarded as the chief founder of vertebrate
palzontology.

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

Our information as to the history of the rise of
vertebrate paleontology is taken from Blainville’s
posthumous work entitled Cuvzer et Geoffroy Saznt-
Hilaire.* In this work, a severe critical and perhaps
not always sufficiently appreciative account of Cuvier's
character and work, we find an excellent history of
the first beginnings of vertebrate paleontology. Blain-
ville has little or nothing to say of the first steps in

atanicm time Azn-

* Cuvier et Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. Biographies scientifiques, par
Ducrotay de Blainville (Paris, 1890, p. 446).

136 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

invertebrate palzontology, and, singularly enough, not
a word of Lamarck’s principles and of his papers and
works on fossil shells—a rather strange oversight,
because he was a friend and admirer of Lamarck, and
succeeded him in one of the two departments of in-
vertebrates created at the Museum d’Histoire Natu-
relle after Lamarck’s death.

Blainville, who by the way was the first to propose
the word paleontology, shows that the study of the
great extinct mammals had for forty years been held
in great esteem in Germany, before Faujas and Cu-
vier took up the subject in France. Two Frenchmen,
also before 1789, had examined mammalian bones.
Thus Bernard de Jussieu knew of the existence ina
fossil state of the teeth of the hippopotamus. Guet-
tard * published in 1760 a memoir on the fossil bones
of Aix en Provence. Lamanon (1780-1783) + in a
beautiful memoir described a head, almost entire,
found in the gypsum beds of Paris. Daubenton had
also slightly anticipated Cuvier’s law of correlation,
giving ‘“‘a very remarkable example of the mode of
procedure to follow in order to solve these kinds of
questions by the way in which he had recognized a
bone of a giraffe whose skeleton he did not possess”’
(De Blainville).

* “* Mémoire sur des os fossiles découverts auprés de la ville d’Aix
en Provence” (Mém. Acad. Sc., Paris, 1760, pp. 209-220).

+ ‘‘ Sur un os d’une grosseur €énorme qu’on a trouvé dans une couche
de glaise au milieu de Paris; et en général sur les ossemens fossiles
qui ont appartenu a de grands animaux” ( Yournal 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
at Aixen Provence; and in 1783 another article on the fossil bones
belonging to gigantic animals.

WORK IN PALAONTOLOGY 137

“ But it was especially in Germany, in the hands of
Pallas, Camper, Blumenbach, anatomists and _ physi-
cians, also those of Walch, Merck, Hollmann, Esper,
Rosenmiiller, 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 fosstliuim ad genera naturalia pro-
totyporuim — Nov. Comm. Soc. “Scicnt. Goettingensis,
t. ii.), that paleontology applied to quadrupeds had
already settled all that pertained to the largest
species.” -

sy.

As early as 1764, Hollmann * had admirably identi-
fied the bones of a rhinoceros found in a bone-deposit
of the Hartz, although he had no skeleton of this
animal for comparison.

Pallas, in a series of memoirs dating from 1773, had
discovered and distinguished the species of Siberian
elephant or mammoth, the rhinoceros, and the large
species of oxen and buffalo whose bones were found
in such abundance in the quaternary deposits of Si-
beria; and, as Blainville says, if he did not distinguish
the species, it was because at this epoch the question
of the distinction of the two species of rhinoceros and
of elephants, in the absence of material, could not be
solved. This solution, however, was made by the
Dutch anatomist Camper, in 1777, who had brought
together at Amsterdam a collection of skeletons and
skulls of the existing species which enabled him for
the first time to make the necessary comparisons be-
tween the extinct and living species. A few years

* Hollmann had still earlier published a paper entitled De corporumt
marinorim, aliorumque peregrinorum in terra continente origine
(Commentarii Soc. Goettingen., tom. iii., 1753, pp. 285-374).

138 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

later (1780) Blumenbach confirmed Camper’s identifi-
cation, and gave the name of Elephas primigenius to
the Siberian 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 /ossz/ia
instead of fetrefacta, and to name the science which
studies fossils Oryctology. It was also he who admit-
ted 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,* with their analogues. He then passes in
review, following the zodlogical 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 ana-
tomical knowledge; but afterwards the task fell into
the hands of men capable of giving to the newly
created palaontology a remarkable impulse, and one
which since then has not abated.”

Blumenbach,t the most eminent and all-round Ger-
man anatomist and physiologist of his time, one of
the founders of anthropology as well as of palzontol-

* Novi Commentarit Soc. Sc. Goettingensis, tom. ii., Commentat.,
tom. i.

+ His first paleeontological article appears to have been one entitled
Beitrége zur Naturgeschichte der Vorwelt (Lichtenberg, Voiy?t's
Magaz., Bd. vi, S. 4, 1790, pp. I-17). I have been unable to ascer-
tain in which of his publications he describes and names the cave-
bear. :

WORK IN PALZONTOLOGY 139

ogy, had meanwhile established the fact that there
were two species of fossil cave-bear, which he named
Ursus speleus and U. arctoideus. He began to pub-
lish his Arch@ologia telluris,* the first part of which
appeared in 1803.

From Blainville’s useful summary we learn that
Blumenbach, mainly limiting his work to the fossils
of Hanover, aimed at studying fossils in order to ex-
plain 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 or-
ders 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 cele-
brated professor of Géttingen as early as 1803, be-
fore 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 the University of Géttingen, probably
brought Blumenbach’s labors to an end, for after a
second “specimen” of his work, of less importance
than the first, the Arch@ologia telluris was discon-
tinued.

* Specimen archeologia telluris terrarumgue imprimis Hannove-
ran@, pts.i., ii. Cum 4 tabl. aen. 4 maj. Gottinge, 1803.

140 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

The French geologist Faujas,* who also published
several articles on fossil animals, ceased his labors,
and now Cuvier began his memorable work.

The field of the labors and triumphs of paleon-
tology were now transferred to France. We have
seen that the year 1793, when Lamarck and Geof-
froy Saint-Hilaire were appointed to fill the new
zoological chairs, and the latter had in 1795 called
Cuvier from Normandy to Paris, was a time of re-
nascence of the natural sciences in France. Cuvier
began a course of lectures on comparative anatomy
at the Museum of Natural History. He wads more
familiar than any one else in France with the prog-
ress in natural science in Germany, and had felt the
stimulus arising from this source; besides, as Blain-
ville stated, he was also impelled by the questions
boldly raised by Faujas in his geological lectures,
who was somewhat of the school of Buffon. Cuvier,
moreover, had at his disposition the collection of
skeletons of the Museum, which was frequently in-
creased by those of the animals which died in the
menagerie. With his knowledge of comparative anat-
omy, of which, after Vicq-d’Azyr, he was the chief
founder, and with the gypsum quarry of Montmartre,
that rich cemetery of tertiary mammals, to draw
from, he had the whole field before him, and rapidly

* Faujas Saint-Fond wrote articles on fossil bones (1794) ; on fossil
plants both of France (1803) and of Monte Boleca (1820) ; on a fish
from Nanterre (1802) and a fossil turtle (4803) ; on two species of
fossil ox, whose skulls were found in Germany, France, and England
(1803), and on an elephant’s tusk found in the volcanic tufa of Darbres
(1803) ; on the fossil shells of Mayence (1806) ; and on a new genus
(Clotho) of bivalve shells,

WORK IN PALZONTOLOGY 14!

built up his own vast reputation and thus added to
Ene slory.of France.

His first contribution to paleontology * appeared
in 1798, in which he announced his intention of pub-
lishing an extended work on fossil bones of quadru-
peds, to restore the skeletons and to compare them
with those now living, and to determine their rela-
tions and differences; but, says Blainville, in the list
of thirty or forty species which he enumerates in
his tableau, none was apparently discovered by
him, unless it was the species of “ dog”’ of Montmar-
tre, which he afterward referred to his new genera
Paleotherium and Anaplotherium. In 1801 (le 26
brumaire, an IX.) he published, by order of the Insti-
tut, the programme of a work on fossil quadrupeds,
with an increased number of species; but, as Blain-
ville states, “It was not until 1804, and in tome iil.
of the Annales du Muscum, namely, more than three
years after his programme, that he began his publi-
cations by fragments and without any order, while
these publications lasted more than eight years be-
fore they were collected into a general work”; this
“corps ad’ ouvrage’’ being the Ossemens fosstles, which
was issued in 1812 in four quarto volumes, with an
atlas of plates.

Tt is with much interest, then, that we turn to
Cuavier’s great work, which brought him such imme-
diate and widespread fame, in order to see how he
treated his subject. His general views are contained

* Sur les ossemens qui se trouvent dans le gyps de Montmartre
(Bulletin des sciences pour la Société philomatique, tomes I, 2, 17098,
Ppp. 154-155).

142 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

in the preliminary remarks in his well-known “ Essay
on the Theory of the Earth” (1812), which was fol-
lowed in 1821 by his Descours sur les Révolutions de la
Surface du Globe.

It was written in a more attractive and vigorous
style than the writings of Lamarck, more elegant,
concise, and with less repetition, but it is destitute of
the philosophic grasp, and is not the work of a pro-
found thinker, but rather of a man of talent who
was an industrious collector and accurate describer of
fossil bones, of a high order to be sure, but analyti-
cal rather than synthetical, of one knowing well the
value of carefully ascertained and demonstrated facts,
but too cautious, if he was by nature able to do so,
to speculate on what may have seemed to him too
few facts. It is also the work of one who fell in with
the current views of the time as to the general bear-
ing of his discoveries on philosophy and theology,
believing as he did in the universality of the Noa-
chian deluge.

Like Lamarck, Cuvier independently made use of
the comparative method, the foundation method in
paleontology ; and Cuvier’s well-known “ law of corre-
lation of structures,” so well exemplified in the verte-
brates, was a fresh, new contribution to philosophical
biology.

In his Dyzscours, speaking of the difficulty of
determining the bones of fossil quadrupeds, as com-
pared with fossil shells or the remains of fishes, he
remarks : *

* The following account is translated from the fourth edition of the
Ossemens fossiles, vol. I., 1834, also the sixth edition of the Discours,

WORK IN PALZAONTOLOGY 143

“Happily comparative anatomy possessed a prin-
ciple 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, com-
mencing 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 exami-
nation, 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 ad-
vantage for such investigations owing to his fortu-
nate situation in the Museum of Natural History,

separately published in 1830. It does not differ materially from the
first edition of the Zssay on the Theory of the Earth, translated by
Jameson, and republished in New York, with additions by Samuel

L. Mitchell, in 1818.

144 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

and that by assiduous researches for nearly thirty
years* he has collected skeletons of all the genera
and sub-genera of quadrupeds, with those of many
species in certain genera, and several individuals of
certain species. With such means it was easy for him
to multiply his comparisons, and to verify in all their
details the applications of his laws.

Such is the famous law of correlation of parts, of
Cuvier. It could be easily understood by the layman,
and its enunciation added vastly to the popular repu-
tation and prestige of the young science of comparative
anatomy.t In his time, and applied to the forms

*In the first edition of the 7éorie he says fifteen years, writing in
1812. In the later edition he changed the number of years to thirty.

+ De Blainville is inclined to make light of Cuvier’s law and of his
assumptions ; 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
a kind of renascence of the science of organization of animals, then
almost effaced in France, aided by the richest osteological collections
which then existed in Europe, M. G. Cuvier passed an active and a
comparatively long life, in a region abounding in fossil bones, without
having established any other principle in osteology than a witticism
which he had been unable for a moment to take seriously himself,
because he had not yet investigated or sufficiently studied the science
of organization, which I even doubt, to speak frankly, if he ever did.
Otherwise, he would himself soon have perceived the falsity of his
assertion that a single facet of a bone was sufficient to reconstruct a
skeleton from the observation that everything is harmoniously corre-
lated inan animal. It isa great thing if the memory, aided by astrong
imagination, can thus pass from a bone to the entire skeleton, even in
an animal well known and studied even to satiety ; but foran unknown
animal, there is no one except a man but slightly acquainted with the
anatomy of animals who could pretend to do it. It is not true anato-
mists like Hunter, Camper, Pallas, Vicq-d’Azyr, Blumenbach, Soem-
mering, and Meckel who would be so presuming, and M. G. Cuvier
would have been himself much embarrassed if he had been taken at
his word, and besides it is this assertion which will remain formulated
in the mouths of the ignorant, and which has already made many
persons believe that it is possible to answer the most difficult and
often insoluble problems in palzontology, without having made any
preliminary study, with the aid of dividers, and, on the other hand,

WORK IN PALAZONTOLOGY 145

occurring in the Paris Basin, it was a most valuable,
ingenious, and yet obvious method, and even now its
the principal rule the paleontologist follows in identt-
fying fragments of fossils of any class. But it has its
limitations, and it goes without saying that the more
complete the fossil skeleton of a vertebrate, or the
remains of an arthropod, the more complete will be
our conception of the form of the extinct organism.
It may be misleading in the numerous cases of
convergence and of generalized forms which now
abound in our paleontological collections. We can
well understand how guarded one must be in working
out the restorations of dinosaurs and fossil birds, of the
Permian and Triassic theromorphs, and the Tertiary
creodonts as compared with existing carnivora.
As the late O. C. Marsh* 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

discouraging the Blumenbachs and Soemmerings from giving their
attention to this kind of work.”

Huxley has, z#¢er alia, put the case in a somewhat similar way, to
show that the law should at least be applied with much caution to
unknown forms:

“Cuvier, in the Discours sur les Révolutions dela Surface du Globe,
strangely credits himself, and has ever since been credited by others,
with the invention of anew method of paleontological research. But
if you will turn to the Recherches sur les Ossemens fosstles, and watch
Cuvier not speculating, but working, you will find that his method is
neither more nor less than that of Steno. If he was able to make his
famous prophecy from the jaw which lay upon the surface of a block
of stone to the pelvis which lay hidden in it, it was not because either
he or 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 simply because experience has shown that these two structures are
coérdinated ” (Science and Hebrew Tradition. Rise and Progress
of Paleontology 1881, p. 23).

* History and Methods of Paleontological Discovery (1879).

10

146 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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 Dzscours, not relying on the statements of his
expositors or followers, just what he taught notwith-
standing the clear utterances of his older colleague,
Lamarck, whose views he set aside and either ignored
or ridiculed.*

He at the outset affirms that nature has, like man-
kind, also had her intestine wars, and that “the
surface of the globe has been much convulsed by
successive revolutions and various catastrophes.”

As first proof of the revolutions on the surface of
the earth he instances fossil shells, which in the
lowest and most level parts of the earth are “almost
everywhere in such a perfect state of preservation
that even the smallest of them retain their most

* The following statement of Cuvier’s views is taken from Jame-
son’s translation of the first Essay on the Theory of the Earth, ‘which
formed the introduction to his Recherches sur les Ossemens fossiles,”
the first edition of which appeared in 1812, or ten years after the pub-
lication of the /7ydrogéologte. The original I have not seen, but I
have compared Jameson’s translation with the sixth edition of the
Discours (1820).

WORK IN PALAAONTOLOGY 147

delicate parts, their sharpest 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
along time and ina state of tranquillity, which cir-
cumstance was necessary for the formation of deposits
so extensive, so thick, in part so solid, and filled with
the exuviez of aquatic animals.”

But the traces of revolutions become still more
marked when we ascend a little higher and approach
nearer to the foot of the great mountain chains.
Hence the strata are variously inclined, and at times
vertical, contain shells differing specifically from those
of beds on the plains below, and are covered by hort-
zontal later beds. Thus the sea, previous to the
formation of the horizontal strata, had formed others,
which by some means have been broken, lifted up,
and overturned in a thousand ways. There had
therefore been also at least one change in the basin
of that sea which preceded ours; it had also experi-
enced at least one revolution.

He then gives proofs that such revolutions have
been numerous.

“Thus the great catastrophes which have pro-
duced revolutions in the basins of the sea were pre-
ceded, 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.”

148 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

We now come to the Cuvierian doctrine par ex-
cellence, one in which he radically differs from La-
marck’s views as to the genetic relations between 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 occa-
sionally 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 suc-
cession 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 in-
habitants were not very different from those which it
still continues to support.”

He then refers to successive irruptions and retreats
of the sea, “the final result of which, however, has
been a universal depression of the level of the sea.”’

“These repeated irruptions and retreats of the sea
have neither been slow nor gradual; most of the ca-
tastrophes which have occasioned them have been
sudden.”

WORK IN PALZONTOLOGY 149

He then adds his proofs of the occurrence of rev-
olutions before the existence of living beings. Like
Lamarck, Cuvier was a Wernerian, and in speaking
of the older or primitive crystalline rocks which con-
tain no vestige of fossils, he accepted the view of the
German theorist in geology, that granites forming the
axis of mountain chains were formed in a fluid.

We must give Cuvier the credit of fully appreciat-
ing the value of fossils as being what he calls “ his-
torical documents,” also for appreciating the fact that
there were a number of revolutions marking either
the incoming or end ofa geological period; but as he
failed to perceive the unity of organization in organic
beings, and their genetic relationship, as had been in-
dicated by Lamarck and by Geoffroy St. Hilaire, so
in geological history he did not grasp, as did Lamarck,
the vast extent of geological time, and the general
uninterrupted continuity of geological events. He
was analytic, thoroughly believing in the importance
of confining himself to the discovery of facts, and,
considering the multitude of fantastic hypotheses and
suggestions of previous writers of the eighteenth cen-
tury, this was sound, sensible, and thoroughly scien-
tific. But unfortunately he did not stophere. Master
of facts concerning the fossil mammals of the Paris
Basin, he also—usually cautious and always a shrewd
man of the world—fell into the error of writing
his “theory of the world,’ and of going to the ex-
treme length of imagining universal catastrophes
where there are but local ones, a universal Noachian
deluge when there was none, and of assuming that
there were at successive periods thoroughgoing total

150 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

and sudden extinctions of life, and as sudden recrea-
tions. Cuvier was a natural leader of men, a ready
debater, and a clear, forcible writer, a man of great
executive force, but lacking in insight and imagina-
tion ; he dominated scientific Paris and France, he was
the law-giver and autocrat of the laboratories of Paris,
and the views of quiet, thoughtful, profound scholars
such as Lamarck and Geoffroy St. Hilaire were dis-
dainfully pushed aside, overborne, and the progress
of geological thought was arrested, while, owing to
his great prestige, the rising views of the Lamarckian
school were nipped in the bud. Every one, after the
appearance of Cuvier’s great work on fossil mammals
and of his Régne Animal, was a Cuvierian, and down
to the time of Lyell and of Charles Darwin all natural-
ists, with only here and there an exception, were pro-
nounced Cuvierians in biology and geology—catas-
trophists rather than uniformitarians. We now, with
the increase of knowledge of physical and historical
geology, of the succession of life on the earth, of the
unity of organization pervading that life from monad
to man all through the ages from the Precambrian to
the present age, know that there were vast periods
of preparation followed by crises, perhaps geologically
brief, when there were widespread changes in physi-
cal geography, which reacted on the life-forms, render-
ing certain ones extinct, and modifying others; but
this conception is entirely distinct from the views of
Cuvier and his school, * which may, in the light of

* Cuvier, in speaking of these revolutions, ‘‘ which have changed
the surface of our earth,” correctly reasons that they must have ex-
cited a more powerful action upon terrestrial quadrupeds than upon

WORK IN PALA ONTCLOGY 151

our present knowledge, properly be deemed not only
totally inadequate, but childish and fantastic.

Cuvier cites the view of Dolomieu, the well-known
ceologist and mineralogist (1770-1801), only, how-
ever, to reject it, who went tothe extent of supposing
that “tides of seven or eight hundred fathoms have
carried off from time to time the bottom of the ocean,
throwing it up in mountains and hills on the primi-
tive valleys and plains of the continents ” (Dolomieu
in Journal de Physique).

Cuvier met with objections to his extreme views.
In his discourse he thus endeavors to answer “the
following objection” which “has already been stated
against my conclusions ’

“Why may not the non-existing races of mam-
miferous 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 cir-
cumstances, 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

marine animals. ‘‘ As these revolutions,” he says, ‘‘have consisted
chiefly in changes of the bed of the sea, and as the waters must have
destroyed all the quadrupeds which they reached if their irruption
over the land was general, they must have destroyed the entire
class, or, if confined only to certain continents at one time, they must
have destroyed at least all the species inhabiting these continents,
without having the same effect upon the marine animals. On the
other hand, millions of aquatic animals may have been left quite dry,
or buried in newly formed strata or thrown violently on the coasts,
while their races may have been still preserved in more peaceful parts
of the sea, whence they might again propagate and spread after the
agitation of the water had ceased.’

152 LAMARCK, HIS [LIFE AND WORK

in organized bodies, and think that during a succes-
sion 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 sys-
tem: If the species have changed by degrees, as they
assume, we ought to find traces of this gradual modi-
fication. Thus, between the Palwotherium and the
species of our own days, we should be able to dis-
cover 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 perma-
nent 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 tertiary mammals 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 es-
tablished among extraneous fossils, such as the pa/@o-
therium, anaplotherium, megalonynx, mastodon, ptero-
dactylis, 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 Iam 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

WORK IN PALAAONTOLOGY 153

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.” *

The extreme views of Cuvier as to the frequent
renewal and extinction of life were afterward (in 1850)
carried out to an exaggerated extent by D’Orbigny,
who maintained that the life of the earth must have
become extinct and again renewed twenty-seven
times. Similar views were held by Agassiz, who,
however, maintained the geological succession of ani-
mals and the parallelism between their embryonic
development and geological succession, the two foun-
dation 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 paleontology, refused to admit that each
set of beds was the result of such a thoroughgoing
revolution.t

At a later date Bronn “demonstrated that certain
species indeed really passed from one formation to

* Discours, etc. Sixth edition.

+ Felix Bernard, Zhe Principles of Paleontology, Paris, 1895, trans-
lated by C. E. Brooks, edited by J. M. Clark, from 14th Annual Re-
port } New York State Geologist, 1895, pp. 127-217 (p. 16). Bernard
gives no reference to the work in which Schlotheim expressed this
opinion. E. v. Schlotheim’s first work, /Vora der Vorwelt, appeared
in 1804, entitled Beschreibung merkwiirdiger Kratiterabdrticke und
Pflanzenverstetnerungen. Lin Beytrag zur Flora der Vorvelt. 1
Abtheil. Mit 14 Kpfrn. 4°. Gotha, 1804. A later work was
Beytrége zur Naturgeschichte der Versteinerungen in geognostischer
Hinsicht (Denkschri ft ad. k, Academie da. Wissenschaften su Mtinchen
fiir den Jahren 1816 wzd 1817. 8 Taf. Miinchen, 1819). He was
followed in Germany by Sternberg (Versuch einer geognostischbotan-
tschen Darstellung der Flora der Vorvelt, 1-8. 1811. Leipzig,
1820-38) ; andin France bys A ae Brongniart, 1801-1876 (Aistotre des
Vegétaux " fossiles, 1828). These were the pioneers in paleeophytology.

154 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

another, and though stratigraphic boundaries are
often barriers confining the persistence of some form,
still this is not an absolute rule, since the species in
nowise appear in their entirety.” * At present the
persistence of genera like Saccamina, Lingula, Cera-
todus, etc., from one age to another, or even through
two or more geological ages, is well known, while
Atrypa reticulatus, a species of world-wide distribu-
tion, lived from near the beginning of the Upper
Silurian to the Waverly or beginning of the Carbonif-
erous age.

Such were the views of the distinguished founder
of vertebrate paleontology. When we compare the
fydrogéologie of Lamarck with Cuvier’s Dzscours, we
see, though some erroneous views, some very fantas-
tic conceptions are held, in common with others of
his time, in regard to changes of level of the land
and the origin of the crystalline rocks, that it did
contain the principles upon which modern palzontol-
ogy is founded, while those of Cuvier are now in
the limbo—so densely populated—of exploded, ill-
founded theories.

Our claim that Lamarck should share with Cuvier
the honor of being a founder of paleontology t+ is

* Bernard’s (History and Methods of Paleontological Discovery
(1879), p. 23.

+ In his valuable and comprehensive Geschichte der Geologie und
Paléontologie (1899), Prof. K. von Zittel, while referring to Lamarck’s
works on the tertiary shells of Paris and his Aztmaax sans Vertebres,
also giving a just and full account of his life, practically gives him the
credit of being one of the founders of invertebrate paleontology. He
speaks of him as ‘‘ the reformer and founder of scientific conchology,”
and states that ‘‘ he defined with wonderful acuteness the numerous
genera and species of invertebrate animals, and created thereby for
the ten years following an authoritative foundation.” Zittel, how-

WORK IN PALAZAONTOLOGY 155

substantiated by the philosophic Lyell, who as early
as 1836, in his Preuciples of Geology, expresses the
same view in the following words: “The labors of
Cuvier in comparative osteology, and of Lamarck
in recent and fossil shells, had raised these depart-
ments of study to a rank of which they had never
previously been deemed susceptible.”

Our distinguished American paleontologist, the late
O. C. Marsh, takes the same view, and draws the fol-
lowing parallel between the two great French natu-
ralists :

“In looking back from this point of view, the philo-
sophical breadth of Lamarck’s conclusions, in com-
parison 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 catastro-
phes, 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.*

ever, does not mention the ydrogéologie. Probably so rare a book
was overlooked by the eminent German paleontologist.
* History and Methods of Paleontological Discovery (1879), Pp. 23.

Sic heVedh) deer >.<

LAMARCK’S OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY
AND BIOLOGY

LAMARCK died before the rise of the sciences of
morphology, embryology, and cytology. As to pale-
ontology, which he aided in founding, he had but
the slightest idea of the geological succession of life-
forms, and not an inkling of the biogenetic law or
recapitulation theory. Little did he know or foresee
that the main and strongest support of his own the-
ory was to be this same science of the extinct forms
of life. Yet it is a matter of interest to know what
were his views or opinions on the nature of life;
whether he made any suggestions bearing on the doc-
trine of the unity of nature; whether he was a vital-
ist or not; and whether he was a follower of Haller
and of Bonnet,* as was Cuvier, or pronounced i
favor of epigenesis.

* Charles Bonnet (1720-1793), a Swiss naturalist, is famous for his
work on Aphides and their parthenogenetic generation, on the mode
of reproduction in the Polyzoa, and on the respiration of insects.
After the age of thirty-four, when his eyesight became impaired, he
began his premature speculations, which did not add to his reputation.
Judging, however, by an extract from his writings by D’Archiac (/x-
troduction a l’ Etude de la Paléontologie stratigr aphigue, ii., p. 49), he
had sound ideas on the theory of descent, claiming that ‘la diversité et
la multitude des conjunctions, peut-étre méme la diversité des climats
et des nourritures, ont donné naissance 4 de nouvelles espéces ou a
des individus intermédiaires”” (Huvres a’ Hist. nat. et de Philosophie,
in-Svo, p. 230, 1779).

OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY 157

We know that he was a firm believer in spontane-
ous generation, and that he conceived that it took
place not only in the origination of his primeval
germs or ¢bauches, but at all later periods down to
the present day.

Yet Lamarck accepted Harvey’s doctrine, published
in 1651, that all living beings arose from germs or
eggs.*

He must have known of Spallanzani’s experiments,
published in 1776, even if he had not read the writ-
ings of Treviranus (1802-1805), both of whom had ex-
perimentally disproved the theory of the spontaneous
generation of animalcules in putrid infusions, show-
ing that the lowest organisms develop only from
germs.

The eighteenth century, though one of great in-
tellectual activity, was, however, as regards cosmol-
ogy, geology, general physiology or biology, a period
of groping in the dim twilight, when the whole truth
or even a part of it was beyond the reach of the
ereatest geniuses, and they could only seize on half-
truths. Lamarck, both a practical botanist, system-
atic zodlogist, and synthetic philosopher, had done
his best work before the rise of the experimental
and inductive methods, when direct observation and
experiments had begun to take the place of vague
@ priort thinking and reasoning, so that he labored
under a disadvantage due largely to the age in which
he lived.

* See his remark: ‘‘ Ov a dit avec raison que tout ce qui a vie pro-
vient d’un weuf” (Mémoires de Physique, etc., 1797, p. 272). He
appears, however, to have made the simplest organisms exceptions to
this doctrine.

158 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

Only the closing years of the century witnessed
the rise of the experimental methods in physics and
chemistry, owing to the brilliant work of Priestley
and of Lavoisier. The foundations of general physi-
ology had been laid by Haller,* those of embryology
to a partial extent by Wolff,t Von Baer’s work not
appearing until 1829, the year in which Lamarck died.

Spontaneous Generation.—Lamarck’s views on spon-
taneous generation are stated in his Recherches sur
l’Organisation des Corps vivans (1802). He begins
by referring to his statement in a previous work ¢
that life may be suspended for a time and then go
on again.

“Here I would remark it (life) can be produced
( préparee) both by an organic act and by nature her-
self, 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 whzch indicates in these
bodies the first traces of organization.”

We will not enter upon an exposition of his views
on the nature of sexual generation and of fecunda-
tion, the character of his vapeur subtile (aura vitalts)
which he supposes to take an active part in the act of
fertilization, because the notion is quite as objection-
able as'that of the vital force which he rejects; dle
goes on to say, however, that we cannot penetrate
farther into the wonderful mystery of fecundation, but
the opinions he expresses lead to the view that ‘nature

* Llementa physioloviae corporis humant, iv. Lausanne, 1762.
+ Zheorta generationis, 1774.

Mémoires de Physique (1797), p. 250.
YSUq 97), P

OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY 159

herself imitates her procedures in fecundation in
another state of things, without having need of the
union or of the products of any preéxistent organiza-
tion.”

He proceeds to observe that in the places where
his aura vitalis, or subtle fluid, is very abundant, as
in hot climates or in heated periods, and especially in
humid places, life seems to originate and to multiply
itself everywhere and with a singular rapidity.

“Tn this high temperature the higher animals and
mankind develop and mature more rapidly, and dis-
eases 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 con-
course of favorable circumstances, the first germs of
animal life.

“ Nature necessarily forms generations, spontaneous
or atrect, 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 generally held, that it will be for a long
time, and perhaps always, regarded as one of the
errors of the human mind.

“T 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

160 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

hand independent of prejudices even the most wide-
spread, 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 matters under favorable conditions and
circumstances?” He quotes Lavoisier as saying
(Chémie, i., p. 202) “that God in creating light had
spread over the world the principle of organization
of feeling and of thought’’; and Lamarck suggests
that heat, ‘this mother of generation, this material
soul of organized bodies,” may be the chief one of
the means which nature directly employs to produce
in the appropriate kind of matter an act of arrange-
ment of parts, of a primitive germ of organization,
and consequently of vitalization analogous to sexual
fecundation.

“Not only the direct formation of the simplest
living beings could have taken place, as I shall at-
tempt to demonstrate, but the following considera-
tions prove that it is necessary that such germ-forma-
tions 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 no sexual 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

OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY 161

more likely that these simple organisms are them-
selves regenerated? After much verbiage and repeti-
tion, 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 con-
stituting the parts contained in it. Such is the
condition of the most gelatinous organized bodies.

“Through sucha 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 render-
ing 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 (dzssous) gas, or with other tenuous sub-
stances, 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 move-
ments and their other influences develop it, and
with time and all the favorable circumstances com-
plete: it.

IT

162 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

This is certainly a sufficiently vague and unsatisfac-
tory theory of spontaneous generation. This sort of
cuess-work and hypothetical reasoning is not entirely
confined to Lamarck’s time. Have we not, even a
century later, examples among some of our biologists,
and very eminent ones, of whole volumes of @ priorz
theorizing and reasoning, with scarcely a single new
fact to serve as a foundation? And yet this is an
age of laboratories, of experimentations and of trained
observers. The best of us indulge in far-fetched
hypotheses, such as pangenesis, panmixia, the exist-
ence of determinants, and if this be so should we not
excuse Lamarck, who gave so many years to close
observation in systematic botany and zodlogy, for
his flights into the empyrean of subtle fluids, con-
tainable and uncontainable, and for his invocation of
an aura vitalis, at a time when the world of demon-
strated facts in modern biology was undiscovered and
its existence unsuspected ?

The Preéxistence of Germs and the Encasement
Theory.—Lamarck did not believe in Bonnet’s idea
of the “‘preexistence, of, germs. ~ He asks whether
there is any foundation for the notion that germs
“successively develop in generations, z.e. in the mul-
tiplication of individuals for the preservation of
species,” and says:

“J am not inclined to believe it if this preéxistence
is taken in a general sense; but in limiting it to in-
dividuals 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

OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY 163

an ese. » . . But the eggs being the envelope
of every kind of germ, they preéxist in the indi-
viduals which produce them, before fertilization has
vivified them. The seeds of plants (which are vege-
table eggs) actually exist in the ovaries of flowers
before the fertilization of these ovaries.” *

From whom did he get this idea that seeds or eggs
are envelopes of all sorts of germs? It is not the
“evolution” of a single germ, as, for example, an
excessively minute but complete chick in the hen’s
egg, in the sense held by Bonnet. Who it was he
does not mention. He evidently, however, had the
Swiss biologist in mind, who held that all living things
proceed from preéxisting germs.t

Whatever may have been his views as to the germs
in the egg before fertilization, we take it that he be-
lieved in the epigenetic development of the plant or
animal after the seed or egg was once fertilized. ¢

Lamarck did not adopt the encasement theory of
Swammerdam and of Heller. We find nothing in
Lamarck’s writings opposed to epigenesis. The fol-
lowing passage, which bears on this subject, is trans-
lated from his W/émotres de Physique (p. 250), where

* Mémotres de Physique, etc. (1797), p. 272.

+ Huxley’s ‘‘ Evolution in Biology” (Darwiniana, p. 192), where
he quotes from Bonnet’s statements, which ‘* bear no small resem-
blance to what is understood by evolution at the present day.”

t Buffon did not accept Bonnet’s theory of preéxistent germs, but
he assumed the existence of ‘‘ germes accumulés” which reproduced
parts or organs, and for the production of organisms he imagined
‘* molécules organiqgues.”’ Réaumur had previously (1712) conjectured
that there were ‘‘ vermes cachés et accumulés” to account for the re-
generation of the limbs of the crayfish. The ideas of Bonnet on
germs are stated in his Mémoires sur les Salamandres (1777-78-80)
and in his Considérations sur les corps organisés (1762.)

164 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

he contrasts the growth of organic bodies with that
of minerals.

“The body of this living being not having been
formed by juxtaposition, as most mineral substances,
that isto say, by the external and successive apposi-
tion of particles aggregated ex 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 ap-
position of molecules borne along and deposited be-
tween 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 either non-living or mineral,
inorganic; or living, organic. A favorite phrase with
him is living bodies, or, as we should say, organisms.
He also is the first one to show that minerals increase
by juxtaposition, while organisms grow by intussus-
ception.

No one would look in his writings for an idea or
suggestion of the principle of differentiation of parts
or organs as we now understand it, or for the idea of
the physiological division of labor; these were re-
served 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 :

OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY 165

“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, 2.¢., 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 in-
creasing 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, grow¢h or internal development.”

first Faculty of Animal Nature.—Then gradually
as the continuity of this state of things within the
same minute living mass in question increases the
consistence of its parts enclosed within and extends
its dimensions, a vital orgasm, at first very feeble,
but becoming progressively more intense, is formed
in these enclosed parts and renders them suscep-
tible of reaction against the slight impression of the
fluids in motion which they contain, and at the same
time renders them capable of contraction and of dis-
tention. Hence the origin of animal irritability and
the basis of feeling, which is developed wherever a
nervous fluid, susceptible of locating the effects in
one of several special centres, can be formed.

“Scarcely will the living corpuscle, newly animal-
ized, have received any increase in consistence and in

166 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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.

“Tt will then be obliged to take nourishment not
only to obtain any development whatever, but also to
preserve its individual existence, because it is neces-
sary 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 animal-
ized corpuscle we are considering is still only a primi-
tive 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 (amceba), volvoces, monads, etc.

“This digestive canal is,” he says—proceeding with
his @ priort 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 sur-
face 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

OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY 167

canal created by nature, the simplest organ of diges-
tion.”

In like & przorz manner he describes the creation
of the faculty of reproduction. The next organ, he
says, is that of reproduction due to the 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 con-
tinuous chain of being, the échelle des étres suggested
by Locke and by Leibnitz, and more fully elaborated
by Bonnet, from the inorganic to the organic worlds,
from minerals to plants, from plants to polyps (our
Infusoria), polyps to worms, and so on to the higher
animals. He, on the contrary, affirms that nature
makes leaps, that there is a wide gap between minerals
and living bodies, that everything is not gradated and
shaded into each other. One reason for this was
possibly his strange view, expressed in 1794, that all
brute bodies and inorganic matters, even granite,
were not formed at the same epoch but at different
times, and were derived from organisms.*

The mystical doctrine of a vital force was rife in

* Mémotres de Physique, etc., pp. 318, 319, 324-359. Yet the idea
of a sort of continuity between the inorganic and the organic world
is expressed by Verworn.

168 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

Lamarck’s time. The chief starting point of the
doctrine was due to Haller, and, as Verworn states,
it is a doctrine which has confused all physiology down
to the middle of the present century, and even now
emerges again here and there in varied form.*

Lamarck was not a vitalist. Life, he says, is usually
supposed to be a particular being or entity; a sort of
principle whose nature is unknown, and which possesses
living bodies. This notion he denies as absurd, saying
that life isa very natural phenomenon, a physical fact ;
in truth a little complicated in its principles, but not in
any sense a particular or special being or entity.

He then defines life in the following words: “ Life
is an order and a state of things in the parts of every
body possessing it, which permits or renders possible
in it the execution of organic movement, and which,
so long as it exists, is effectively opposed to death.
Derange this order and this state of things to the point
of preventing the execution of organic movement, or
the possibility of its reéstablishment, then you cause
death.’”’ Afterwards, in the Przlosophie zoologique, he
modifies this definition, which reads thus: “ Life, in
the parts of a body which possesses it, is an order and
a state of things which permit organic movements;

* General Physiology (English trans., 1899, p. 17). In France
vitalism was founded by Bordeu (1722-1766), developed further by
Barthez Seas 1806) and Chaussier (1746-1828), and formulated most
distinctly by Louis Dumas (1765-1813). Later vitalists gave it a thor-
oughly mystical aspect, distinguishing several varieties, such as the
nisus formativus or formative effort, to explain the forms of organisms,
accounting for the fact that from the egg of a bird, a bird and no other
species always develops (4. ¢., p. 18).

t Recherches sur l’organisation des corps vivans (1802), p. 70. The
same view was expressed in Alémotres de physique (an Ppp. 254-
257, 386.

OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY 169

and these movements, which constitute active life,
result from the action of a stimulating cause which
excites them,»

For the science of all living bodies Lamarck pro-
posed the word “ Biology,” which is so convenient a
term at the present day. The word first appears in the
preface to the Hydrogéologie, published in 1802. Itis
worthy of note that in the same year the same word was
proposed for 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 Phzlosophie zoologique he
considers the physical causes of life, and in the in-
troduction he defines nature as the ensemble of objects
which comprise: (1) All existing physical bodies; (2)
the general and special laws which regulate the
changes of condition and situation of these bodies;
(3) finally, the movement everywhere going on among
them resulting in the wonderful order of things in
nature.

To regard nature as eternal, and consequently as
having existed from all time, is baseless and unreason-

* Here might be quoted for comparison other famous definitions of
life :

‘* 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 decom-
position, at once general and continuous,”—De Blainville, who wisely
added that there are ‘‘two fundamental and correlative conditions
inseparable from the living being—an organism and a medium.”

‘* Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external
relations.”—Herbert Spencer.

170 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

able. He prefers to think that nature is only 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, which has made it as
a whole what it is.”

As to the source of life in bodies endowed with it,
he considers it a problem more difficult than to de-
termine the course of the stars in space, or the size,
masses, and movements of the planets belonging to
our solar system ; but, however formidable the prob-
lem, the difficulties are not insurmountable, as the
phenomena are purely physical—z.e., essentially result-
ing from acts of organization.

After defining life, in the third chapter (beginning
vol. ii.) he treats of the exciting cause of organic
movements. This exciting cause is foreign to the
body which it vivifies, and does not perish, like the
latter. ‘This cause resides in invisible, subtile,
expansive, ever-active fluids which penetrate or are
incessantly developed in the bodies which they
animate.”” These subtile fluids we should in these
days regard as the physico-chemical agents, such as
heat, light, electricity.

What he says in the next two chapters as to the
“orgasme”’ and irritability excited by the before-
mentioned exciting cause may be regarded as a crude
foreshadowing of the primary properties of proto-
plasm, now regarded as the physical basis of life—z.e.,
contractility, irritability, and metabolism. In Chapter
VI. Lamarck discusses direct or spontaneous genera-
tion in the same way as in 1802. In the following
paragraph we have foreshadowed the characteristic

OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY 171

qualities of the primeval protoplasmic matter fitted
to receive the first traces of organization and life:

“Every mass of substance homogeneous in appear-
ance, of a gelatinous or mucilaginous consistence,
whose parts, coherent among themselves, will be in
the state nearest fluidity, but will have only a con-
sistence 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 Pzlosophie zoologique
Lamarck considers the physical causes of feeling—z.e.,
those which form the productive force of actions, and
those giving rise to intelligent acts. After describing
the nervous system and its functions, he discusses the
nervous fluid. His physiological views are based on
those of Richerand’s Physzologie, which he at times
quotes.

Lamarck’s thoughts on the nature of the nervous
fluid (Recherches sur le fluide nerveux) are curious
and illustrative of the gropings after the truth of his
age.

He claims that the supposed nervous fluid has
much analogy to the electric, that it is the feu ¢théré
“animalized by the circumstances under which it
occurs.” In his Recherches sur lorganisation des
corps vtvans (1802) he states that, as the result of
changes continually undergone by the principal fluids
of an animal, there is continually set free in a state of
feu fixé a special fluid, which at the instant of its
disengagement occurs in the expansive state of the
caloric, then becomes gradually rarefied, and insen-
sibly arrives at the state of an extremely subtile fluid

172 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

which then passes along the smallest nervous ramifi-
cations in the substance of the nerve, which is a very
good conductor for it. On its side the brain sends
back the subtile fluid in question along the nerves to
the different organs.

In the same work (1802) Lamarck defines thought
as a physical act taking place in the brain. ‘‘ This
act of thinking gives rise to different displacements
of the subtile nervous fluid and to different accumula-
tions of this fluid in the parts of the brain where the
ideas have been traced.”” There result from the flow of
the fluid on the conserved impressions of ideas, special
movements which portions of this fluid acquire with
each impression, which give rise to compounds by
their union producing new impressions on the delicate
organ which receives them, and which constitute
abstract ideas of all kinds, also the different acts of
thought.

All the acts which constitute thought are the com-
parisons of ideas, both simple and complex, and the
results of these comparisons are judgments.

He then discusses the influence of the nervous fluid
on the muscles, and also its influence considered as
the cause of feeling (sex¢zment). Finally he concludes
that feu jizxé, caloric, the nervous fluid, and’ the
electric fluid “are only one and the same substance
occurring in different states.”

CHAPTER. Xi
LAMARCK AS A BOTANIST

DURING the century preceding the time of La-
marck, botany had not flourished in France with the
vigor shown in other countries. Lamarck himself
frankly stated in his address to the Committee of
Public Instruction of the National Convention that
the study of plants had been for a century neglected
by Frenchmen, and that the great progress which it
had made during this time was almost entirely due to
foreigners.

“JT am free to say that since the distinguished
Tournefort the French have remained to some ex-
tent 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 immortal-
ized 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 botanical rambles about Paris, and his
longer journeys in different parts of France and
in other countries, his six years of unremitting labor
on his Flore Francaise, and the immediate fame it
brought him, culminating in his election as a mem-

174 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

ber of the French Academy, have been already
recounted.

Lamarck was thirty-four when his Flore /rancaise
appeared. It was not preceded, as in the case of
most botanical works, by any preliminary papers
containing descriptions of new or unknown species,
and the three stout octavo volumes appeared to-
gether at the same date.

The first volume opens with a report on the work
made by MM. Duhamel and Guettard. Then fol-
lows the Dzscours Préliminaire, comprising over a
hundred pages, while the main body of the work
opens with the Prznczpes Elémentaires de Botanique,
occupying 223 pages. The work was a general ele-
mentary botany and written in French. Before this
time botanists had departed from the artificial system
of Linné, though it was convenient for amateurs in
naming their plants. Jussieu had proposed his system
of natural families, founded on a scientific basis, but
naturally more difficult for the use of beginners. To
obviate the matter Lamarck conceived and proposed
the dichotomic method for the easy determination of
species. No new species were described, and the
work, written in the vernacular, was simply a guide
to the indigenous plants of France, beginning with
the cryptogams and ending with the flowering plants.
A second edition appeared in 1780, and a third,
edited and remodelled by A. P. De Candolle, and
forming six volumes, appeared in 1805-1815. ‘This
was until within a comparatively few years the
standard French botany.

Soon after the publication of his Flore Francaise he

LAMARCK AS A BOTANIST 175

projected two other works which gave him a still
higher position among botanists. His Dectzonnaire de
Botanique was published in 1783-1817, forming eight
volumes and five supplementary ones. The first two
and part of the third volume were written by La-
marck, the remainder by other botanists, who com-
pleted it after Lamarck had abandoned botanical
studies and taken up his zodlogical work. His second
great undertaking was L’ /Vustration des Genres (1791-
1800), with a supplement by Poiret (1823).
Cuvier speaks thus of these works:

“LT Tllustration 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 Linnzus 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 char-
acters of a vast number of species are given.

“The Dzctionnaire contains more details of the
history with careful descriptions, critical researches
on their synonymy, and many interesting observa-
tions on their uses or on special points of their organ-
izations. The matter is not all original in either of

5
the works, far from it, but the choice of figures is skil-
fully 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 Flore Francatse, his zeal for work increasing,

176 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

and after travelling by order of the government in
different parts of Europe, he undertook on a vast
scale 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 phi-
losophical botany, also giving the complete descrip-
tion of all the genera and species known. An
immense work from the labor it cost, and truly
onginal im its execution. :/.)).. (he second treatise,
entitled //ustration 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 ex-
position of the generic characters and of the species
known. This work, unique of its kind, already con-
tains 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 Z/oge also adds:

“Tt 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 botan-
ists 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.

LAMARCK AS A BOTANIST 177

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 col-
lection 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 and comprehensive scale, with originality
of treatment, and they were most useful and widely
used. Lamarck’s original special botanical papers were
numerous. They were mostly descriptive of new species
and genera, but some were much broader in scope and
were published over a period of ten years, from 1784 to
1794, and appeared in the Journal ad’ Histotre naturelle,
which he founded, and in the Wémotres of the Acad-
emy of Sciences.

He discussed the shape or aspect of the plants char-
acteristic of certain countries, while his last botanical
effort was on the sensibility of plants (1708).

Although not in the front rank of botanists, com-
pared with Linné, Jussieu, De Candolle, and others, yet
during the twenty-six years of his botanical career it

may safely be said that Lamarck gave an immense
12

178 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

impetus to botany in France, and fully earned the
Bileot “the French inne

Lamarck not only described a number of genera and
species of plants, but he attempted a general classifi-
cation, as Cleland states:

“In-1785,(f7est. ded Acad). he evinced his appreci-
ation 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.” —E£ucycl. Brit., Art. LAMARCK.

A genus of tropical plants of the group Solanacee
was named J/arkea by Richard, in honor of Lamarck,
but changed by Persoon and Poiret to Lamarckea.
The name Lamarckia of Moench and Koeler was
proposed for a genus of grasses; it is now Chrysurus.

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

“Mais iw les dut moins a ses mérites quaux
petits passions de la science officiclle. ‘Yhe illustrious
Buffon, who was at the same time avery 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

LAMARCK AS A BOTANIST 179

classification into natural families, seemed to him
to oppose the development of the arrangement of
Linné.”

Lamarck’s style was nevera highly finished one, and
his incipient essays seemed faulty to Buffon, who took
so much pains to write all his works in elegant and pure
French. So he begged the Abbé Haiiy to review the
literary form of Lamarck’s works.

Here it might be said that Lamarck’s is the philo-
sophic style; often animated, clear, and pure, it at
times, however, becomes prolix and tedious, owing to
occasional repetition.

But after all it can easily be understood that the
discipline of his botanical studies, the friendship
manifested for him by Buffon, then so influential
and popular, the relations Lamarck had with Jussieu,
Haiiy, and the zodlogists of the Jardin du Roi, were
all important factors in Lamarck’s success in life, a
success not without terrible drawbacks, and to the
full fruition of which he did not in his own life
attain.

CHAPRERVXII
LAMARCK THE ZOOLOGIST

ALTHOUGH there has been and still may be a
difference of opinion as to the value and permanency
of Lamarck’s theoretical views, there has never been
any lack of appreciation of his labors as a systematic
zoblogist. He was undoubtedly the greatest zodlo-
gist of his time. Lamarck is the one dominant per-
sonage who in the domain of zodlogy filled the inter-
val between Linné and Cuvier, and in acuteness and
sound judgment he at times surpassed Cuvier. His
was the master mind of the period of systematic
zodlogy, which began with Linné—the period which,
in the history of zodlogy, preceded that of compara-
tive anatomy and morphology.

After Aristotle, no epoch-making zodélogist arose
until Linné was born. In England Linné was pre-
ceded by Ray, but binomial nomenclature and the
first genuine attempt at the classification of animals
dates back to the Systema Nature of Linné, the
tenth edition of which appeared in 1758.

The contemporaries of Lamarck in_ biological
science, in the eighteenth century, were Camper
(1722-89), Spallanzani (1729-99), Wolff (1733-94),
Hunter (1728-93), Bichat (1771-1802), and Vicq
d’Azyr (1748-94). These were all anatomists and

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LAMARCK THE ZOOLOGIST I

ioe)
—

physiologists, the last-named being the first to pro-
pose and use the term “ comparative anatomy,” while
Bichat was the founder of histology and pathological
anatomy. There was in fact no prominent systematic
zodlogist in the interval between Linné and Lamarck.
In France there were only two zoélogists of promi-
nence when Lamarck assumed his duties at the Mu-
seum. These were Bruguiére the conchologist and
Olivier the entomologist. In Germany Hermann was
the leading systematic zodlogist. We would not for-
get the labors of the great German anatomist and
physiologist Blumenbach, who was also the founder
of anthropology; nor the German anatomists Tiede-
mann, Bojanus, and Carus; nor the embryologist
Déllinger. But Lamarck’s method and point of view
were of a new order—he was much more than a mere
systematist. His work in systematic zodlogy, un-|
like that of Linné, and especially of Cuvier, was that of
a far higher grade. Lamarck, besides his rigid, analyt-
ical, thorough, and comprehensive work on the inver-
tebrates, whereby he evolved order and system out of
the chaotic mass of forms comprised in the Insects
and Vermes of Linné, was animated with conceptions
and theories to which his forerunners and contem-
poraries, Geoffroy St. Hilaire excepted, were entire
strangers. His tabular view of the classes of the
animal kingdom was to his mind a genealogical tree;
his idea of the animal kingdom anticipated and was
akin to that of our day. He compares the animal
series to a tree with its numerous branches, rather
than to a single chain of being. This series, as he
expressly states, began with the monad and ended

182 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

with man; it began with the simple and ended with
the complex, or, as we should now say, it proceeded
from the generalized or undifferentiated to the spe-
cialized and differentiated. He perceived that many
forms had been subjected to what he calls degenera-
tion, or, as we say, modification, and that the progress
from the simple to the complex was by no means
direct. Moreover, fossil animals were, according to
his views, practically extinct species, and stood in the
light of being the ancestors of the members of our
existing fauna. In fact, his views, notwithstanding
shortcomings and errors in classification naturally due
to the limited knowledge of anatomy and develop-
ment of his time, have been at the end of a century
entirely confirmed—a striking testimony to his pro-
found insight, sound judgment, and_ philosophic
breadth.

The reforms that he brought about in the classifi-
cation of the invertebrate animals were direct and

positive improvements, were adopted by Cuvier in
his Régne animal, and have never been set aside.
We owe to him the foundation and definition of
the classes of Infusoria, Annelida, Arachnida, and
Crustacea, the two latter groups being separated from
the insects. He also showed the distinctness of
echinoderms from polyps, thus anticipating Leuckart,
who established the phylum of Ccelenterata nearly
half a century later. His special work was the classi-
fication of the great group of Mollusca, which he
regarded as 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

LAMARCK THE ZOOLCGIST 183
been discarded many years previous. \The great
reforms in the classification of shells are evidenced
by the numerous manuals of conchology based on
the works of Lamarck.

We used to hear much of the Lamarckian genera
of shells, and Lamarck was the first to perceive the
necessity of breaking up into smaller categories 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 his generic divisions were
at once accepted, since they were based on valid
characters.

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

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

One is curious to know how Lamarck viewed the}
question of species. This is discussed at length by |
him in his general essays, which are reproduced
farther on in this biography, but his definition of
what a species is far surpasses in breadth and terse-

184 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

ness, and better satisfies the views now prevailing,
than that of any other author.
His definition of a species is as follows:

“Every collection of similar individuals, perpetu-
ated by generation in the same condition, so long
as the circumstances of their situation do not change
enough to produce variations in their habits, charac-
ter, and form.”’

Lamarck’s rare skill, thoroughness, and acuteness
as an observer, combined with great breadth of view,
were also supplemented by the advantages arising
from residence in Paris, and his connection with
the Museum of Natural History. Paris was in the
opening years of the nineteenth century the chief
centre of biological science. France having con-
valesced from the intestinal disorders of the Revolu-
tion, and, as the result of her foreign wars, adding to
her territory and power, had begun with the strength
of a young giant to send out those splendid exploring
expeditions which gathered in collections in natural
history from all parts of the known or accessible
world, and poured them, as it were, into the laps of
the professors of the Jardin des Plantes. The shelves
and cases of the galleries fairly groaned with the
weight of the zoélogical riches which crowded them.
From the year 1800 to 1832 the French government
showed the greatest activity in sending out explor-
ing expeditions to Egypt, Africa, and the tropics.*

* During the same period (1803-1829) Russia sent out expeditions
to the North and Northeast, accompanied by the zodlogists Tilesius,
Langsdorff, Chamisso, Eschscholtz, and Brandt, all of them of Ger-

LAMARCK THE ZOOLOGIST 185

The zodlogists who explored Egypt were Geoffroy
St. Hilaire and Savigny. Those who visited the
East, the South Seas, the East Indian archipel-
ago, and other regions were Bruguiére, Olivier,
Bory de St. Vincent, Péron, Lesueur, Quoy, Gaimard,
Le Vaillant, Edoux, and Souleyet. The natural: re-
sult was the enormous collections of the Jardin des
Plantes, and consequently enlarged views regarding
the number and distribution of species, and their re-
lation to their environment.

In Paris, about the time of Lamarck’s death, flour-
ished also Savigny, who published his immortal works
on the morphology of arthropods and of ascidians ;
and Straus-Durckheim, whose splendidly fluerated
volumes on the anatomy of the cockchafer and of the
cat will never cease to be of value; and E. Geoffroy
St. Hilaire, whose elaborate and classical works on
vertebrate morphology, embryology, and compar-
ative anatomy added so much 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 Bruguiére, aided or im-
mediately preceded him. He probably was lacking
in executive force, or in the art which Cuvier knew
so well to practise, of enlisting young men to do the

man birth and education. From 1823 to 1850 England fitted up
and sent out exploring 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 amaritime country, at a later date, Humboldt, Spix, Prince Wied-
Nieuwied, Natterer, Perty, and others made memorable exploring
expeditions and journeys.

186 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

drudgery or render material aid, and then, in some
cases, neglecting to give them proper credit.

The first memoir or paper published on a zodlogi-
cal subject by Lamarck was a modest one on shells,
which appeared in 1792 in the Journal ad’ Histoire
naturelle, the editors of which were Lamarck, Bru-
guiére, Olivier, Hatiy, and Pelletier. This paper was
areview of an excellent memoir by Bruguiére, who
preceded Lamarck in the work of dismemberment of
the Linnzan genera. His next paper was on four
new species of Helix. To this /ournal, of which
only two volumes were published, Cuvier contrib-
uted his first paper—namely, on some new species
of ‘‘ Cloportes ”’ (Oniscus, a genus of terrestrial crus-
tacea or “ pill-bugs’’); this was followed by his second
memoir on the anatomy of the limpet, his next arti-
cle being descriptions of two species of flies from his
collection ‘of insects.* Seven years later Lamarck

* These papers have been mercilessly criticised by Blainville in his
‘*Cuvier et Geoffroy St. Hilaire.” In the second article—7.e., on the
anatomy of the limpet—Cuvier, in considering the organs, follows no
definite plan ; he gives a description ‘* fout-a-fait fantastiqgue”’ of the
muscular fibres of the foot, and among other errors in this first essay
on comparative anatomy he mistakes the tongue for the intromittent
organ ; the salivary glands, and what is probably part of the brain,
being regarded as the testes, with other ‘‘ erreurs matérielles incon-
cevables, méme a L’époque ou elle fut rédigée.” In his first article he
mistakes a species of the myriapod genus Glomeris for the isopod
genus Armadillo. In this he is corrected by the editor (possibly La-
marck himself), who remarks in a footnote that the forms to which M.
Cuvier refers under the name of Armadillo are veritable species of
Julus. We have verified these criticisms of Cuvier by reference to his
papers in the ‘‘ Journal.” It is of interest to note, as Blainville does,
that Cuvier at this period admits that there is a passage from the
Isopoda to the armadilloes and Julus. Cuvier, then twenty-three
years old, wrote: ‘‘ Vous sommes donc descendus par degrés, des

screvisses aux Sguilles, de celles-ci aux Aselles, puis aux Cloportes,
aux Armadilles et aux Llules” (Journal a’ Hist, nat., tom. ii., p. 29,

LAMARCK THE ZOOLOGIST 187

gave some account of the genera of cuttlefishes. His
first general memoir was a prodromus of a new classi-
fication of shells (1799).

Meanwhile Lamarck’s knowledge of shells and cor-
als was utilized by Cuvier in his Zableau ¢élémen-
taire, published in 1798, who acknowledges in the
preface that in the exposition of the genera of shells
he has been powerfully seconded, while he indicated
to him (Cuvier) a part-of the subgenera of corals and
alcyonarians, and adds, “ I have received great aid from
the examination of his collection.’ Also he acknowl-
edges that he had been greatly aided ( puzssamment
secondé) by Lamarck, who had even indicated the
most of the subdivisions established in his 7ad/eau
élémentaire for the insects (Blainville, 7. c., p. 129),
and he also accepted his genera of cuttlefishes.

After this Lamarck judiciously refrained from pub-
lishing descriptions of new species, and other fragmen-
tary labors, and for some ten years from the date of pub-
lication of his first zodlogical article reserved hisstrength
and elaborated his first general zodlogical work, a
thick octavo volume of 452 pages, entitled Systime
des Animaux sans Vertebres, which appeared in 1801.

Linné had divided all the animals below the verte-
brates into two classes only, the Insecta and Ver-
mes, the insects comprising the present classes of
insects, Myriapoda, Arachnida, and Crustacea; the
Vermes embracing all the other invertebrate animals,
from the molluscs to the monads.

1792). These errors, as regards the limpet, were afterwards corrected
by Cuvier (though he does not refer to his original papers) in his
Mémoires pour servir & l’ Histoire et a Anatomie des Mollusques
(1817).

188 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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

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

He divided the invertebrates, which Cuvier had
called animals with white blood, into the seven fol-
lowing classes.

We place in a parallel column the classification of
Cuvier in 1708.

Classification of Lamarck. Classification of Cuvier.

1. Mollusca. I. Mollusca.
2. Crustacea. Il. /usectes et Vers.
3. Arachnides (com- Te litsectes.
prising the Myri- 23 Viers.
apoda). III. Zoophytes.
A. Insecteés. I. Echinodermes:
Bek Els. 2. Meduses, Animaux
6. Radiaires. infusorines, Roti-
7.. Polypes. fer, Vibrio, Volvox.
3. Zoophytes propre-
ment dits.

Of these, four were for the first time defined, and
the others restricted. It will be noticed that he sepa-
rates the Radiata (Radzaires) from the Polypes. His

LAMARCK THE ZOOLOGIST 189

’

“ Radiaires”’ included the Echinoderms (the Vers
echinoderms of Bruguiére) and the Meduse (his Ra-
diaires molasses’’), the latter forming the Discophora
and Siphonophora of present zoGlogists. This is an an-
ticipation of the division by Leuckart in 1839 of the Ra-
diata of Cuvier into Ceelenterata 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, he afterwards in his
course of 1807 eliminated from this heterogeneous
assemblage the Infusoria.

Comparing this classification with that of Cuvier *
published in 1798, we find that in the most important
respects, z.¢., the foundation of the classes of Crusta-
cea, Arachnida, and Radiata, there is a great advance
over Cuvier’s system. In Cuvier’s work the molluscs
are separated from the worms, and they are divided
into three groups, Cephalopodes, Gasteropodes, and
Acephales—an arrangement which still holds, that of
Lamarck into Mollusques céphalés and Mollusques
acéphalés being much less natural. With the elimi-
nation of the Mollusca, Cuvier allowed the Vers or
Vermes of Linné to remain undisturbed, except that
the Zodphytes, the equivalent of Lamarck’s Polypes,
are separately treated.

He agrees with Cuvier in placing the molluscs at
the head of the invertebrates, a course still pursued

by some zoélogists at the present day. He states in
the Philosophie Zoologique + that in his course of lec-

* Tableau éémentatre del’ Histoire naturelle des Animaux, Paris,
An VI. (1798). 8vo, pp. 710. With 14 plates.
{Ome 1s ps. 123.

190 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

tures of the year 1799 he established the class of
Crustacea, and adds that “although this class is es-
sentially distinct, it was not until six or seven years
after that some naturalists consented to adopt it.”
The year following, or in his course of 1800, he sepa-
rated from the insects the class of Arachnida, as “ easy
and necessary to be distinguished.” But in 1809 he
says that this class “is not yet admitted into any other
work than my own.”* As to the class of Annelides,
he remarks: ‘ Cuvier having discovered the existence
of arterial and venous vessels in different animals
which have been confounded under the name of
worms (Vers) with other animals very differently
organized, I immediately employed the consideration
of this new fact in rendering my classification more
perfect, and in my course of the year 10 (1802) I es-
tablished the class of Annelides, a class which I have
placed after the molluscs and before the crustaceans,
as their known organization requires.”’ He first es-
tablished this class in his Recherches sur les corps
vivans (1802), but it was several years before it was
adopted by naturalists.

The next work in which Lamarck deals with the
classification of the invertebrates is his Dzscours
ad’ ouverture dau Cours des Animaux sans Vertcbres,
published in 1806.

* In his Wistotre des Progrés des Sciences naturelles Cuvier takes
to himself part of the credit of founding the class Crustacea, stat-
ing that Aristotle had already placed them in a class by themselves,
and adding, ‘* AZALI. Cuvier et de Lamarck les en ont distingués par des
caractéres de premier ordre tirés de leur circulation.” Undoubtedly
Cuvier described the circulation, but it was Lamarck who actually
realized the taxonomic importance of this feature and placed them
in a distinct class.

LAMARCK THE ZOOLOGIST Ig!

On page 70 he speaks of the animal chain or series,
from the monad to man, ascending from the most
simple to the most complex. The monad is one of
his Polypes amorphs, and he says that it is the most
simple animal form, the most like the original germ
(ébauche) from which living bodies have descended.
From the monad nature passes to the Volvox, Pro-
teus (Amceba), and Vibrio. From them are derived
the folypes rotiferes and other “ Radiaires,’’ and
then the Vers, Arachnides, and Crustacea. On page
77 a tabular view is presented, as follows:

. Les Mollusques.
. Les Cirrhipéedes.
. Les Annelides.

. Les Crustaceés.

. Les Arachnides.
. Les Insectes.

. Les Vers.

. Les Radiaires.

. Les Polypes.

AmB WwW bd #

oOo ON

It will be seen that at this date two additional
classes are proposed and defined—z.e., the Annelides
and the Cirrhipedes, though the class of Annelida was
first privately characterized in his lectures for 1802.

The elimination of the barnacles or Cirrhipedes
from the molluscs was a decided step in advance, and
was a proof of the acute observation and sound judg-
ment of Lamarck. He says that this class is still
very imperfectly known and its position doubtful,
and adds: ‘‘ The Cirrhipedes have up to the present
time been placed among the molluscs, but although

192 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

certain of them closely approach them in some re-
spects, they have a special character which compels
us to separate them. In short, in the genera best
known the feet of these animals are distinctly articu-
lated and even crustaceous (crustacés).”’ He does not
refer to the nervous system, but this is done in his
next work. It will be remembered that Cuvier over-
looked this feature of the jointed limbs, and also the
crustaceous-like nervous system of the barnacles, and
allowed them to remain among the molluscs, notwith-
standing the decisive step taken by Lamarck. It was
not until many years after (1830) that Thompson
proved by their life-history that barnacles are true
crustacea,

In the Philosophie zoologique the ten classes of the
invertebrates are arranged in the following order:

Les Mollusques.
Les Cirrhipedes.
Les Annelides.
Les Crustacés.
Les Arachnides.
Les Insectes.
Les Vers.

Les Radtatres.
Les Polypes.

Les Infusotres.

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

LAMARCK THE ZOOLOGIST 193

AB ra Act
Servant a montrer 1 ‘origine des differens
ANIMAUX.
Vers. Infusoires.
: Polypes.
Radiaires.
’ Insectes.

: Arachnides.
Annelides. Crustacés.
Cirrhipédes.

Mollusques.
Poitcene
Reptiles.
Oiseaux. ,
Wronorenies M. Amphibies.

M. Ceétacés.

: M. Onguleés.
M. Onguiculés.
13

104 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

The next innovation made by Lamarck in the
Extra du Cours de Zoologie, in 1812, was not a happy
one. In this work he distributed the fourteen classes
of the animal kingdom into three groups, which he
named Animaux Apathiques, Sensibles, and Intelligens.
In this physiologico-psychological base for a classi-
fication he unwisely departed from his usual more
solid foundation of anatomical structure, and the
results were worthless. He, however, repeats it in
his great work, Azstotre naturelle des Animaux sans
Vertébres (1815-1822

The sponges were by Cuvier, and also by Lamarck,
accorded a position among the Polypes, near Alcy-
onium, which represents the latter’s Polypiers em-
pdtés; and it is interesting to notice that, for many
years remaining among the Protozoa, meanwhile
even by Agassiz regarded as vegetables, they were
by Haeckel restored to a position among the Ccelen-
terates, though for over twenty years they have by
some American zoGlogists been more correctly re-
garded as a separate phylum.* Lamarck also sepa-
rated the seals and morses from the cetacea. Adopt-
ing his idea, Cuvier referred the seals to an order of
carnivora,.

Another interesting matter, to which Professor
Lacaze-Duthiers has called attention in his interesting
letter on p. 77, is the position assigned Lucernaria
among his Radtatres molasses near what are now
Ctenophora and Medusez, though one would have

* See A. Hyatt’s Revision of North American Portfera, Part II.
(Boston, 1877, p. I1); also the present writer in his Text-book of Zoblogy
(1878).

LAMARCK THE ZOOLOGIST 195

supposed he would, from its superficial resemblance
to polyps, have placed it among the polyps. To
Lamarck we are also indebted for the establishment
in 1818 of the molluscan group of Heteropoda.

Lamarck’s acuteness is also shown in the fact that,
whereas Cuvier placed them among the acephalous
molluscs, he did not regard the ascidians as molluscs
at all, but places them in a class by themselves
under the name of 7zzzcata, following the Sipunculus
worms. Yet he allowed them to remain near the
Holothurians (then including Sipunculus) in his
group of Radzatrcs echinodermes, between the latter
and the Vers. He differs from Cuvier in regard-
ing the tunic as the homologue of the shell of Lamelli-
branches, remarking that it differs in being muscular
and contractile.

Lamarck’s fame as a zoologist rests chiefly on this
great work. It elicited the highest praise from his
contemporaries. Besides containing the innovations
made in the classification of the animal kingdom,
which he had published in previous works, it was a
summary of ali which was then known of the in-
vertebrate classes, thus forming a most convenient
hand-book, since it mentioned all the known genera
and all the known species except those of the insects,
of which only the types are mentioned. It passed
through two editions, and still is not without value
to the working systematist.

In his Hestotre des Progrés des Sciences naturelles
Cuvier does it justice. Referring to the earlier volume,
he states that “it has extended immensely the knowl-
edge, especially by a new distribution, of the shelled

196 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

molluscs. <...... ‘(Mivde Lamarck has “established
with as much care as sagacity the genera of shells.”
Again he says, in noticing the three first volumes:
“The great detail into which M. de Lamarck has
entered, the new species he has described, renders his
work very valuable to naturalists, and renders most
desirable its prompt continuation, especially from the
knowledge we have of means which this experienced
professor possesses to carry to a high degree of per-
fection the enumeration which he will give us of the
shells” (Huvres completes de Buffon, 1828, t. 31, p. 354).

“His excellences,” says Cleland, speaking of La-
marck as a scientific observer, ‘‘ were width of scope,
fertility of ideas, and a preéminent faculty of precise
description, arising not only from a singularly terse
style, but from a clear insight into both the dis-
tinctive features and the resemblance of forms”
(Encyc. Britannica, Art. LAMARCK).

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

Lamarck’s special line of study was the Mollusca.
How his work is still regarded by malacologists is
shown by the following letter from our leading
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 some-

LAMARCK THE ZOOLOGIST 197

thing 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 Anzmaux sans Vertcbres. 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; practi-
cally 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.

“T remain,
“Yours sincerely,

VW ILETAM thi DAT Ee

Clsbedesh aie Oo. Gl

THE EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON AND OF
GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE

OF the French precursors of Lamarck there were
four—Duret (1609), De Maillet (1748), Robinet (1768),
and Buffon. The opinions of the first three could
hardly be taken seriously, as they were crude and
fantastic, though involving the idea of descent. The
suggestions and hypotheses of Buffon and of Erasmus
Darwin were of quite a different order, and deserve
careful consideration.

George Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, was born
in 1707 at Montbard, Burgundy, in the same year
as lLinné. .Herdied).at Paris in 1788, at the age 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 writ-
ing his works, being a most prolific author. He was
not an observer, not even a closet naturalist. ‘I have
passed,” he is reported to have said, “ fifty years at
my desk.”” Appointed in 1739, when he was thirty-
two years old, Intendant of the Royal Garden, he
divided his time between his retreat at Montbard and
Paris, spending four months in Paris and the re-

aie

1G

moae

ac

IN WHICH LAMARCK LIVED,

1793-1829

BUFKON,

MAISON DE

CHARACTER OF BUFFON 199

mainder of the year at Montbard, away from the dis-
tractions and dissipations of the capital. It is signifi-
cant that he wrote his great HAfzstotre naturelle at
Montbard and not at Paris, where were the collections
of natural history.

His biographer, Flourens, says: “ What dominates
in the character of Buffon is elevation, force, the love
of greatness and glory; he loved magnificence in
everything. His fine figure, his majestic air, seemed
to have some relation with the greatness of his genius;
and nature had refused him none of those qualities
which could attract the attention of mankind.

“ Nothing is better known than the xatveté of his
self-esteem ; he admired himself with perfect honesty,
frankly, but good-naturedly.”

He was once asked how many great men he could
really mention; he answered: ‘‘ Five—Newton, Bacon,
Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and myself.” His admirable

style gained him immediate reputation and glory
throughout the world of letters. His famous epi-
gram, “Le style est l’homme méme,” is familiar to
every one. That his moral courage was scarcely of
a high order is proved by his little affair with the
theologians of the Sorbonne. 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 his prudence, not to
say timidity, in presenting in his ironical way his
thoughts on the origin of things, is annoying, for we
do not always understand what Buffon did really
believe about the mutability or the fixity of species,

200 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

as too plain speaking in the days he wrote often led
to persecution and personal hazard.*

His cosmological ideas were based on those of Bur-
net and Leibnitz. His geological notions were founded
on the labors of Palissy, Steno, Woodward, and
Whiston. He depended upon his friend Daubenton
for anatomical facts, and on Gueneau de Montbéliard
and the Abbé Bexon for his zodlogical data. As
Flourens says, “ Buffon was not exactly an observer :
others observed and discovered for him. He discov-
ered, himself, the observations of others; he sought
for ideas, others sought facts for him.”” How fulsome
his eulogists were is seen in the case of Flourens,
who capped the climax in exclaiming, “ Buffon is
Leibnitz with the eloquence of Plato; and he adds,
“He did not write for savants: he wrote for all man-
kind.’”’ No one now reads Buffon, while the works of
Réaumur, who preceded him, are nearly as valuable
as ever, since they are packed with careful observa-
tions.

The experiments of Redi, of Swammerdam, and of
Vallisneri, and the observations of Réaumur, had no

* Mr. Morley, in his Rouwsseaz, gives a startling picture of the
hostility of the parliament at the period (1762) when Buffon’s works
appeared. Not only was Rousseau hunted out of France, and his books
burnt by the public executioner, but there was “‘ hardly a single man of
letters of that time who escaped arbitrary imprisonment” (p. 270);
among others thus imprisoned was Diderot. At this time (1750-1765)
Malesherbes (born 1721, guillotined 1794), one of the ‘‘ best instructed
and most enlightened men of the century,” was Directeur de la Libraire.
‘The process was this : a book was submitted to him; he named acen-
sor for it; on the censor’s report the director gave or refused permission
to print or required alterations, Even after these formalities were com-
plied with, the book was liable to a decree of the royal council, a
decree of the parliament, or else a lettre-de-cachet might send the
author to the Bastille’ (Morley’s Aozsseau, p. 266).

EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON 201

effect on Buffon, who maintained that, of the different
forms of genesis, ‘spontaneous generation”’ is not
only the most frequent and the most general, but the
most ancient—namely, the primitive and the most
universal.*

Buffon by nature was unsystematic, and he pos-
sessed little of the spirit or aim of the true investi-
gator. He left no technical papers or memoirs, or
what we would call contributions to science. In his
history of animals he began with the domestic breeds,
and then described those of most general, popular
interest, those most known. He knew, as Male-
sherbes claimed, little about the works even of Linné
and other systematists, neither grasping their prin-
ciples nor apparently caring to know their methods.
His single positive addition to zodlogical science was
generalizations on the geographical distribution of
animals. He recognized that the animals of the
tropical and southern portions of the old and new
worlds were entirely unlike, while those of North
America and northern Eurasia were in many cases the
same.

We will first bring together, as Flourens and also
Butler have done, his scattered fragmentary views, or
rather suggestions, on the fixity of species, and then
present his thoughts on the mutability of species.

* Tistoire naturelle, générale et particulicre. Ist edition, Im-
primerie royale. Paris: 1749-1804, 44 vols. qto. Tome iv., p. 357.
This is the best of all the editions of buffon, says Flourens, from
whose Histoire des Travaux et des Idées de Buffon, ist edition (Paris,
1844), we take some of the quotations and references, which, however,
we have verified. We have also quoted some passages from Buffon
translated by Butler in his ‘‘ Evolution, Old and New” (London,
1879).

202 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

‘“The) species’ is then “lan abstract’) and) general
term.” * ‘There only exist individuals and suztes of
individuals, that is to say, species.”+ Healso says
that Nature “imprints on each species its unalterable
characters ;”’ that ‘each species has an equal right
to creation ;’’t that species, even those nearest allied,
“are separated by an interval over which nature can-
not pass;’’$ and that “each species having been in-
dependently created, the first individuals have served
as a model for their descendants.”

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

“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 ap-
parent 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,.e" butler).

The volumes of the Hestozre naturelle on animals,

* Z,c., tome iv., p. 384 (1753). This is the first volume on the
animals below man.

+ Tome xi., p. 369 (1764).

t Tome xii., p. 3 (1764).

§ Tome v., p. §9 (1755).

| Tome xiii., p. vii. (1765).

EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON 203

beginning with tome iv., appeared in the years 1753
to 1767, or over a period of fourteen years. Butler,
in his Evolution, Old and New, effectually disposes
of Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire’s statement that at the
beginning of his work (tome iv., 1753) he affirms the
fixity of species, while from 1761 to 1766 he declares
for variability. But Butler asserts from his reading
of the first edition that “ from the very first chapter
onward he leant strongly to mutability, even if he did
not openly avow his belief init. . . . The reader
who turns to Buffon himself will find that the idea
that Buffon took a less advanced position in his old
age than he had taken in middle life is also without
foundation ” * (p. 104).

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

He states, however, that the presence of callosities
on the legs of the camel and llama “are the unmis-
takable results of rubbing or friction; so also with the
callosities of baboons and the pouched monkeys, and
the double soles of man’s feet.’ + In this point he
anticipates Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck. As we
shall see, however, his notions were much less firmly

* Osborn adopts, without warrant we think, Isidore Geoffroy St. Hi-
laire’s notion, stating that he ‘‘ shows clearly that his opinions marked
three periods.” The writings of Isidore, the son of Etienne Geoffroy,
have not the vigor, exactness, or depth of those of his father.

+t Tome xiv., p. 326 (1766).

204 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

grounded than those of Erasmus Darwin, who was a
close observer as well as a profound thinker.

In his chapter on the Dégénération des Animaux, or,
as it is translated, ‘‘ modification of animals,” Buffon
insists that the three causes are climate, food, and
domestication. The examples he gives are the sheep,
which having originated, as he thought, from the
mufflon, shows marked changes. The ox varies
under the influence of food; reared where the
pasturage is rich it is twice the size of those living in
a dry country. The races of the torrid zones bear a
hump on their shoulders; “the zebu, the buffalo, is,
in short, only a variety, only a race 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 change of seasons.

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

‘“‘ Tf 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. Never-
theless, animals in a free, wild state are perhaps less
subject than any other living beings, man not ex-

EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON 205

cepted, to alterations, changes, and variations of all
kinds. Being free to choose their own food and cli-
mate, they vary less than domestic animals vary.” *

The Buffonian factor of the direct influence of
climate is not in general of so thoroughgoing a char-
acter as usually supposed by the commentators of
Buffon. He generally applies it to the superficial
changes, such as the increase or decrease in the
amount of hair, or similar modifications not usually
regarded as specific characters. The modifications
due to the direct influence of climate may be effected,
he says, within even a few generations.

Under the head of geographical distribution (in
tome ix., 1761), in which subject Buffon made his
most original contribution to exact biology, he claims
to have been the first “even to have suspected ” that
not a single tropical species is common to both
eastern and western continents, but that the animals
common to both continents are those adapted toa tem-
perate or cold climate. He even anticipates the sub-
ject of migration in past geological times by supposing
that those forms travelled from the Old World either
over some land still unknown, or “more probably”
over territory which has long since been submerged.t

The mammoth “was certainly the greatest and
strongest of all quadrupeds, but it has disappeared ;
and if so, how many smaller, feebler, and less re-
markable species must have perished without leaving
us any traces or even hints of their having existed ?
How many other species have changed their nature,

* Tome vi., pp. 59-60 (1756). + Butler, 7 ¢., pp. 145-146.

206 BAMAR CIE 11S LiL, ALD VO Reba

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

aS

natures.” *

The following passages, debarring the error of deriv-
ing all the American from the Old World forms, and
the mistake in supposing that the American forms
grew smaller than their ancestors in the Old World,
certainly smack of the principle of isolation and
segregation, and this is Buffon’s most important con-
tribution 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 sepa-
rated 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 be-
come 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

MVOMe IxX., p.1T27, D7Ol (ere butler),

EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON 207

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, [ maintain, is in a state of con-
tinual flux and movement. It ts enough for man if he
can grasp her as she ts in his own time, and throw but
a glance or two upon the past and future, so as to try
and percetve what she may have been in former times
and what one day she may attain to.” *

Buffon thus suggests the principle of the struggle
for existence to prevent overcrowding, resulting in the
maintenance of the balance of nature:

“It may be said that the movement of Nature
turns upon two immovable pivots—one, the illimit-
able 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 overcrowd-
ing, each species has its own special sources of death
and destruction, which are of themselves sufficient to
compensate for excess in any past generation.” +

Ie also adds.“ The species the- least, periect. the
most delicate, the most unwieldy, the least active,
the most unarmed, etc., have already disappeared or
will disappear.” t

On one occasion, in writing on the dog, he antici-
pates Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck in ascribing to
the direct cause of modification the inner feelings of

* Tome ix:p. 127,,.0700 (ex Butler):
t Tome vi., p. 252, 1756 (quoted from Butler, 7. c., pp. 123-126).
+ Quoted from Osborn, who takes it from De Lanessan.

208 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

the animal modified, change of condition being the
indirect cause.* He, however, did not suggest the
idea of the transmission of acquired characters by
heredity, and does not mention the word heredity.

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

« After the rapid elance;” he says, “at these -varia-
tions, which indicate to us the special changes under-
gone 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.”’ +

In the beginning of his first volume he states “ that
we can descend by almost imperceptible degrees from
the most perfect creature to the most formless matter
—from the most highly organized animal to the most
entirely inorganic substance. We will recognize this
eradation as the great work of nature; and we will
observe it not only as regards size and form, but
also in respect of movements and in the successive
generations of every species.”

“Hence,” “he continues, “arises! the. difficulty. of

* Butler, 7. ¢., p. 122 (from Buffon, tome v., 1755).
+ Tome xiv., p. 335 (1766).

EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON 209

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
ie may be. =

This is all true, and was probably felt by Buffon’s
predecessors, but it does not imply that he thought
these forms had descended from one another.

“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.” +

He then establishes, on the one hand, nine species
which he regarded as isolated, and, on the other,
fifteen principal genera, primitive sources or, as we
would say, ancestral forms, from which he derived
all the animals (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

Ae

“ Although we cannot demonstrate that the pro-
duction of a species by modification is a thing impos-

* OMe: sip ls. +) DOME XivVeq. 11359.

14

2TO LAMARCK, AIS LIFE AND WORK

sible to nature, the number of contrary probabilities
is so enormous that, even philosophically, we can
scarcely doubt it; for if any species has been pro-
duced 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 repre-
sentatives, 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 (dégéncré), 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” (zdzd., p. 382).
The next sentence, however, translated, reads as
follows:

“But no. It is certain from revelation that all ani-
mals have alike been favored with the grace of an act

EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON MEN

of direct creation, and that the first pair of every
species issued fully formed from the hands of the
Greator ’ (tome iv.).p. 383).

In which of these views did Buffon really believe ?
Yet they appear in the same volume, and not at dif-
ferent periods of his life.

He actually does say in the same volume (iv., p.
358): “It is not impossible that all species may be
derivations (essues).” In the same volume 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, relative sly to cer-
tain 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 the previous volume, that species “are the
only beings in nature, beings perpetual, as ancient, as
permanent as she.’”’* A few pages farther on in the
same volume of the same work, apparently written at
the same time, he is strongly and stoutly anti-evolu-
tional, affirming: “The imprint of each species isa
type whose principal features are graven in characters
forever ineffaceable and permanent.”} —

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

* Tome xiii., p. i. + Tome xiii., p. ix.

BD LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

The impression left on the mind, after reading
Buffon, is that even if he threw out these suggestions
and then retracted them, from fear of annoyance or
even persecution from the bigots of his time, he did
not himself always take them seriously, but rather
jotted them down as passing thoughts. Certainly he
did not present them in the formal, forcible, and
scientific way that Erasmus Darwin did. The result
is that the tentative views of Buffon, which have to
be with much research extracted from the forty-four
volumes of his works, would now be regarded as in a
degree superficial and valueless. But they appeared
thirty-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.

ETIENNE GEOFFROY Sie HiEArRE:

Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire was born at Etampes,
Aprils; 1772, te diediin Paris in 1ea4. ble was
destined for the church, but his tastes were for a
scientific career. His acquaintance with the Abbé
Hatiy and Daubenton led him to study mineralogy.
He was the means of liberating Haiiy from a political
prison; the Abbé, as the result of the events of
August, 1792, being promptly set free at the request
of the Academy of Sciences. The young Geoffroy
was in his turn aided by the illustrious Haiiy, who
obtained for him the position of sub-guardian and
demonstrator of mineralogy in the Cabinet of Natural
History. At the early age of twenty-one years, as
we have seen, he was elected professor of zoélogy in

==

y

——_S

FE, GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE

VIEWS OF GEOPFROYVY ST. HILATRE 202

the museum, in charge of the department of mammals
and birds. Hewas the means of securing for Cuvier,
then of his own age, a position in the museum as
professor-adjunct of comparative anatomy. [or two
years (1795 and 1796) the two youthful savants were
inseparable, sharing the same apartments, the same
table, the same amusements, the same studies, and
their scientific papers were prepared in company and
signed in common.

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

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

As early as 1795, before Lamarck had changed his
views as to the stability of species, the young
Geoffroy, then twenty-three years old, dared to claim
that species may be only “les diverses dégéucrations

DA LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

d’un méme type.’ These views he did not abandon,
nor, on the other hand, did he actively promulgate
them. It was not until thirty years later, in his
memoir on the anatomy of the gavials, that he began
the series of his works bearing on the question of
species. In 1831 was held the famous debates between
himself and Cuvier in the Academy of Sciences. But
the contest was not so much on the causes of the
variation of species as on the doctrine of homologies
and the unity of organization in the animal kingdom.

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

The species is only “ fivé sous la raison du matntien
de 1 état conditionnel de son milieu ambtant.”

It 4s: modihed, it changes, 1f the environment
(milicu ambiant) varies, and according to the extent
(selon la portéc) of the variations of the latter.*

As the result, among recent or living beings there
are no essential differences as regards them—“ c'est
le méme cours a’ événements,’ or “la méme marche
ad’ excitation.’ +

On the other hand, the monde ambiant having
undergone more or less considerable change from
one geological epoch to another, the atmosphere
having even varied in its chemical composition, and
the conditions of respiration having been thus modi-
fied, + the beings then living would differ in structure
from their ancestors of ancient times, and would

* Etudes progressives d’un Naturaliste, etc., 1835, p. 107.

+ Thid,

t Sur Ll’ Influence du Monde ambiant pour modifier les Formes
animaux (Mémoires Acad. Sciences, xii., 1833, pp. 63, 75).

VIEWS OF GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE 215

differ from them according “to the degree of the
modifying power.” * Again, he says, ‘The animals
living to-day have been derived by a series of unin-
terrupted generations from the extinct animals of the
antediluvian world.” + He gave as an example the
crocodiles of the present 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, according to his son Isidore, re-
jected the view which made all the living species
descend “d'une espice antediluvienne primitive.” t
It will be seen that Geoffroy St. Hilaire’s views were
chiefly based on paleontological evidence. He was
throughout broad and philosophical, and his eloquent
demonstration in his Phzlosophie anatomigue of the
doctrine of homologies served to prepare the way for
modern morphology, and affords one of the founda-
tion stones on which rests the theory of descent.
Though temporarily vanquished in the debate with
Cuvier, who was a forceful debater and represented
the views then prevalent, a later generation acknowl-
edges that he was in the right, and remembers him
as one of the founders of evolution.

* Recherches sur l’ Organisation des Gavials (Mémoires du Muséum
ad’ [Tistoire naturelle, xii., p. 97 (1825).

+ Sur LInfluence du Monde ambiant, p. 74.

t Dictionnaire de la Conversation, xxxi., p. 487, 1836 (quoted by I.
Geoffroy St. Hilaire); Histoire nat. gén, des Regnes organiques, ii.,
2° partie ; also Résumé, p. 30 (1859).

CHAP TERY
THE VIEWS OF ERASMUS DARWIN

ERASMUS DARWIN, the grandfather of Charles
Darwin, was born in 1731, or twenty-four years after
Buffon. He was an English country physician with
a large practice, and not only interested in philosophy,
mechanics, and natural science, but given to didactic
rhyming, as evinced by Zhe Botanical Garden and
The Loves of the Plants, the latter of which was
translated into French in 1800, and into Italian in
1805. His “shrewd and homely mind,” his powers
of keen observation and strong common sense were
revealed in his celebrated work Zoonomta, which was
published in two volumes in 1794, and translated
into German in 1795-99. He was not a zodlogist,
published no separate scientific articles, and his strik-
ing and original views on evolution, which were so
far in advance of his time, appear mostly in the sec-
tion on “ Generation,’ comprising 173 pages of his
Zoonomtia, * which was mainly a medical work. The
book was widely 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 Zoo-

* Vol. ii., 3d edition. Our references are to this edition.

VIEWS OF ERASMUS DARWIN 2h

nomta, though he is careful, moro suo, never to
mention this work by name. Paley’s success was
probably one of the chief causes of the neglect
into which the Buffonian and Darwinian systems fell
in this country.” Dr. Darwin died in the same year
(1802) as that in which the Watural Theology was
published.

Krause also writes of the reception given by his
contemporaries to his “ physio-philosophical ideas.”
“They spoke of his wild and eccentric fancies, and
the expression ‘ Darwinising’ (as employed, for ex-
ample, by the poet Coleridge when writing on Still-
ingfleet) was accepted in England nearly as the an-
tithesis of sober biological investigation.” *

The grandson of Erasmus Darwin had little appre-
ciation of the views of him of whom, through atavic
heredity, he was the intellectual and scientific child.
“1t is. curious,” he says in the ° Historical Sketch,’
of the Origin of Spectes—* it is curious how largely
my grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, anticipated the
views and erroneous grounds of opinion of Lamarck
in his Zoonomza (vol. i., pp. 500-510), published in
1794.” It seemsa little strange that Charles Darwin
did not devote a few lines to stating just what his
ancestor’s views were, for certain of them, as we shall
see, are anticipations of his own.

The views of Erasrnus Darwin may thus be sum-
marily stated :

1. All animals have originated “from a single liv-
ing filament’ (p. 230), or, stated in other words, re-

* Krause, The Scientific Works of Erasmus Darwin, footnote on
p. 134: ‘‘See ‘ Athenzeum,’ March, 1875, p. 423.”

218 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

ferring to the warm-blooded animals alone, “ one is
led to conclude that they have alike been produced
from a similar living filament ” (p. 236); and again he
expresses the conjecture that one and the same kind
of living filament is and has been the cause of 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, and the hares and
partridges of the latitudes which are long buried in
snow become white during the winter months” (p.
234). Onlya passing reference is made to this factor,
and the effects of domestication are but cursorily re-
ferred to. In this respect Darwin’s views differed
much from Buffon’s, with whom they were the pri-
mary causes in the modification of animals.

The other factors or agencies are not referred to by
Buffon, showing that Darwin was not indebted to
Buffon, but thought out the matter in his own inde-
pendent way.

3. “Fifthly, from their first rudiment or primor-
dium to the termination of their lives, all animals
undergo perpetual transformations, which are in part
produced by their own exertions in consequence of
their desires and aversions, of their pleasures and their
pains, or of irritations or of associations; and many
of these acquired forms or propensities are transmitted
to their posterity’ (p.'237).” The three sreat objects
of desire are, he says, “lust, hunger, and security ”

(p. 237).

VIEWS OF ERASMUS DARWIN 219

4. Contests of the males for the possession of the
females, or law of battle. Under the head of desire he
dwells on the desire of the male for the exclusive pos-
session of the female; and “these have acquired weap-
ons to combat each other for this purpose,” as the very
thick, shield-like horny skin on the shoulders of the
boar, and his tusks, the horns of the stag, the spurs of
cocks and quails. ‘The final cause,” he says, “ of
this contest among the males seems to be that the
strongest and most active animal should propagate
the species, which should thence become improved ”’
(p. 238). This savors so strongly of sexual selection
that we wonder very much that Charles Darwin re-
pudiated it as “erroneous.” It is not mentioned by
Lamarck, nor is Dr. Darwin’s statement of the exer-
tions and desires of animals at all similar to Lamarck’s,
who could not have borrowed his ideas on appetency
from Darwin or any other predecessor.

5. The transmission of characters acquired during
the lifetime of the parent. This is suggested in the
following crude way :

‘ Thirdly, when we enumerate the great changes
produced in the species of animals before their ma-
turity, 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 fe-
tus, as in monstrous births with additional limbs, many
of these enormities of shape are propagated and con-
tinued asa 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

~)

220 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

t

claw, and with wings to their feet, and of others with-
out 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 cus-
tom, 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.” *

6. The means of procuring food has, he says,
“ diversified the forms of all species of animals. Thus
the nose of the swine has become hard for the pur-
pose 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 purpose of pulling down the branches
of trees for his food, and for taking up water without
bending his knees. Beasts of prey have acquired
strong jaws or talons. Cattle have acquired a rough
tongue and a rough palate to pull off the blades of
grass, as cows and sheep. Some birds have acquired
harder beaks to crack nuts, as the parrot. Others
have acquired beaks to break the harder seeds, as
sparrows. Others for the softer kinds of flowers, or
the buds of trees, as the finches. Other birds have
acquired long beaks to penetrate the moister soils
in search of insects or roots, as woodcocks, and others
broad ones to filtrate the water of lakes and to retain
aquatic insects. All which seem to have been gradu-
ally produced during many generations by the per-
petual endeavors of the creature to supply the want
of food, and to have been delivered to their posterity
with constant improvement of them for the purpose
required (p. 238).

7. The third great want among animals is that of
security, which seems to have diversified the forms of
their bodies and the color of them; these consist in

* Zoonomia, i., p. 505 (3d edition, p. 335).

VIEWS OF ERASMUS DARWIN 2

bo

I

the means of escaping other animals more powerful
than themselves.* Hence some animals have acquired
wings instead of legs, as the smaller birds, for pur-
poses of escape. Others, great length of fin or of
membrane, as the flying-fish and the bat. Others
have acquired hard 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 fre-
quent 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 (/r7ngzlla carduelis), are fe
nished 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 vege-

* The subject of protective mimicry is more explicitly ste ated e
Dr. Darwin in his earlier book, Zhe Loves of the Plants, and,
Krause states, though Résel von Rosenhof in his /rsehkten- pepe
gungen (Nurnberg, 1746) describes the resemblance which geo-
metric caterpillars, and also certain moths when in repose, present to
dry twigs, and thus conceal themselves, ‘‘this group of phenomena
seems to have been first regarded from a more general point of view
by Dr. Darwin.”

202 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

tables seem consequent to the other properties of the
materials which possess them” (Zhe Loves of the
Plants, p. 38, note).

In his Zoonomta (§ xxxix., vi.) Darwin also speaks
of the efficient cause of the various colors of the
eggs of birds and of the hair and feathers of animals
which are adapted to the purpose of concealment.
“Thus the snake, and wild cat, and leopard are so
colored as to resemble dark leaves and their light in-
terstices’’ (p. 248). The eggs of hedge-birds are
ereenish, with dark spots; those of crows and mag-
pies, which are seen from beneath through wicker
nests, are white, with dark spots; and those of larks
and partridges are russet or brown, like their nests or
Situations., ‘re “adds: “' The: final? cause of itheis
colors is easily understood, as they serve some pur-
pose of the animal, but the efficient cause would seem
almost beyond conjecture.” Of all this subject of
protective mimicry thus sketched out by the older
Darwin, we find no hint or trace in any of Lamarck’s
writings.

8. Great length of time. He speaks of the “ great
length of time since the earth began to exist, per-
haps millions of ages before the commencement of
the history of mankind ” (p. 240).

In this connection it may be observed that Dr.
Darwin emphatically opposes the preformation views
of Haller and Bonnet in these words:

“Many ingenious philosophers have found so great
difficulty in conceiving the manner of the reproduc-

tion of animals that they have supposed all the
numerous progeny to have existed in miniature in

VIEWS OF ERASMUS DARWIN 228

the animal originally created, and that these in-
finitely 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 organ-
ized 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).

g. To explain instinct he suggests that the young
simply imitate the acts or example of their parents.
He says that wild birds choose spring as their building
time “from the acquired knowledge that the mild
temperature of the air is more convenient for hatch-
ing their eggs;’’ and further on, referring to the fact
that seed-eating animals generally produce their
young in spring, he suggests that it is “part of the
traditional knowledge which they learn from the
example of their parents.”

10. Hybridity. He refers in a cursory way to the
changes produced by the mixture of species, as in
mules.

Of these ten factors or principles, and other views
of Dr. Darwin, some are similar to those of Lamarck,
while others are directly opposed. There are there-
fore no good grounds for supposing that Lamarck
was indebted to Darwin for his views. Thus Erasmus
Darwin supposes that the formation of organs pre-
cedes their use. As he says, “The lungs must be

* Zoonomia, vol. i., p. 170.

224 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

previously formed before their exertions to obtain
fresh air can exist; the throat or cesophagus must be
formed previous to the sensation or appetites of hunger
and thirst” (Zoonomta, p. 222). Again (Zoonomta, i., p.
498), ‘“ From hence I conclude that with the acquisition
of new parts, new sensations and new desires, as well as
new powers, are produced” (p. 226). Lamarck does
not carry his doctrine of use-inheritance so far as
Erasmus Darwin, who claimed, what some still main-
tain at the present day, that the offspring reproduces
“the effects produced upon the parent by accident
or cultivation.”

The idea that all animals have descended from a
similar living filament is expressed in a more modern
and scientific way by Lamarck, who derived them
from monads.

The Erasmus Darwin way of stating that the trans-
formations of animals are in part produced by their
own exertions in consequence of their desires and
aversions, etc., is stated in a quite different way by
Lamarck.

Finally the principle of law of battle, or the com-
bat between the males for the possession of the
females, with the result “that the strongest and most
active animal should propagate the species,” is not
hinted at by Lamarck. This view, on the contrary,
is one of the fundamental principles of the doctrine
of natural selection, and was made use of by Charles
Darwin and others. So also Erasmus anticipated
Charles Darwin in the third great want of ‘“ security,”
in seeking which the forms and colors of animals
have been modified. This is an anticipation of the

VIEWS OF ERASMUS DARWIN 225

principle of protective mimicry, so much discussed
in these days by Darwin, Wallace, and others, and
which was not even mentioned by Lamarck. From
the internal evidence of Lamarck’s writings we there-
fore infer that he was in no way indebted to Erasmus
Darwin for any hints or ideas.*

* Mr. Samuel Butler, in his Zvolution, Old and New, taking it for
granted that Lamarck was ‘‘a partisan of immutability till 1801,” in-
timates that ‘‘the secret of this sudden conversion must be found in
a French translation by M. Deleuze of Dr. Darwin’s poem, 7/e
Loves of the Plants, which appeared in 1800. Lamarck—the most
eminent botanist of his time—was sure to have heard of and seen this,
and would probably know 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
his famous lecture, published in 1801, during the last of April or in
the first half of May, 1800. The views then presented must have
been formed in 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 any information given him by Deleuze, whom he probably
never met. If Lamarck had actually seen and read the Zoonomia he
would have been manly enough to have given him credit for any novel
ideas. Besides that, as we have already seen, the internal evidence
shows that Lamarck’s views were in some important points entirely
different from those of Erasmus Darwin, and were conceptions
original with the French zodlogist.

Krause in his excellent essay on the scientific works of Erasmus
Darwin (1879) refers to Lamarck as ‘‘ evidently a disciple of Dar-
win,” stating that Lamarck worked out ‘‘ in all directions’? Erasmus
Darwin’s principles of ‘‘ will and active efforts” (p. 212).

15

CEAUP IE Kapa)

WHEN DID LAMARCK CHANGE HIS VIEWS REGARD-
ING THE MUTABILITY OF SPECIES?

LAMARCK’S mind was essentially philosophical.
He was given to inquiring into the causes and origin
of things. When thirty-two years old he wrote his
“Researches on the Causes of the Principal Physical
Facts,” though this work did not appear from the
press until 1794, when he was fifty years of age. In
this treatise he inquires into the origin of compounds
and of minerals; also he conceived that all the rocks
as well as all chemical compounds and minerals orig-
inated from organic life. These inquiries were re-
iterated in his “ Memoirs on Physics and Natural
History,” which appeared in 1797, when he was fifty-
three years old.

The atmosphere of philosophic France, as well as
of England and Germany in the eighteenth century,
was charged with inquiries into the origin of things
material, though more especially of things immaterial.
It was a period of energetic thinking. Whether
Lamarck had read the works of these 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

WHEN DID LAMARCK’S VIEWS CHANGE? 227,

and patronage in early life, frequenting his house,
and was fora time the travelling companion of Buf-
fon’sson. It should seem most natural that he would
have been personally influenced by his great prede-
cessor, but we see no indubitable trace of such influ-
ence in his writings. Lamarckism is not Buffonism.
It comprises in the main quite a different, more varied
and comprehensive set of factors.*

Was Lamarck influenced by the biological writings
of Haller, Bonnet, or by the philosophic views of Con-
dillac, whose Essaz sur 2 Origine des Connatssances
humaincs appeared in 1786; or of Condorcet, whom
he must personally have known, and whose Fsquzsse
aun Tableau historique des Progres del’ Esprit hu-
main was published in1794?+ In one case only in La-
marck’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 system-
atic botanists are, by the variations of the more plastic
species of plants, led tu deny the fixity of species?

We have been unable to find any indications of a
change of views in his botanical writings, though his
papers are prefaced by philosophical reflections.

It would indeed be interesting to know what led
Lamarck to change his views. Without any explana-

* See the comparative summary of the views of the founders of
evolution at the end of Chapter XVII.

+ While Rousseau was living at Montmorency “‘ his thoughts wan-
dered confusedly round the notion of a treatise to be called ‘ Sensitive
Morality or the Materialism of the Age,’ the object of which was to
examine the influence of external agencies, such as light, darkness,
sound, seasons, food, noise, silence, motion, rest, on our corporeal
machine, and thus, indirectly, upon the soul also.”—Aousseau, by
John Morley (p. 164).

228 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

tion as to the reason from his own pen, we are led
to suppose that his studies on the invertebrates, his
perception of the gradations in the animal scale from
monad to man, together with his inherent propensity
to inquire into the origin of things, also his studies on
fossils, as well as the broadening nature of his zoodlogi-
cal investigations and his meditations during the
closing years of the eighteenth century, must grad-
ually have led to a change of views.

It was said by Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire that
Lamarck was “ long a partisan of the immutability of
species,” * but the use of the word “ partisan ’’ appears
to be quite incorrect, as he only in one instance ex-
presses such views.

The only place where we have seen any statement
of Lamarck’s earlier opinions is in his Recherches sur
les Causes des principaux Faits physiques, which was
written, as the “advertisement ”’ states, “about eigh-
teen years’’ before its publication in 1794. The
treatise was actually presented April 22, 1780, to the
Académie des Sciences.t It will be seen by the fol-
lowing passages, which we translate, that, as Huxley
states, this view presents a striking contrast to those
to be found in the Philosophie zoologique :

“685. Although my sole object in this article
[article premier, p. 188] has only been to treat of the

* Butler’s Lvolution, Old and New (p. 244), and Isidore Geoffroy
St. Hilaire’s Histoire naturelle générale, tome ii., p. 404 (1859).

+ After looking in vain through both volumes of the Recherches for
some expression of Lamarck’s earlier views, I found a mention of it
in Osborn’s /yvon the Greeks to Darwin, p. 152, and reference to
Huxley’s Zvolution in Biology, 1878 (‘‘ Darwiniana,” p. 210), where
the paragraphs translated above are quoted in the original.

WHEN DID LAMARCK’S VIEWS CHANGE? 229

physical cause of the maintenance of life of organic
beings, still I have ventured to urge at the outset that
the existence of these astonish:ng 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, addea to all possible circum-
stances, and even to the activity pervading the uni-
verse, 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. How-
ever, 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 va-
rieties produced by the action of circumstances, these
varieties do not change the nature of the species (ces
varictés ne aénaturent point les especes); but doubt-
less 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,
or whether he inserted it when reading the proofs in
1794. It would seem as if it were the expression of
his views when a botanist and a young man.

In his Wémorres de Physique et a Histoire naturelle,
which was published in 1797, there is nothing said

230 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

bearing on the stability of species, and though his
work is largely a repetition of the Recherches, the
author omits the passages quoted above. Was this
period of six years, between 1794 and 1800, given to
a reconsideration of the subject resulting in favor of
the doctrine of descent ?

Huxley quotes these passages, and then in a foot-
note (p. 211), after stating that Lamarck’s Recherches
was not published before 1794, and stating that at
that time it presumably expressed Lamarck’s mature
views, adds: “It would be interesting to know what
brought about the change of opinion manifested in
the Recherches sur l Organisation des Corps vivans,
published only seven years later.”

In the appendix to this book (1802) he thus refers
to his change of views: “I have for a long time
thought that speczes were constant in nature, and that
they were constituted by the individuals which belong
to each of them. Iam now convinced that I was in
error in this respect, and that in reality only in-
dividuals exist in nature” (p. 141).

Some clew in answer to the question as to when
Lamarck changed his views is afforded by an almost
casual statement by Lamarck in the addition entitled
Sur les Fossiles to his Systeme des Anitmaux sans
Vertcbres (1801), where, after speaking of fossils as
extremely valuable monuments for the study of the
revolutions the earth has passed through at different
regions on its surface, and of the changes living
beings have there themselves successively undergone,
he adds in parenthesis: “Dans mes lecons 7’ at toujours
insiste sur ces considérations.” Are we to infer from

WHEN DID LAMARCK’S VIEWS CHANGE? DOT

ios)

this that these evolutionary views were expressed in
his first course, or in one of the earlier courses of
zoological lectures—z.¢., soon after his appointment in
1793—and if not then, at least one or two, or perhaps
several, years before the year 1800? For even if the
change in his views were comparatively sudden, he
must have meditated upon the subject for months and
even, perhaps, years, before finally committing himself
to these views in print. So strong and bold-a thinker
as Lamarck had already shown himself in these fields
of thought, and one so inflexible and unyielding in
holding to an opinion once formed as he, must have
arrived at such views only after long reflection.
There is also every reason to suppose that Lamarck’s
theory of descent was conceived by himself alone,
from the evidence which lay before him in the plants
and animals he had so well studied for the preceding
thirty years, and that his inspiration came directly
from nature and not from Buffon, and least of all
from the writings of Erasmus Darwin.

GHAR EE Rx Vi

THE STEPS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LAMARCK’S
VIEWS ON EVOLUTION BEFORE THE PUBLICA-
TION OF HIS © PATLOSOPATE , Z00LOGIOCEL.

I. From the Systime des Animaux sans Vertcbres(1801).

THE first occasion on which, so far as his published
writings show, Lamarck expressed his evolutional
views was in the opening lecture* of his course on
the invertebrate animals delivered in the spring of
1800, and published in 1801 as a preface to his
Systeme des Animaux sans Vertcbres, this being the
first sketch or prodromus of his later great work on
the, invertebrate. "animals, “Inthe pretace of tiis
book, referring to the openine: lecture; inevsaysi:: “ol
have glanced at some important and _ philosophic
views that the nature and limits of this work do not
permit me to develop, but which I propose to take
up elsewhere with the details necessary to show on
what facts they are based, and with certain explana-

* Discours @’ ouverture du Cours de Zoologie donné dans le Muséum
national a’ fistoire naturelle, le 2% floréal,an8 de la République (1800).
Floréal is the name adopted by the National Convention for the
eighth month of the year. In the years of the Republic 1 to 7 it ex-
tended from April 20 to May 1g inclusive, and in the years 8 to 13
from April 21 to May 20 (Century Cyclopedia of Names). Vhe lecture,
then, in which Lamarck first presented his views was delivered on
some day between April 21 and May 20, 1800.

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 233

tions which would prevent any one from misunder-
standing them.”” It may be inferred from this that
he had for some time previous meditated on this
theme. It will now be interesting to see what factors
of evolution Lamarck employed in this first sketch of
his theory.

After stating the distinctions existing between the
vertebrate and invertebrate animals, and referring to
the great diversity of animal forms, he goes on to
say that Nature began with the most simply organ-
ized, and having formed them, “then with the aid
of much time and of favorable circumstances she
formed all the others.”

“It appears, as I have already said, that ¢zm#e 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 (w2/zeux), 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 (wsage), 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 influ-

234 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

ences, became preserved and were propagated by
generation.*

“The bird which necessity (desotz) drives to the
water to find there the prey needed for its subsist-
ence separates the toes of its feet when it wishes to
strike the water + 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 gen-
erations 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.

‘‘T 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

* Lamarck by the word génération implies heredity. He nowhere
uses the word hérédité.

{ ‘‘ L’oiseau que le besoin attire sur l’eau pour y trouver la proie
qui le fait vivre, écarte les doigts de ses pieds lorsqu’il veut frapper
eau et se mouvoir a sa surface” (p. 13). If the word veut has sug-
gested the doctrine of appetency its meaning has been pushed too
far by the critics of Lamarck, AN Ty auaie

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 235

faculties, etc., is entirely the result of circumstances
to which the race of each species has been subjected
by nature.

“T 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 simple animal up to the most composite,
since from the monad, which, so to speak, is only an
animated point, up to the mammals, and from them
up to man, there is evidently a shaded gradation in
the structure of all the animals. So also among the
plants there is a graduated series from the simplest,
such as AZucor virtdescens, up to the most complicated
plant. But he hastens to say that by this regular
gradation in the complication of the organization he
does not mean to infer the existence of a linear series,
with regular intervals between the species and genera:

“« Such aseries does not exist ; but I speak of a series
almost regularly graduated in the principal groups
(asses) such as the great families; series most as-
suredly 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 have stated in so scientific, broad,

236 LAMARCK, AIS LIFE AND WORK

and modern form the essential principles of evolution.
Lamarck insists that time without limit and favorable
conditions are the two principal means or factors in
the production of plants and animals. Under the
head of favorable conditions he enumerates variations
in climate, temperature, the action of the environ-
ment, the diversity of local causes, change of habits,
movement, action, variation in means of living, of
preservation of life, of means of defence, and varying
modes of reproduction. As the result of the action
of these different factors, the faculties of animals,
developed and strengthened by use, become diversi-
fied by the new habits, so that by slow degrees the
new structures and organs thus arising become pre-
served and transmitted by heredity.

In this address it should be noticed that nothing is
said of willing and of internal feeling, which have been
so much misunderstood and ridiculed, or of the direct
or indirect action of the environment. He does
speak of the bird as wishing to strike the water, but
this, liberally interpreted, is as much a physiological
impulse as a mental desire. No reference also is
made to geographical isolation, a factor which he
afterwards briefly mentioned.

Although Lamarck does not mention the princirle
of selection, he refers in the following way to compe-
tition, or at least to the checks on the too rapid mul-
tiplication of the lower invertebrates:

“So were it not for the immense consumption as
food which is made in nature of animals which com-
pose the lower orders of the animal kingdom, these
animals would soon overpower and perhaps destroy,

EAMARCKAYS THEORY OF EVOL LION 2o7
by their enormous numbers, the more highly organ-
ized 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 multi-
plying 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 consider-
ably limiting the duration of life of these beings so
simply organized which compose the lower classes,
and especially the lowest orders of the animal king-
dom. On the other hand, both by making these
animals the prey of each other, thus incessantly re-
ducing their numbers, and also by determining
through the diversity of climates the localities where
they could exist,and by the variety of seasons—z.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 i 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 pre-
Senved: (p22

Here we have in anticipation the doctrine of Mal-
thus, which, as will be remembered, so much im-
pressed Charles Darwin, and led him in part to work
out his principle of natural selection.

The author then taking up other subjects, first
asserts that among the changes that animals and
plants unceasingly bring about by their production
and débris, it is not the largest and most perfect ani-

S LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

mals which have caused the most considerable changes,
but rather the coral polyps, etc.* He then, after
dilating on the value of the study of the invertebrate
animals, proceeds to define them, and closes his lec-
ture by describing the seven classes into which he
divides this group.

Il. Recherches sur 1’ Organisation des Corps vivans,
1802 (Opening Discourse).

The following is an abstract with translations of
the most important passages relating to evolution:

That the portion of the animal kingdom treated in
these lectures comprises more species than all the other
groups taken together is, however, the least of those
considerations which should interest my hearers.

“Tt is the group containing the most curious forms,
the richest in marvels of every kind, the most aston-
ishing, especially from the singular facts of organiza-
tion 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 exami-
nation of the organization of different living beings,
to that of different systems which this organization

* This he already touched upon in his A/émoires de Physique et
d@’ Histoire naturelle (p. 342).

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 239

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—z.e., common to
all parts of the body ;

“2. That the result of mutrition is not only to
supply to the developing organization what the or-
ganic 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 ;

'o..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 under-
gone in their nature and their condition through the
habitual succession of their losses and of their re-
newals;

240 PEANTATICIE Vil) eet LAV VO LRG

“5. That each organization and each form acquired
by this course of things and by the circumstances
which there have concurred, were preserved and trans-
mitted 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 concur-
rence of these causes or from these laws of nature,
together with much time and with an almost incon-
ceivable diversity of influential circumstances, or-
ganic 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—z.e., in those which com-
prise 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 con-
course 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 espe-
cially 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 impor.
tant faculties of animality and vegetality.”

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 241

Modification of the organization from one end
to the other of the antmal chain.

‘One ws torced, he says, “to: recopnize’ that the
totality of existing animals constitute a serzes of
groups forming a true chain, and that there exists
from one end to the other of this chain a gradual
modification in the structure of the animals compos-
ing it, as also a proportionate diminution in the num-
ber of faculties of these animals from the highest to
the lowest (the first germs), these being without doubt
the form with which nature began, with the aid of
much time and favorable circumstances, to form all
the others.

He then begins with the mammals and descends to
molluscs, annelids, and insects, down to the polyps,
“as it is better to proceed from the known to the
unknown ;” but farther on (p. 38) he finally remarks :

“Ascend from the most simple to the most com-
pound, 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 liv-
ing productions have successively given existence to
all the others.

“The sertes which constitutes the animal scale re-
sides in the distribution of the groups, and not in
that of the tndividuals and species.

“T have already said * that by this shaded gradua-
tion in the complication of structure I do not mean

* Systéme des Animaux sans Vertebres, pp. 16 and 17.
16

242 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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, z.¢., 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 king-
dom 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 neces-
sarily 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 ar-
rangement of the twelve classes of the animal king-
dom of which I have just given an account?

“T have already stated what I think of this view,
which has seemed sublime to some moderns, and _ in-
dorsed by Professor Hermann.”

Each distinct group or mass of forms has, he says,
its peculiar system of essential organs, but each organ
considered by itself does not follow as 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-essen-
tial organs are due to the fact that these organs are
oftener than the others submitted to the influences

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 243

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 influ-
ential circumstances, and of more prolonged duration
than to alter and modify the external organs.

“T have observed, however, that, when circum-
stances 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 trachee. 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 re-
spires by lungs. We never see that nature. passes
from a system with trachee to a system with lungs.

‘Tt ts not the organs, t.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, tts
habits, its mode of life, and the circumstances in which
wndividuals are placed, which have, with time, brought

244 LAMARCK, AIS LIFE AND WORK
about the form of its body, the number and condition of
ats ai # ee the bce which wt get a

ire ane yore ceeamernees are ‘he two
principal means which nature employs to give exist-
ence 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
(desoin) 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 in-
exhaustible.

“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 influ-
ences the faculties increase and strengthen themselves
by use, diversify themselves by the new habits pre-
served through long periods, and insensibly the con-
formation, the consistence—in a word, the nature
and state of the parts and also of the organs—conse-
quently participate in all these influences, are pre-
served and propagate themselves by generation ”’
(Systeme des Animaux sans Vertebres, p. 12).

“Tt is: easysfor 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 con-

EAMARGEES! THEORY OPE VOLULLION 245

sidered 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 gradu-
ally reduces it and ends by atrophying it.”

Then follow the facts regarding the mole, spalax,
ant-eater, and the lack of teeth in birds, the origin of
shore birds, swimming birds and perching birds, which
are stated farther on.

“Thus the efforts in any direction, maintained for
along time or made habitually by certain parts of a
living body, to satisfy the needs called out (erzgés) 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 deter-
mining cause of movements which perform the action
in question. A multitude of observations support this
fact, which now no one would doubt.

“Tt résults 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 every-
where 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 (oféré) it is
preserved by generation, if it is common to the in-
dividuals which unite in the reproduction of their

246 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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 circum-
stances, without their having been obliged to acquire
it by the means which have really created it.

‘Besides, in the unions between the sexes the in-
termixtures between individuals which have different
qualities or forms are necessarily opposed to the con-
stant 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 propa-
gated by heredity ( géxération).

“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.

“Tf I should choose here to pass in review all the
classes, orders, genera, and species of animals in exist-
ence I could make you see that the structure of in-
dividuals 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 develop-
ments, 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 Lacépéde, wishing to give to
this well-founded fact the precision which he believed

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 247

it susceptible, has traced twenty-six zodlogical divi-
sions 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 tempera-
tures.

“ 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,

‘Minally.as it is only at that extremity of the
animal kingdom where occur the most simply organ-
ized animals that we meet those which may be re-
garded 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 with-
out 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 (wsage) of life tends to de-
velop 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

248 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

(beginning to deteriorate) cease to make new develop-
ments; if, then, each particular organ undergoes re-
markable 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 consider-
ing 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 dura-
tion, 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 theyicar.

“4, Finally, how this organic movement, by the in-
fluence 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 in-
finite 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.)

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 249

APPENDIX (p. 141).
On Species in Living Bodies.

“T have for a longtime thought that speczes were
constant in nature, and that they were constituted
by the individuals which belong to each of them.

“Tam 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 pro-
duces 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. Ele-
vated 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 gradu-
ally removed and changed, as also the climate ;* ina
word, the whole surface of the earth gradually under-
goes 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 at-
tention to be convinced of it.

“ However, if, relatively to living beings, the diver-

* T have cited the incontestable proofs in my //ydrogéologie, and I
have the conviction that one day all will be compelled to accept these
great truths.

250 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

sity 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 organi-
zation and its form.

“ All the modifications that each living being will
have undergone as the result of change of circum-
stances which have influenced its nature will doubt-
less 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 struc-
ture and its form.

“IT very well know that to our eyes there seems in
this respect a stadzlity which we believe to be con-
stant, 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 (Phenticopterus) 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 his-
tory has been transmitted for 2,000 or 3,000 years
are always the same, and have lost or acquired noth-
ing in the process of perfection of their organs and
in the form of their different parts. We may be as-
sured that this appearance of s¢tadzlity 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

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 251

do every day by suddenly changing, as regards a liv-
ing 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 cul-
tivation 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 aquatilts 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.* 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, anda little lobed.t 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

* Ranunculus aquaticus capillaceus (Tournef., p. 291).
t Ranunculus aqguaticus (foliorotundo et capillaceo, ‘ournef., p. 291).

252 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

them germinate, the plant develops all its leaves in
the air, and then none of them is divided into capil-
lary points, which gives rise to Ranunculus hedcraceus,
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 biufonius
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 dis-
turbed (tracantes), 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.*

“TY could also give citations to prove that the
changes of circumstances relative to organisms neces-
sarily 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 acci-
dental 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

* Gramen junceum, etc. (Moris. hist. 3, sec. 8, t. 9, f. 4).
yi 3 9,1. 4

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 2

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 exist-
ence, and then they constitute a new species, which
comprehends all the individuals which occur in the
same condition of existence. We see, then, the faith-
ful picture of that which happened in this respect in
nature, and of that which the observation of its acts
can alone discover to us.”

Ill. Lamarck’s Views on Species, as published in 1803.

In the opening lecture* of his course at the Mu-
seum of Natural History, delivered in prairial (May
20-June 18), 1803, we have a further statement of
the theoretical views of Lamarck on species and their
origin. He addresses his audience as “ Citoyens,”
France still being under the régzme of the Republic.

The brochure containing this address is exceed-
ingly rare, the only copy existing, as far as we know,
being in the library of the Museum of Natural His-
tory in Paris. The author’s name is not even given,
and there is no imprint. Lamarck’s name, however,
is written on the outside of the cover of the copy we
have translated. At the end of the otherwise blank
page succeeding the last page (p. 46) is printed the
words: Esgutsse @un Philosophie soologique, the pre-
liminary sketch, however, never having been added.

He begins by telling his hearers that they should
not desire to burden their memories with the infinite

* Discours d ouverture d’un Cours de Zoologie, prononcé en prairial,
an XI, au Muséum ad Histoire naturelle, sur la question, Qwest-ce
que l’espece parmi les corps vivans ? (1803).

254 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

details and immense nomenclature of the prodigious
quantity of animals among which we distinguish an
illimitable number of species, “but what is more
worthy of you, and of more educational value, you
should seek to know the course of nature.” ‘ You
may enter upon the study of classes, orders, genera,
and even of the most interesting species, because this
would be useful to you; but you should never forget
that all these subdivisions, which could not, however,
be well spared, are artificial, and that nature does not
recognize any of them.”

“Tn the opening lecture of my last year’s course I
tried to convince you that it is only in the organiza-
tion 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 per-
fect animals, down to that which comprises the most
imperfect, or the most simple, an evident modifica-
tion, though irregularly defined (zuancé), in the struc-
ture of the organization.

“To-day, after having recalled some of the essen-
tial considerations which form the base of this great
truth; after having shown you the principal means
by which nature is enabled to create (oférer) her in-
numerable 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 comph-
cating 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 oc-

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 255

cupied herself unremittingly in the destruction of all
preéxistent combinations, I shall undertake to exam-
ine under your eyes the great question in natural
history—What is a sfecies among organized beings ?

‘‘When we consider the series of animals, beginning
at the end comprising the most perfect and compli-
cated, 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 con-
trary, 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 prod-
uct of our imagination or of our arbitrary princi-
ples; 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).

256 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

To make sure whether the exercise of life tends to
extend and develop the organization, it suffices to con-
sider 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), @.e., that—

«The special property of movement of fluids in
the supple parts of the living body which contain
them isto open’ (/7ayer) there routes, «places ot
deposit and tissues; to create there canals, and con-
sequently 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 elon-
gate, 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 along time by those observers
who have paid attention to the phenomena of organ-
ization.

“Indeed, we know that all the time that an organ,
ora system of organs, is rigorously exercised through-
out 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 be-
comes the cause which, under these conditions,

LAMARCK S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 207,

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 abstemi-
ousness 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 ( forter) towards this organ that they
have formed in the individual an inclination to con-
tinue to exercise which it is difficult for it to over-
come.

“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 (4esozz) of continu-
ing 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 indis-
pensable need to the individual, and often a passion
which it does not know how to overcome.

“ Thirdly, finally, the effort made by necessity to

17

258 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

obtain new faculties is aided by the concurrence of
favorable circumstances; they create (créen?) with time
the new organs which are adapted (propres) to their
faculties, and which as the result develop after long use
(gu'en suite un long emplot développe ).

“Tow 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 fol-
lowed attentively that which happens to living in-
dividuals (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.

“hey «can teadily convince themselves of the
solidity of that which I have already published in
this respect.*

‘“Thave felt obliged to recall tosyou thesexereat
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 deter-
mination of sfeczes 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 mamme—you observe in the different
orders which comprise this great series a gradation,
shaded (xuancé), although irregular, in the composi-
tion of the organization and in the i increasing number

* Recherches sur [ Organisation des Corps vivans, p. 9.

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 259

of faculties, is it not evident that in the case where
nature would exert some active power on the exist-
ence 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 (¢bauches) 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 in-
dicated, and by that of different means of multiplica-

tion which are due to them (quz e2 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 circum-
stances, 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 (couszgnée), and the facts which
support it exist and are incessantly renewed; how-
ever, as they open a vast field to your studies and to
your own researches, it is to you yourselves that I

260 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

appeal to pronounce on this great subject when you
have sufficiently examined and followed all the facts
which relate to it.

“Tf among living bodies there are any the con-
sideration of whose organization and of the phe-
nomena 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 king-
doms (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 to-
gether facts the most luminous, observations the most
decisive on the origin of these bodies, on their repro-
duction and their admirable diversification, finally on
the formation and the development of their different
organs, the whole process being aided by the concur-
rence of generations, of time, and of circumstances.

“Tt is, indeed, among living bodies the most multi-
plied, 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.

‘“‘Hfer course and her means are without doubt the
same for the production of the different plants which

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 6,

exist. And, indeed, though it is not believed, as
some.naturalists have wrongly held, but without
proof, that plants are bodies more simple in organi-
zation 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.

“Tf there is some approach, or at least some com-
parison to make between vegetables and animals, this
can only be by opposing plants the most simply
organized, like fungi and alge, 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 func-
tions 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 prog-
ress acquired in the composition of organs.

“ At present, finally, relying on numerous observa-

262 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

tions, seeing that with the aid of much time, of
changes in local circumstances, in climates, and con-
sequently in the habits of animals, the progression in
the complication of their organization and in the
diversity of their parts has gradually operated (a dé
Sopérer) 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 speczes among living beings?

“All those who have much to do with the study
of natural history know that naturalists at the pres-
ent 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, col-
lections of individuals which resemble each other so
much in their organization and by the exsemdle 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 speczes every col-
lection of individuals which are alike or almost so,
and we remark that the regeneration of these individ-
uals conserves the species and propagates it in con-
tinuing 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?

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 263

“ Assuredly, whatever has been his will, the omnipo-
tence of his power is always the same; and in what-
ever 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 fol-
lows 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 per-
petuated. 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 knowl-
edge 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 distin-
guishing 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 (zwancé), that the remarkable differences be-

264 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

come 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 con-
tain, 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 fora 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 liv-
ing bodies, merge one into another (foudcnt les unes
dans les autres), and who have been able to convince
themselves, in the regions (fartzes) 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, irrecularly 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 any-
where (s'2/ est vrai qu'il sen 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 Iam now compelled to
demonstrate.

“T have no need (desozv) of any hypothesis or any

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 265

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 accord-
ing 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 com-
parison, 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 distinc-
tions 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 sec-
ond place, and which is very different from the first,
you have passed from shade to shade without having
remarked any differences worth noticing.

““T ask what experienced zodélogist 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 radi-
ates, worms, and especially of insects, where the
simple genera of Papilio, Phalena, Noctua, Tinea,
Musca, Ichneumon, Curculio, Capricorn, Scarabzeus,
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,

266 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

to the reptiles, to the birds, even to the mammals,
and you will see, except the lacuna which are still to
be filled, everywhere shadings which take place be-
tween 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, Hiera-
cium, 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 differ-
ences are necessarily minute and very often insuff-
cient.

“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 ex-
planation 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 con-
sistence 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 indi-
viduals which are found exposed there; but, as time
goes on, the continual differences of situation of in-
dividuals of which I have spoken, which live and suc-
cessively reproduce in the same circumstances, give
rise among them to differences which are, in some

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 267

degrec, essential to their being, in such a way that at
the end of many successive generations these indi-
viduals, which originally belonged to another species,
are at the end transformed into a new species, distinct
from the other.

“Mor example, 1f the seeds of 2 erassyor of every
other plant natural to a humid field, should be trans-
planted, by an accident, at first to the slope of a
neighboring hill, where the soil, although more ele-
vated, would yet be quite cool (/razs) 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 gener-
ations, it would then be so changed that the botanists
who should find it there would describe it as a sepa-
rate species.

‘““The same thing happens to animals which circum-
stances 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 nota-
ble changes in the individuals, though in the long
run, however, they always succeed in bringing them
about.

“The idea of defining under the word sfeczes a col-
lection 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 consider-
ation has no basis; for the hybrids, very common
among plants, and the unions which are often ob-
served between the individuals of very different
species among animals, have made us perceive that

268 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

the limits between these species, supposed to be con-
stant, are not so rigid as is supposed.

“Tn 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 speczes.

“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—

“y, 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 or-
ganic bodies, and that she directly forms only these
—that is to say, only these first primitive germs
(cbauches) of organization, which have been badly
characterized by the expression of “ spontaneous gen-
erations” (qu'on a désignées mal-a-propos par Ucxpres-
sion de Générations spontanées).

“3. That the first germs (¢cbauches) of the animals
and plants were formed in favorable places and cir-
cumstances. 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 differ-
entiated, as also the different parts (el/es les ont diver-
Ssifics ainst gut les parttes).

‘4. That the power of increase in each portion of
organic bodies being inherited at the first produc-
tion (effets) of life, it has given rise to different
modes of multiplication and of regeneration of indi-

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 269

viduals; 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.

“os. That with the aid of sufficient time, of circum-
stances 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 impercep-
tibly 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 desig-
nated 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 vari-
ation 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 (forter
Lesprit de systtme)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

270 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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 exist-
ence 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 feel-
ing; 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 seed, which establishes and directs the
habits, the source of all actions, from the most simple
up to those which constitute erstzzct, industry, finally
reason, should I not recognize in this power of na-
ture—that is to say, of existing things—the execu-
tion 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 (sepa-
rate) acts of his omnipotent will he should be occu-
pied 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 ‘TL 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

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 271
shall then enter into sufficient details which I am
here obliged to omit.*

“ 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 trans-
mitted 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 Geoffroy St. Hilaire) say that the mum-
mied animals of Thebes and Memphis are perfectly
similar to those of to-day. Then he goes on to say:

‘‘T have seen them, these animals, and I believe in
the conformity of their resemblance with the individ-
uals 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

* ** See at the end of this discourse the sketch of a PAzlosophie zo0-
logigue relative to this subject.” [This sketch was not added—only
the title at the end of the book. |

272 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

the considerations which I have expressed on this
subject ; and which especially proves that the ani-
mals of which it treats have existed during the whole
period of nature. It only proves that they have ex-
isted 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 compari-
son 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 re-
spect only judges from the changes which he himself
perceives, the intervals of these changes are stationary
conditions (¢tats) 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 thou-
sands 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.*

“It seems to me [as mistaken as] to expect some
small creatures which only live a year, which inhabit

* See the Annales du Muséum a’ Hist, nat., 1V* cahier, 1., 1802,
pp. 302, 303: AZémotres sur les Fossiles des Environs de Paris, etc.
He repeats in his Discours what he wrote in 1802 in the Annales.

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 273
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 1s 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.’

“When man wishes to clearly represent this truth
he will be reserved in his decisions in regard to stabil-
ity, which he attributes in nature to the state of
things which he observes there. +

“To admit the insensible change of species, and
the modifications which individuals undergo as they
are gradually forced to vary their habits or to con-
tract 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 ani-
mals, and in the situation, soil, and climate of plants,
brings about, after a sufficient time has elapsed,
very remarkable change in the individuals which are
exposed to them.

* Ibid, This is repeated from the article in the Axnales.
t¢ Lbid. ‘‘See my Recherches sur les Corps vivans” (Appendix,
De TAD);

18

274 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

“The animal which lives a free, wandering life on
plains, where it habitually exercises itself in running
swiftly ; the birds whose needs (desoins) 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 re-
generations 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 differ-
ence of habit, and judge for yourselves. You find
them, then, suchas they are in) some deoreesin
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 be-
tween 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 cul-
tivated fruits, our wheat, our cabbage, our lettuce,
etc, etc., if they are not the result of changes which
ve ourselves have effected in these plants, in chang-
ing 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 Ices

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 275

Corps vivans (p. 56 e¢ suzv.), and decide for your-
selves.

“Thus, among living bodies, nature, as I have al-
ready said, offers only in an absolute way individuals
which succeed each other genetically, and which
descend one from the other. So the sfeczes 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 sfecies to the entire collection of
individuals which are alike, which reproduction per-
petuates in the same condition as long as the con-
ditions 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 pre-
senting 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 mem-
ory 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'une Philosophie zoologique.

276 LAMARCK, AIS LIFE AND WORK

IV. Lamarck’s Views as published in 1806.*

“Those who have observed much and have
consulted the great collections, have been able to
convince themselves that as gradually as the cir-
cumstances of their habitat, of exposure to their
surroundings, of climate, food, mode of living, etc.,
have changed, the characters of size, form, of propor-
tion between the parts, of color, of consistence, of
duration, of agility, and of industry have propor-
tionately changed.

“They have been able (to see, as regards (tlie
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 propor-
tional 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.t

“ Finally, it has been remarked that all that nature
has made individuals to acquire or lose by the sus-
tained 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 (celle le conserve par la génération aux nou-
veaux individus qui en proviennent). ‘These verities
are firmly grounded, and can only be misunderstood

* Discours ad’ Ouverture du Cours des Animaux sans Vertebres,
prononcé dans le Muséum a’ Histoire naturelle en mai 1806. (No
imprint. 8°, pp. 108.) Only the most important passages are here
translated.

+ ‘‘ We know that all the forms of organs compared to the uses of
these same organs are always perfectly adapted. But there is a
common error in this connection, since it is thought that the forms
of organs have caused their functions (e7 ont amené l’emplot), whereas
it is easy to demonstrate by observation that it is the uses (zsages)
which have given origin to the forms of organs.”

LAMARCK'S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 277,

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 produc-
tions, have no absolute staézlity, but that they enjoy
only a relative stabzlity ; 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 speczes.

“It is known that different places change in nature
and character by reason of their position, their ‘com-
position’ [we should say geological structure or fea-
tures], and their climate; that which is easily per-
ceived in passing over different places distinguished
by special characteristics; behold already a cause of
variation for the natural productious which inhabit
these different places. But that which is not suff-
ciently 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 sta-
bility.

‘‘ Now, in either case, these changed places pro-
portionately change the circumstances relative to the
living bodies which inhabit them, and these produce
again other influences on those same bodies.

awe sec from this that i there are: extremes in
these changes there are also gradations (ances), that
is to say, steps which are intermediate, and which fill
up the interval; consequently there are also grada-
tions in the differences which distinguish that which
we call speczes.

“ Indeed, as we constantly meet with such shades
(or intermediate steps) between these so-called sfeczes,
we find ourselves forced to descend to the minutest
details to find any distinctions; the slightest pecu-

278 LAMARCK, AIS LIFE: AND WORK

liarities of form, of color, of size, and often even of
differences only perceived in the aspect of the indi-
vidual 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 founda-
tion 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
cradually pass (zwancent) into all degrees of organiza-
tion” (p. 14).

On p. 70 he speaks of the animal chain from monad
to man, ascending from the most simple to the most
complex. The monad is the most simple, the most
like agerm of living bodies, and from its nature passes
to the volvoces, proteus, vibrios; from them nature
and

arrives at the production of “ polypes rotiféres ”’
then at “ Radiaires,” worms, Arachnida, Crustacea,
and Cirripedes.

GHAPTIER XViIl
THE “ PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE ”

LAMARCK’S mature views on the theory of descent
comprise a portion of his celebrated Phzlosophie zoo-
logique. We will let him tell the story of creation by
natural causes so far as possible in his own words.

In the avertissement, or preface, he says that his
experience has led him to realize that a body of pre-
cepts and of principles relating to the study of
animals and even applicable to other parts of the
natural sciences would now be useful, our knowledge
of zodlogical facts having, for about thirty years, made
considerable progress.

After referring to the differences in structure and
faculties characterizing animals of different groups,
he proceeds to outline his theory, and begins by

asking :

“How, indeed, can I consider the singular modifi-
cation 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 com-
pound; because in ascending the animal scale from
the most imperfect up to the most perfect, the organi-

280 LAMARCK, AIS LIFE AND WORK

zation perfects itself and becomes gradually compli-
cated in a most remarkable way ?”’

This leads him to consider what is life, and he re-
marks (p. xv.) that it does not exist without external
stimuli. The conditions necessary for the existence
of life are found completely developed in the simplest
organization. We are then led to inquire how this
organization, by reason of certain changes, can give
rise to other organisms less simple, and finally origi-
nate creatures becoming gradually more complicated,
as we see in ascending the animal scale. Then em-
ploying the two following considerations, he believes
he perceives the solution of the problem which has
occupied his thoughts.

He then cites as factors (1) use and disuse; (2)
the movement of internal fluids by which passages
are opened through the cellular tissue in which they
move, and finally create different organs. Hencethe
movement of fluids in the interior of animals, and the
influence of new circumstances as animals gradually
expose themselves to them in spreading into every
inhabitable place, are the two general causes which
have produced the different animals in the condition
we now see them. Meanwhile he perceived the im-
portance of the preservation by heredity, though he
nowhere uses that word, in the new individuals re-
produced of everything which the results of the life
and influencing circumstances had caused to be ac-
quired in the organization of those which have trans-
mitted existence to them.

In the Descours préliminazre, referring to the pro-

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 281

gression in organization of animals from the simplest
to man, as also to the successive acquisition of different
special organs, and consequently of as many faculties
as new organs obtained, he remarks:

“Then we can perceive how needs (desozs), 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 ac-
tions, 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.

“T shall add that if this method had been followed,
then sensation would not have been regarded as
the general and immediate cause of organic move-
ments, 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. *

“ This cause seems, up to acertain 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 be-
gun by suddenly establishing a faculty so eminent

*[Cabanis.] Rapp. du Phys. et du Moral de l’ Homme, pp. 38 4
39, et 85.

222 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

as that of sensation: she has had the means of pro-
ducing 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, yet that our classifications are all
artificial ; that species, genera, families, orders, and
classes do not exist in nature—only the individuals
really exist. In the third chapter he gives the old
definition of species, that they are fixed and immu-
table, and then speaks of the animal series, saying:

“T do not mean by this to say that the existing
animals form avery simple series, and especially evenly
graduated; but I claim that they form a branched
series,* irregularly graduated, and which has no dis-
continuity in its parts, or which, at lcast, has not al-
ways 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 gen-
eral series is connected at least on one side with
other species which intergrade with it” (p. 59).

* Lamarck’s idea of the animal series was that of a branched one,
as shown by his genealogical tree on p. 193, and he explains that the
series begins at least by two special branches, these ending in branch-
lets. He thus breaks entirely away from the old idea of a continuous
ascending series of his predecessors Bonnet and others. Professor
R. Hertwig therefore makes a decided mistake and does Lamarck a
great injustice in his ‘‘ Zodlogy,” where he states: ‘* Lamarck, in
agreement with the then prevailing conceptions, regarded the animal
kingdom 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
of Geoffroy St.-Hilaire and Lamarck” as having in it ‘‘as a funda-
mental error the doctrine of the serial arrangement of the animal
world” (English Trans.). Hertwig is in error, and could never
have carefully read what Lamarck did say, or have known that he
was the first to throw aside the serial arrangement, and to sketch out
a genealogical tree.

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 283

He then points out the difficulty of determining
what are species in certain large genera, such as
Papilio, Ichneumon, etc. How new species arise 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 gradu-
ally 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 con-
tinual 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 gen-
erations 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 per-
petuates 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

284 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

which circumstances have forced to change in climate,
mode of life, and habits; but in their case the in-
fluences 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 speczes,
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 un-
founded; for hybrids, very common among plants,
and the pairings which we often observe between the
individuals of very different sfeczes of animals, have
led us to see that the limits between these supposed
constant species are not so fixed as has been imagined.

“Tn truth, nothing often results from these singu-
lar 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 speczes.

“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 succes-
sively 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 or-
ganisms, and that she directly creates only those,
namely, which are the first germs (¢bauches) of organ-

LAMARCK’'S THEORY OF DESCENT 285

ization, which are designated by the expression of
Spontaneous g generations ;

a That the first germs of the animal and plant
having been formed in appropriate places and cir-
cumstances, the faculties of a beginning life and of an
organic movement established, have necessari ily grad-
ually 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 com-
position of the organization and in the shape and
diversity of the parts has been preserved ;

ae That with the aid of sufficient time, of circum-
stances 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 arelative 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 differ-
ent animals known to us, shall we not be stopped in
this supposition by the simple consideration of the ad-
mirable diversity which we observe in the zxstzncts of
different animals, and by that of the marvels of every
kind presented by their different kinds of zxdustry ?

286 LAMARCK. HIS LILES, AND NV OTR

« 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 con-
trivances, of skill, of precautions, of patience, of which
the zxdustry of animals offers us so many examples?
What we observe in this respect in the simple class
of zusects, is it not a thousand times more than suff-
cient 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 ’* (p. 67).

Referring to the alleged proof of the fixity of
species brought forward by Cuvier in the Aznales
du Muséum a@ Histoire naturelle (i., pp. 235 and 236)
that the mummied birds, crocodiles, and other ani-
mals of Egypt present no differences from those now
living, Lamarck says:

“Tt 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

* The foregoing pages (283-286) are reprinted by the author from
the Discours of 1803. See pp. 266-270.

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 2O7
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 for two or three thousand years, and
not necessarily from all time, and that this is not
time enough for marked changes. He then gives
the following definition of species, which is the best
ever offered: ‘Species, then, have only a relative
stability, and are invariable only temporarily.”

“Vet, 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 indi-
viduals which are perpetuated by heredity (géxéra-
dion) in the same condition, so long as the circum-
stances 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 in Chapter III. (p. 75).

The subject of the checks upon over-population
by the smaller and weaker animals, or the struggle
for existence, is thus discussed in Chapter 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

288 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

armed which devour the weaker, and that the larger
kinds devour the smaller. Nevertheless, the indi-
viduals of a single species rarely devour each other:
they war upon other races.*

“The multiplication of the small species of animals
is so considerable, and the renewals of their genera-
tions 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 Jeneth 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 mul-
tiplying 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,

* Perrier thus comments on this passage: Jc? nous sommes bien
pres, semble-t-il, non seulement de la lutte pour la vie telle que la con-
cevra Darwin, mais méme de la sélection naturelle, Matheureuse-
ment, au lieu de poursuivre Vidée, Lamarck aussitét sengage dans

ahi 2 , f ,
une autre voie,” etc. (La Philosophie zoologique avant Darwin, p. 81).

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 289

thus place a great obstacle to the extreme multiplica-
tion of the individuals of his species.

“Indeed, it seems as if man had taken it upon him-
self 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 improve-
ment of the organization is not lost; everything
which appears to be disordered, overturned, anoma-
lous, reénters unceasingly into the general order, and
even codperates 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 and simplification of the structure from
one end to the other of the animal series, proceeding,
as he says, inversely to the general order of nature,
from the compound to the more simple. Why he
thus works out this idea of a general degradation is
not very apparent, since it is out of tune with his
views, so often elsewhere expressed, of a progressive
evolution from the simple to the complex, and to his
own Classification of the animal kingdom, beginning as
it does with the simplest forms and ending with man.
Perhaps, however, he temporarily adopts the prevail-
ing method of beginning with the highest forms in order

19

290 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

to bring out clearly the successive steps in inferiority
or degradation presented in descending the animal scale.
We will glean some passages of this chapter which
bear on his theory of descent. Speaking of the
different kinds of aquatic surroundings he remarks:

“In the first place it should be observed that in
the waters themselves she [ Nature] presents consider-
ably 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 circum-
stances, each of which acts differently on the animals
living inthem. 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 diver-
sified 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:

“Tf we should consider as a result of degradation the
loss of legs seen in the snakes, the Ophzdza 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 thick-
ness. Now, elongated legs proving disadvantageous
to their necessity of gliding and hiding, very short
legs, being only four in number, since they are verte-
brate 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 datrachians, which have them, offer a more

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 291

,

degraded organization, and are nearer the fishes’

(p. 155).

Referring on the next page to the fishes, he re-
marks :—

“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 examin-
ing 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 the mammals is not a regularly gradated
one, and accounts for this “ because the work of
nature has been often changed, hindered, and di-
verted in direction by the influences which singu-
larly different, even contrasted, circumstances have
exercised on the animals which are there found ex-
posed in the course of a long series of their renewed
generations.”

Lamarck thus accounts for the production of the
radial symmetry of the medusz and echinoderms,
his Radiaires. At the present day this symmetry is
attributed perhaps more correctly to their more or less
fixed mode of life.

“Tt 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 Radzata, that the radial form has been acquired;

292 LAMARCK, His LIFE AND WORK

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 intes-
tinal canal, although still very imperfect, since more
often it has only a single opening, is yet compli-
cated with numerous radiating vasculiform, often ram-
ified, appendages.

“It is, doubtless, also by this cause that in the
soft Radiates, as the medusa, etc., we observe a con-
stant 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
Flabits of Animals.

It is in Chapter VII. that the views of Lamarck
are more fully presented than elsewhere, and we
therefore translate all of it as literally as possible,
so as to preserve the exact sense of the author.

“We do not here have to do with a line of argu-
ment, but with the examination of a positive fact,
which is more general than is supposed, and which

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 293

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, tor alone time there has. beem noticed
the influence of different states of our organization
on our character, our propensities (pexchants), our
actions, and evenour 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 circum-
stances exercise on the general form, on the condi-
tion 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.

“Tf 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 impor-
tant fact in question would have always remained
unknown.

“The influence of circumstances is really continu-
ously and everywhere active on living beings, but
what renders it difficult for us to appreciate this in-
fluence 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 zodlogical 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

204 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

the animal scale ina 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 incre mc Sune ification in the

organization of these organisms; finally, a proportion-
ate diminution in the eiaDS: ‘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 organi-
zation of animals, if we should consider the outcome
of the influences that the infinitely diversified circum-
stances in all parts of the globe exercise on the gen-
eral form, the parts, and the very organization of these
animals, everything will be clearly explained.

“Tt 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 in-
creasing complexity of the organization.

“Here it becomes necessary for me to explain the
meaning I attach to the expression czrcumstances
zn fluencing the form and structure of animals—namely,
that in becoming very different they change, with time,
both their form and organization by proportionate
modifications.

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 295

“ Assuredly, if these expressions should be taken
literally, I should be accused of an error; for what-
ever 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 con-
stant 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 demon-
strated and even does not need any explanation to
make it clearer.

“Tt is then evident that a great change in circum-
stances having become constant in a race of animals
leads these animals into new habits.

“Now, if new circumstances, having become per-
manent in a race of animals, have given to these
animals new /adits—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 incon:
siderably incrcasing its size; on the other side we
shall see that, in certain cases, the new circumstances

290 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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 cer-
tain 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 re-
ceives; 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 circum-
stances 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 ani-
mals and plants, which would confirm the ‘erounds 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 giv-
ing rise to a race very distinct from that of the in-
dividuals which unceasingly meet with circumstances
favorable to their development.

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 207

“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 har-
vest of hay is then excellent.

“ But if any cause perpetuates the unfavorable cir-
cumstances surrounding these plants, they vary pro-
portionally, 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 circum-
stances, 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 con-
vinced that in proportion as the circumstances of
habitat, exposure, climate, food, mode of life, etc.,
come to change, the characters of size, form, propor-
tion 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 cul-
tivation gradually undergo changes which at last
render them unrecognizable. Many plants naturally

208 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

very hairy then become glabrous, or almost so; many
of those which were creeping and trailing, then be-
come 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 them-
selves 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.

“Ts not cultivated wheat (77ztccum sativum) only
a plant brought by man into the condition in which
we actually see it? Whocan tell me in what coun-
try 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 con-
siderably modified ?

‘What very different races among our fowls and
domestic pigeons, which we have obtained by raising
them in different circumstances and in different coun-
tries, and how vainly do we now endeavor to re-
discover them in nature!

‘“Those which are the least changed, without doubt
by a more recent process of domestication, and be-
cause 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

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 299

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 ofa simple captivity con-
stantly 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; cer-
tainly these circumstances, united and becoming con-
stant, 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 sub-
mitted by man, at some period, to the process of
domestication. This race, which then offered no dif-
ference between its individuals, has been gradually

300 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

dispersed by man into different countries, with differ-
ent 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 succes-
sively 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 sub-
merged, 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 im-
portant changes in the circumstances under which
they are accustomed to live do not produce altera-
tion 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 recog-
nizable.

“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

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT ‘201

there are many others which, in addition, have a con-
siderable influence in the production of the effects in
question.

“Tt is known that different localities change in na-
ture 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 gen-
erally refuse to believe, is that each place itself changes
with time in exposure, in climate, in nature, and qual-
ity, 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 pro-
portionally 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 in-
terval. Consequently there are also gradations in the
differences which distinguish what we call speczes.

“Tt is then evident that the whole surface of the
earth offers, in the nature and situation of the mat-
ters 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.

“Tn each locality where animals can live, the cir-
cumstances 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 noticethem. He is obliged to consult monu-

302 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

ments 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 ap-
parent constancy of races which we call spectes—con-
stancy 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 ani-
mals 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 con-
sider 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 (ac/zons) to
satisfy the new needs, and consequently other habits.

“3, That every new want necessitating new actions
to sate it, demands of the animal w hich feels it both
the more frequent use of such of its parts of which
before it made less use, which develops and consider-
ably enlarges them, and the use of new parts which
necessity has caused to insensibly develop in it by

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 303
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 dif-
ferent habits of which the known animals offer us
examples, it is necessary to consider that circum-
stances 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 rec-
ognized, 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 follow-
ing 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, de-
velops and enlarges it, and gives it a strength propor-
tioned 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 _ individ-
uals 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 (géxération) and passes on to the new indi-
viduals which descend from it, provided that the
changes thus acquired are common to both sexes, or

304 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK
to those which have given origin to these new indi-
viduals.

‘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 conse-
quently 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 formsas 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.

LAMARCKA SOLTALORY: OF DESCENT: 305

“ Assuredly, if the habits and nature of each animal
can never vary, the proverb is false, has no founda-
tion, and does not apply to the instances which led
to its being spoken.

“Tf we should seriously consider all that I have
just stated, it might be thought that I had good rea-
son when in my work entitled Recherches sur les Corps
vivans (p. 50) I established the following proposition:

“<«Tt 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 num-
ber and condition of its organs, finally, the faculties
which it enjoys.’

“Tf 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 conse-
quently 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 in-
fluence of climate; from those of different tempera-
tures of the atmosphere, and from all the environing
media; from that of the diversity of different locali-
ties 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.

300 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

“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 com-
pletely confirmed by facts; they clearly indicate the
course of nature in all the diversity of its products.

“ But instead of contenting ourselves with generali-
ties 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.

“T 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
lous time through successive generations of animals
of the same race.

‘“‘T shall next prove that, on the contrary, the habit
of exercising an organ, in every animal which has not
attained Ane limit ior 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 tt to disappear and even to destroy tt.

it Ne sucha proposition can only be admitted on
proof, and not by its simple announcement, let us

ELAMARCKE'S THEORY OF DESCENT 307
prove it by the citation of the leading known facts
on which it is based.

“The vertebrate animals, whose plan of organiza-
tion is in all nearly the same, although they offer
much diversity in their parts, have jaws armed with.
teeth ; moreover, those among them which circum-
stances 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 fe¢us 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 (A7yrmecophaga) 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 character-
istic of a great number of different animals, and be-
comes 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 A spalax 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

308 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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 sala-
mander in its structure, and which lives in the dark
subterranean waters of deep caves, has, like the As-
palax, 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; conse-
quently 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. How-
ever, since we find them among those which are de-
prived 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 dis-
appearance of these organs are the result of a con-
stant 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 re-
sults that every animal which makes a part of a plan
of organization to which hearzng is essential, has
always occasion to exercise this organ in whatever
situation it lives. So, among the vertebrate animals

DAMARGE S LABOR V” OF VDE SCENT, 309
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 isa 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 them-
selves in the grass, their body, owing to continu-
ally 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 organi-
zation 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 dis-

310 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

use. A quantity of Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Hy-
menoptera, 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 con-
dition 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, pro-
duce 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 ex-
amined 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 ad-
dicted 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 stom-
ach or in the intestines, the stomach and the remain-
der of the intestinal canal lose the habit of being dis-
tended in intemperate persons, so also in sedentary
persons and those engaged in mental labor, who on
habituated to take but little food. Gradually and a
length their stomach becomes contracted, and ee
intestines shortened.

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT or

“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 con-
tinued emptiness these viscera should be filled; the
shrinkage and shortening in question are real, consider-
able, 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, com-
pare a man who, in order to devote himself to habitual
study and mental work, which have rendered his di-
gestion 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 modi-
fied 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
wt, and enables it to acquire dimensions and a power of
action which it does not possess in animals which excr-
cise less.

“ We have just said that the lack of employment
of an organ which necessarily exists modifies it, im-
poverishes it, and ends by its disappearing entirely.

“T shall now demonstrate that the continued em-
ployment 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 itssustenance, opens the digits of

Bie LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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—z.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 dogs, thelsea-turties, 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
FESUs.

‘‘ 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 elongat-
ing their legs, is the cause of the individuals of this
race being. eaed as if on stilts, having gradually
acquired long, naked legs, which are ‘denuded of
feathers up to the thighs and often above them
(Systeme des Animaux sans Vericbres, 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

EAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 313
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.

“Tf 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 swim-
ming on the surface of the water have the habit
of plunging their head down as far as they can, to
catch aquatic larve and different animalcules for food,
and because they make no effort to lengthen their
legs.

‘When an animal to satisfy its wants makes re-
peated 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 be-
come 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 in-
creasing 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 neces-
sity.

“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 sfeczes,
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

314 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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 dis-
placement, 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 in-
complete change. Now, this change is entirely com-
pleted 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

EAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 315

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 mod-
erate 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 re-
sulted 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 ex-
tremity 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 rusmdznants,
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 sofzpedes (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

316 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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 con-
tinually 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 verter 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 cor-
neous 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
(camclopardalis); 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

LAIMA K CLAS THEORY SOF SDESCENE a7
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, prob-
ably owe their singular conformation to analogous
circumstances.

“The result of habits is as remarkable in the car-
nivorous mammals as it is in the herbivorous, but it
presents effects of another kind.

“ Indeed, those of these mammals which are habit-
uated, 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 bury-
ing 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 ne interfere in
walking or running on stony soil, has resulted in
this case that the animal has ees ee to make
other efforts to draw back these too salient and curved
claws which would impede it, and hence there has
resulted the gradual bormation of those special sheaths
in which ne cats, tigers, lions, etc., withdraw their
claws when not in action.

“Thus the efforts in any direction whatever, main-
tained 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

318 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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 hol lding 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.

Bet wsrsee tine cecilia:

“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 de-
velopment 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 develop-
ment, and have become very large and strong;

“3, Finally, the tail, which we see is of much use
in Seine 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 calcu-
lated 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 de-
veloped, 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

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 319

differences might not be maintained in the individuals
which follow them genetically, for then their products
would be still more considerable.

“]T 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 observa-
tions prove this fact, which is now indisputable.

“Tt 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 develop-
ments and changes.

‘“‘ Moreover, every change acquired in an organ by a
habit of use sufficient to. have produced it is then
preserved by heredity (g¢xération) 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 indi-
viduals 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 be-
tween 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

320. LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

always pair, they would reproduce the same features,
and the successive generations being confined to such
unions, a special Aine distinct race would then be
formed. “TB 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.

“Tf 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 sale 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 az, or the
sloth (Bradypus tridactylus), is throughout life ina
condition so very feeble that it is very slow and lim-
ited 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 ina 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 de-
sire 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.

“lam /far from thinking so because: Tam con-

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 321

vinced that the habits which the individuals of the
race of the az 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 az 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 indi-
viduals of the race of the az 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 con-
tinual 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 straighten-
ing 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

322 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK
would tend to widen the pelvis and to cause the
cotyloid cavities to be directed backward ;

“s. 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 con-
trary 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 re-
duced.

“The fact is that divers animals have each, accord-
ing 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 suc-
cession 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 struct-
ure ; and these animals spreading generally throughout

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 323
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 circum-
stances 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 organiza-
tion, modifications susceptible of becoming very con-
siderable, and of giving rise to the condition in which
we find all animals.

“To maintain that this second conclusion is un-
founded, 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

324 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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 asser-
tion—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) Lamarck treats of the internal feelings of
certain animals, which provoke wants (dcsozus). This
is the subject which has elicited so much adverse criti-
cism and ridicule, and has in many cases led to the
wholesale rejection of all of Lamarck’s views. It is
generally assumed or stated by Lamarck’s critics, who
evidently did not read his book carefully, that while
he claimed that the plants were evolved by the direct
action of the physical factors, that in the case of all
the animals the process was indirect. But this is not
correct. He evidently, as we shall see, places the
lowest animals, those without (or what he supposed
to be without) a nervous system, in the same category
as the plants. He distinctly states at the outset that

LAMARCK. SP LHEORY JOR “DESCENA | 325

only certain animals and man are endowed with this
singular faculty, ‘“which consists in being able to
experience zzternal emotions which provoke the wants
and different external or internal causes, and which
give birth to the power which enables them to per-
form different actions.”

“The nervous fluid,” he says, “can, then, undergo
movements in certain parts of its mass, as well as in
every part at once; moreover, it is these latter move-
ments which constitute the general movements
(gbranlements) of this fluid, and which we now pro-
ceed to consider.

“ The general movements of the nervous fluid are
of two kinds; namely,

“1, Partial movements (¢branlements), which finally
become general and end ina reaction. It is the move-
ments 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 (sextzment d’existence),
which I shall call zuner feeling,* so as to separate
from it the idea of a general condition ( généralité)
which it does not possess, since it is not common to

* The expression ‘‘ sext/ment intérieur”’ may be nearly equivalent
to the ‘‘ organic sense” of modern psychologists, but more probably
corresponds to our word consciousness.

326 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

all living beings and not even to all animals, is a very
obscure feeling, with which are endowed those ani-
mals provided with a nervous system sufficiently de-
veloped to give them the faculty of feeling.

“ This sentiment, very obscure as it is, is neverthe-
less very powerful, for it is the source of inner emo-
tions which test (cprouvent) the individuals possessing
it; and, as the result, this singular force urees
these individuals to themselves produce the move-
ments 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 move-
ments which are produced in every animal, that
which possesses a nervous system sufficiently de-
veloped 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]
general, since almost every sensitive part of the body
shares in it. ‘It constitutes this me (#07) 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 thenn. =.

“Finally, the inner feeling only manifests its
power, and causes movements, when there exists a
system for muscular movement, which is always de-
pendent on the nervous system, and cannot take
place without it.”

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 327

The author then states that these emotions of the
organic sense may operate in the animals and in man
either without or with an act of their will.

“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 dan-
gers, 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 latter arising from our ideas, thoughts
—in short, our intellectual acts—in the account of
which we need not follow him.

In the succeeding chapter (V.) the author dilates
on the force which causes actions in animals. ‘“ We
know,” he says “that plants can satisfy their needs
without moving, since they find their food in the
environing mzlicux. But it is not the same with ani-
mals, which are obliged to move about to procure
their sustenance. Moreover, most of them have
other wants to satisfy, which require other kinds of
movements and acts.” This matter is discussed in the
author’s often leisurely and prolix way, with more or
less repetition, which we will condense.

The lowest animals—those destitute of a nervous
system—move in response toa stimulus from without.

328 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

Nature has gradually created the different organs of
animals, varying the structure and situation of these
organs according to circumstances, and has progres-
sively improved their powers. She has begun by
borrowing from without, so to speak—from the en-
vironment—the productive force, both of organic
movements and those of the external parts. ‘She
has thus transported this force [the result of heat,
electricity, and perhaps others (p. 307)] into the ani-
mal itself, and, finally, in the most perfect animals
she has placed a great part of this force at their dis-
posal, as I will soon show.”

This force incessantly introduced into the lowest
animals sets in motion the visible fluids of the body
and excites the irritability of their contained parts,
giving rise to different contractile movements which
we observe; hence the appearance of an irresistible
propensity (penchant) which constrains them to ex-
ecute those movements which by their continuity or
their repetition give rise to habits.

The most imperfect animals, such as the /zfusorza,
especially the monads, are nourished by absorption
and by “an internal inhibition of absorbed matters.”
“They have,” he says, “no power of seeking their
food, they have not even the power of recognizing
it, but they absorb it because it comes in contact
with every side of them (avec tous les points de leur
individu), and because the water in which they live
furnishes it to them in sufficient abundance.”

“ These frail animals, in which the subtile fluids of
the environing wz/zeux constitute the stimulating
cause of the orgasm, of irritability and of organic

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 329

movements, execute, as I have said, contractile move-
ments which, provoked and varied without ceasing
by this stimulating cause, facilitate and hasten the
absorptions of which I have just spoken.” . . .

On the Transportation of the force-producing Move-
ments in the Interior of 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 ad-
mirable 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 organiza-
tion had sufficiently advanced in its structure to pos-
sess a nervous system—even slightly developed, as in
insects—the animals provided with this organization
were endowed with an intimate sense of their exist-
ence, and from that time the force productive of
movements was conveyed into the very interior of
the animal.

330 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

“T 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 ex-
periences 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 ac-
CAVA Mens

“Thus, in the animals which possess the power of
acting—namely, the force productive of movements
and actions—the inner feeling, which on each oc-
casion 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 axzmal
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 wd;
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, judg-
ments, etc., has in reality no will, does not make a
choice, and consequently cannot control the move-
ments which its inner feeling excites. J/zstznct directs
these actions, and we shall see that this direction al-
ways results from emotions of the inner feeling, in
which intelligence has no part, and from the organ-
ization even which the habits have modified, in such
a manner that the needs of animals which are in this

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 331

category, being necessarily limited and always the
same in the same species, the inner feeling and, con-
sequently, 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 compari-
sons, judgments, thoughts, etc. These same animals
control more or less their power of action according
to the degree of perfection of their brain; and al-
though 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 ex-
haustion of the nervous fluid in the production of
animal movements, resulting in fatigue.

He next occupies himself with the origin of the
inclination to the same actions, 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 pro-
pensity (penxchant) to repeat every action, becoming
habitual, assuredly merits investigation.

“ The animals which are only ‘ sensible’ *—namely,
which possess no brain, cannot think, reason, or per-
form 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

* Lamarck’s division of Azizmaux sensibles comprises the insects,
arachnids, crustacea, annelids, cirripedes, and molluscs.

332 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK
system,* 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 zzstznct as the sum (ensemble) of the
decisions (determinations) of animals in their actions;
and, indeed, some have thought that these determi-
nations 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 phy sical 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 intelli-
gence all the decisions of action can never be the re-
sult 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.

“Inthe animals even which enjoy the power of

* Rather a strange view to take, as the brain of insects is now
known to be nearly as complex as that of mammals.

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 333

performing certain intelligent acts, it is still more
often the inner feeling and the inclinations origi-
nating from habits which decide, without choice, the
acts which animals perform.

‘* Moreover, although the executing power of move-
ments and of actions, as also the cause which directs
them, should be entirely internal, it is not well, as has
been done,* 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 zustinct 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 inclina-
tions.”

There are, the author states, two kinds of causes
which can arouse the inner feeling (organic sense)—
namely, those which depend on intellectual acts, and
those which, without arising from it, immediately ex-
cite it and force it to direct its power of acting in the
direction of acquired inclinations.

“These are the only causes of this last kind, which

* Richerand, Physiologie. vol ii. p. 151.

334 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

constitute all the acts of zzstinct; and as these acts
are not the result of deliberation, of choice, of judg-
ment, the actions which arise from them always
satisfy, surely and without error, the wants felt and
the propensities arising from habits.

“Hence, zzstzzct 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 send-
ing the nervous fluid in the direction which the pro-
pensity in activity needs to the muscles to be placed
in action.

“T have already said that the habit of exercising
such an organ, or such a part of the body, to satisly
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 ina
way become inherent in the nature of the individual,
which is unable to change it.

‘“‘ Moreover, the wants of animals possessing a ner-
vous system being, in each case, dependent on the
structure of these organisms, are:

“1, Of obtaining any kind of food;

“9, Of yielding to sexual fecundation which excites
in them certain sensations;

“3. Of avoiding pain ;

o va 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

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 335

special Octet ee to which we give the name of
tnstinct.*

“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 repro-
duction or generation, which preserves the organiza-
tion 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 exer-
cised it,

“Tt is thus that the same habits and the same
mstinct are perpetuated from generation to genera-
tion in the different species or races of animals, with-
out offering any notable variation,+ so long as it does
not suffer change in the circumstances essential to
the mode of life.”

* “* As all animals do not have the power of performing voluntary
acts, so in like manner zzstincf is not common to all animals; for
those lacking the nervous system also want the organic sense, and
can perform no instinctive acts.

“* These imperfect animals are entirely passive, they do nothing of
themselves, they have no wants, and nature as regards them treats
them as she does plants. But as they are irritable in their parts, the
means which nature employs to maintain their existence enables them
to execute movements which we call actions.”

It thus appears that Lamarck practically regards the lowest animals
as automata, but we must remember that the line he draws between
animals with and without a nervous system is an artificial one, as some
of the forms which he supposed to be destitute of a nervous system
are now known to possess one.

+ It should be noticed that Lamarck does zot absolutely state that
there are 7zo variations whatever in instinct. His words are much less
positive: ‘‘ Sazs offrer de variation notable.” This does not exclude
the fact, discovered since his time, that instincts are more or less varia-
ble, thus affording grounds for Darwin’s theory Of the origin of new
kinds of instincts from the ‘‘ accidental variation of instincts.” Profes-
sor James’ otherwise excellent version of Lamarck’s view is inexact and
misleading when he makes Lamarck say that instincts are ‘‘ perpet-
uated wthout variation from one generation to another, so long as
the outward conditions of existence remain the same” ( 7he Principles
of Psychology, vol. ii., p. 678, 1890). He leaves out the word nota-
ble. The italics are ours. Farther on (p. 337), it will be seen that
Lamarck acknowledges that in birds and mammals instinct is variable.

330 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

“ On the Industry of Certain Animals.

“In those animals which have no brain that which
we call zzdustry 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 ac-
tions, and which result from these acquired propen-
sities; finally, different difficulties gradually and
habitually overcome by as many emotions of the
organic sense (sentiment tntéricur), 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 zzdustry.

“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, in-
deed, only the different difficulties necessary to be over-
come 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 zxzdustry,
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

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 337

act of intelligence. None of these can indeed freely
vary its actions; none of them has the power of
abandoning what we call its zwdustry to adopt any
other kind.

‘There is, then, nothing wonderful in the supposed
industry of the ant- lion (Myrmelcon 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 manceuvre of the
oyster, which, to satisfy all its wants, does nothing but
open and close its shell. So long as their organiza-
tion 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 zzdustry ; because in difficult cases their intelli-
gence, 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 zwz//, which he says is really the principle under-
lying all the actions of animals. The will, he says, is
one of the results of thought, the result of a reflux of
a portion of the nervous fluid towards the parts which
are to act.

He compares the brain to a register on which are
imprinted ideas of all kinds acquired by the individual,
so that this individual provokes at will an effusion of
the nervous fluid on this register, and directs it to any

particular page. The remainder of the second volume
22

338 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

(chapter vii.) is devoted to the understanding, its origin

and that of ideas. The following additions relative

to see vii. and viii. of the first part of this work
e from vol. ii., pp. 451-4606.

ec the ace of June, 1809, the menagerie of the
Museum of Natural History having received a Phoca
(Phoca vitulina), Lamarck, as he says, had the oppor-
tunity of observing its movements and habits. After
describing its habits in swimming and moving on
land and observing its relation to the clawed mam-
mals, he says his main object is to remark that the
seals do not have the hind legs arranged in the same
direction as the axis of their body, because these
animals are constrained to habitually use them to
form a caudal fin, closing and widening, by spreading
their digits, the paddle (falette) which results from
their union.

“The morses, on the contrary, which are accus-
tomed 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 (Sczurus volans, erobates, petaurista,
sagitta, and volucella), and then explains the origin
of their adaptation for flying 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 foom one tree to another. Now, by
frequent repetitions of such leaps, in the individuals

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 339
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 addi-
tion 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.*

“Finally, the different bats are probably mam-
mals still older than the Galeopithecus, in the habit
of extending their membrane and even their fin-
gers 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

* It is interesting to compare with this Darwin’s theory of the
origin of the same animals, the flying squirrels and Galeopithecus
(Origin of Species, 5th edition, New York, pp. 173-174), and see how
he invokes the Lamarckian factors of change of ‘‘ climate and vege-
tation” and ‘‘ changing conditions of life,” to originate the variations
before natural selection can act. His account is a mixture of La-
marckism with the added Darwinian factors of competition and
natural selection. We agree with this view, that the change in en-
vironment and competition sets the ball in motion, the work being
finished by the selective process. The act of springing and the first
attempts at flying also involve strong emotions and mental efforts,
and it can hardly be denied that these Lamarckian factors came
into continual play during the process of evolution of these flying
creatures.

340 LAMARCK, AIS LIFE AND WORK

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 communi-
cate 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.

“T do not doubt but that the mammals have in
reality originated from them, and that they are the
veritable cradle (derceau) of the entire animal king-
dom.

“‘ 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 con:
ditions, 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 evi-
dent 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

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 341

still unknown—there are doubtless a great many dif-
ferent aquatic forms; and that among these aquatic
worms, those which afterwards habitually expose
themselves to the air have probably produced am-
phibious insects, such as the mosquitoes, the ephem-
eras, 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 fre-
quented 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 Scolopendre 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 ob-
serve 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 circum-
stances have brought about, have given rise on one
side to the formation of birds, and on the other to

342 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

that of amphibious mammals, which have given in
their turn origin to all the other mammals.*

“ 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
rclations 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.

“Tf the branch of the Chelonians has given rise to
birds, we can yet presume that the palmipede aquatic
birds, especially the drevipennes, such as the penguins
and the manchots, have given origin to the mono-
LreEmes:

“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 mam-
mals have taken their origin.

“T 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 forma-

* This sagacious, though crude suggestion of the origin of birds

and mammals from the reptiles is now, after the lapse of nearly a
century, being confirmed by modern morphologists and paleontologists.

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 243

tion 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 Phocide,
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 under-
gone 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 con-
tains concealed within it the skeleton of a hand.

“ Assuredly, the cetaceans being mammals, it
entered into the plan of their structure to have four

344 LAMARCK, HIS ETRE AND WORK

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 Phoce, where the pelvis
still exists, this pelvis is impoverished, narrowed, and
with no projections on the hips, we see that the
lessened (sédtocre) 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 proba-
bility.

“The following zableau* will facilitate the compre-
hension 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 (vameaux) 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

* Reproduced on page 193.

EAMARCKS THEORY OF DESCENT 345

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 exsemble, and her laws re-
main 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 con-
siderable time.

“Tf 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 impres-
sion; 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.

“T 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 re-
garded as a whole constituted by its parts, for a
purpose which its Author alone knows, and not exclu-
sively for any one of them.

340 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

“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 in his introduction to the
Animaux sans Vertcbres. But here the only changes
of importance are his four laws, which we translate,
and a somewhat 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 (desoizz) 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 fatio 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 under-
gone those changes.”’

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 34

SJ

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.

“Tt is not the same in animals with a more compli-
cated 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 press-
ing and continuous, gradually the organ originates,
and is developed on account of the continuity and
energy of its employment.

“Tf I had not been convinced: 1, that the thought
alone of an action which strongly interests it suffices
to arouse the zuner feeling of an individual; 2, that a
felt want can itself arouse the feeling in question ;
3, that every emotion of zzner 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

345 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

existing, or makes efforts for the formation of those
which would not have existed there, and which a con-
tinual 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 exist-
ence being involved in that of the third law, which is
now well established.

“TI 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 tenta-
cles; it has even no projection, no traces of tentacles,
and this is what has happened in the case of Bu/lea,
Bulla, and Chiton.”

In the Supplément a la Distribution générale des
Animaux (Introduction, p. 342), concerning the real

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 349
order of origin of the invertebrate classes, Lamarck
proposes a new genealogical tree. He states that the
order of the animal series “is far from simple, that it
is branching, and seers even to be composed of
several distinct series;’’ though farther on (p. 456)

he adds:

“Je regarde f’ordre de la production des animaux
comme Cas de deux séries distinctes.

“ Ainsi, je soumets a la méditation des zoologistes
l’ordre a tee de la Jormation des animaux, tel
que l’exprime le tableau suivant :

In the matter of the origin of instinct, as in evolu-
tion in general, Lamarck appears to have laid the
foundation on which Darwin’s views, though he
throws aside Lamarck’s factors, must rest. The “in
herited habit ” theory is thus stated by Lamarck.

Instinct, he claims, is not common to all animals,
since the lowest forms, like plants, are entirely pas-
sive under the influences of the surrounding medium ;
they have no wants, are automata.

“But animals with a nervous system have wazts,
z.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 trans-
formed 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 zustznct.

“These propensities are inherited and become in-
nate 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 wotadle variations, so long as the

350 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

species does not suffer change in the circumstances
essential to its mode of life.”

The same views are repeated in the introduction
to the Anzmaux sans Vertebres (1815), and again in
1820, in his last work, and do not need to be translated,
as they are repetitions of his previously published
views in the Philosophie zoologique.

Unfortunately, to illustrate his thoughts on instinct
Lamarck does not give us any examples, nor did he
apparently observe to any great extent the habits of
animals. In these days one cannot follow him in draw-

ing a line—as regards the possession of instincts—
between the lowest organisms, or Protozoa, and the
groups provided with a nervous system.

Lamarck's meaning of the word “ besoins,” or wants
or needs.—Lamarck’s use of the word wants or needs
(esoins) has, we think, been greatly misunderstood
and at times caricatured or pronounced as “ absurd.”
The distinguished French naturalist, Quatrefages,
although he was not himself an evolutionist, has pro-
tested against the way Lamarck’s views have been
caricatured. By nearly all authors he is represented
as claiming that by simply “ willing” or “ desiring ”
the individual bird or other animal radically and with
more or less rapidity changed its shape or that of
some particular organ or part of the body. This is,
as we have seen, by no means what he states. In
no instance does he speak of an animal as simply
“desiring”? to modify an organ in any way. The
doctrine of appetency attributed to Lamarck is with-
out foundation. In all the examples given he inti-
mates that owing to changes in environment, leading

LAMARCK'S THEORY CF DESCENT 351
to isolation in a new area separating a large number
of individuals from their accustomed habitat, they
are driven by necessity (desozz) or new needs to adopt
a new or different mode of life—new habits. These
efforts, whatever they may be—such as attempts to
fly, swim, wade, climb, burrow, etc., continued for a
long time “in all the individuals of its species,” or
the great number forced by competition to migrate
and become segregated from the others of the original
species—finally, owing to the changed surroundings,
affect the mass of individuals thus isolated, and their
organs thus exercised in a special direction undergoa
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 essay of 1858 he
represents Lamarck as stating that the giraffe ac-
quired its long neck by deszrzng to reach the foliage
of the more lofty shrubs, and constantly stretching
its neck for the purpose. On the contrary, he does
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 ts obliged to browse on the leaves
of trees, and is continually forced to reach up to them.
It results from this habit, continued fora 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 ines head and
reaches six meters high (almost twenty feet).”

* This is taken from my article, ‘‘ Lamarck and Neo-lamz arckian-
oie ”-in the Oper Court, Chigaee: February, 1897. Compare also
“* Darwin Wrong,” etc., by R. F. Licorish, M. D., Barbadoes, 1898,
reprinted in Vatural Ge nC€, April 1899.

352 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

We submit that this mode of evolution of the giraffe
is quite as reasonable as the very hypothetical one
advanced by Mr. Wallace;* z.¢., that a variety oc-
curred with a longer neck than usual, and these “at
once secured a fresh range of pasture over the same
ground as their shorter-necked companions, and on
the first scarcity of food were thereby enabled to out-
live them.” Mr. Wallace’s account also of Lamarck’s
general theory appears to us to be one-sided, inade-
quate, and misleading. He states it thus: “The
hypothesis of Lamarck—that progressive changes in
species have been produced by the attempts of animals
to increase the development of their own organs,
and thus modify their structure and habits.” This is
a caricature of what Lamarck really taught. Wants,
needs (desozvs), volitions, desires, are not mentioned
by Lamarck in his two fundamental laws (see p. 303),
and when the word desozus is introduced it refers as
much to the physiological needs as to the emo-
tions of the animal resulting from some new environ-
ment which forces it to adopt new habits such as
means of locomotion or of acquiring food.

It will be evident to one who has read the original
or the foregoing translations of Lamarck’s writings
that he does not refer so much to mental desires or
volitions as to those physiological wants or needs
thrust upon the animal by change of circumstances
or by competition ; and his desozvs may include lust,
hunger, as well as the necessity of making muscular
exertions such as walking, running, leaping, climbing,
swimming, or flying.

* Natural Selection, pp. 41-42.

LAMARCK’'S THEORY OF DESCENT 353

As we understand Lamarck, when he speaks of the
incipient giraffe or long-necked bird as making efforts
to reach up or outwards, the efforts may have been
as much physiological, reflex, or instinctive as mental.
A recent writer, Dr. R. T. Jackson, curiously and yet
naturally enough uses the same phraseology as La-
marck when he says that the long siphon of the com-
mon clam (Mya) “was brought about by the effort
to reach the surface, induced by the habit of deep
burial”’ in its hole.*

On the other hand, can we in the higher verte-
brates entirely dissociate the emotional and mental
activities from their physiological or instinctive acts?
Mr. Darwin, in his Axpresstons of the Emotions in
Man and Animals, discusses in an interesting and
detailed way the effects of the feelings and passions
on some of the higher animals.

It is curious, also, that Dr. Erasmus Darwin went
at least as far as Lamarck in claiming that the trans-
formations of animals “are in part produced by their
own exertions in consequence of their desires and
aversions, of their pleasures and their pains, or of
irritations or of associations.”

Cope, in the final chapter of his Primary Factors
of Organic Evolution, entitled “The Functions of
Consciousness,’ goes to much farther extremes than
the French philosopher has been accused of doing,
and unhesitatingly attributes consciousness to all ani-
mals. ‘“ Whatever be its nature,’ he says, “ the pre-
liminary to any animal movement which is not auto-

* American Naturalist, 1891, p. 17.

LP)

G3

354 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

matic is an effort.’ Hence he regards effort as the
immediate source of all movement, and considers that
the control of muscular movements by consciousness
is distinctly observable; in fact, he even goes to the
length of affirming that reflex acts are the product of
conscious acts, whereas it is plain enough that reflex
acts are always the result of some stimulus.

Another case mentioned by Lamarck in his Azz-
maux sans Vertébres, which has been pronounced as
absurd and ridiculous, and has aided in throwing his
whole theory into disfavor, is his way of accounting
for the development of the tentacles of the snail,
which is quoted on p. 348.

This account is a very probable and, in fact, the
only rational explanation. The initial cause of such
structures is the intermittent stimulus of occasional
contact with surrounding objects, the irritation thus
set up causing a flow of the blood to the exposed
parts receiving the stimuli. The general cause is the
same as that concerned in the production of horns
and other hard defensive projections on the heads of
various animals,

In commenting on this case of the snail, Professor
Cleland, in his just and discriminating article on
Lamarck, says:

‘“ However absurd this may seem, it must be ad-
mitted 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 the-
ory of their origin by natural selection. =) win
judging the reasonableness of the second law of

LAMARCK’S THEORY OF DESCENT 355

Lamarck [referring to new wants, see p. 346] as com-
pared with more modern and now widely received
theories, it must be observed that it is only an ex-
tension 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 suffi-
ciency of the Lamarckian hypothesis to explain the
first commencement of new organs which is in ques-
tion, 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 stim-
ulating growth and use. Darwin has given like im-
portance to the effects of accidental variations acting
indirectly by giving advantage in the struggle for ex-
istence. 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 La-
marck lie apart from his wonderful descriptive
labors, unrelieved by intermixture with other mat-
ters 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.’’ (Eucyc. Brit.,
art. “‘ Lamarck.’’)

LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

356

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‘NOILATOAD AO AYOUHL AHL AO SUAGNNOA AHL AO SMAIA AHL AO AUVWWAS HAILVAVdWOD

CHAPTER, XV Iti

LAMARCK S THEORY AS TO“THE’ EVOLUTION ‘OF
MAN

LAMARCK’S views on the origin of man are con-
tained in his Recherches sur l Organisation des Corps
vivans (1802) and his Phzlosophte soologique, pub-
lished in 1809. We give the following literal trans-
lation in full of the views he presented in 1802, and
which were probably 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 crea-
tures indicates that he is a privileged being who has
in common with the animals only that which con-
cerns animal life.

‘“TIn truth, we observe a sort of gradation in the
intelligence of animals, like what exists in the grad-
ual improvement of their organization, and we re-
mark that they have ideas, memory; that they think,
choose, love, hate, that they are susceptible of jeal-
ousy, 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.

55 LAMARCK, AIS LIFE AND WORK

““ 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, inde-
pendently of all the freaks into which the passions
of man almost constantly allure him, the zgnorance
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 ex-
ercises 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 him-
self 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,

VIEWS ON THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 359

that he looks upon it almost in the same way as do
the beasts, and that all that surrounds him is noth-
ing 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 de-
voting himself to the study of the principal “branches
of knowledge; who observes and compares every-
thing he sees and which affects him; who forgets
himself in examining everything he can see, who in-
sensibly accustoms ‘himself to “judge of everything
for himself, instead of giving a blind assent to the
authority of others; finally, who, stimulated by re-
verses 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 dif-
ference 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, igno-
rant 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

360 ELAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

same nature, impede the development of his intel-
lectual 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 dis-
tinguished, because there is among them a small
number of men who have been able, by observation
and reflection, to create or advance the higher sci-
ences, 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.

Ouch yis, an tact, tue watality attached. to athe
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 knowl-
edge which it should acquire; in general, exercises
to avery 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 (desozus) does not vary,
they can never extend the scope of their intelli-
gence, nor apply it to other objects than to those
which are related to their ordinary needs.

‘‘Some among them, whose structure is a little

VIEWS ON THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 361

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 re-
mains 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 in-
telligence, and it results that these actions are always
the same in each species.

ibe sole acts of variation, 7.2... tieronly:acts
which rise above the limits of habits, and which we
see performed in animals whose organization allows
them to, are acts of tmitation. 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 ani-
mals 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 depend-

362 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

ent 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 pro-
portionally 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 witha 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 en-
tirely at the base of the cranium of man and not car-
ried up behind, as in the other vertebrates, causes
his head to be posed at the extremity of the verte-
bral column as on a pivot, not bowed down forward,
his face not looking towards the ground. This posi-
tion 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 in-
clined 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

VIEWS ON THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 262

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 ha-
bitually 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 facil-
ity 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.

““T 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 Bzmana.

“ However, if we consider that all the character-
istics 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 ?* WNhata subject for reflection for those
who have the courage to enter into it!

“Tf the Quadrumana have not the occipital open-
ing situated directly at the base of the cranium as in
man, it is assuredly much less raised posteriorly than

* Author’s italics.

364 LAMARCK, HiS LIFE AND WORK

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.

‘““ T have not observed the situation of the occipital
opening of the jacko or orang-outang (Szma satyrus
L.); but as I know that this animal almost habit-
ually walks erect, though it has no strength in its
legs, I suppose that the occipital foramen is not situ-
ated 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 arc
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 mus-
cles of its lower extremities would acquire propor-
tionally 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 indi-
cates from the consideration of a multitude of facts
and observations which support it.’’ *

The subject is closed by a quotation from Grandpré
on the habits of the chimpanzee. It is not of suffi-
cient importance to be here reproduced.

Seven years after the publication of these views,

* ** How much this unclean beast resembles man !”—Zuznius.

“* Indeed, besides other resemblances the monkey has mamme, a
clitoris, nymphs, uterus, uvula, eye-lobes, nails, as in the human
species ; it also lacks a suspensory ligament of the neck. Is it not
astonishing that man, endowed with wisdom, differs so little from such
a disgusting animal !”—Lingeus,

VIEWS ON THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 365

Lamarck again returns to the subject in his PhzJoso-
phie soologique, which we translate.

““ Some Observations Relative to Man.

““ Tf 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 neces-
sity 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 Szmana, 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 genera-
tion to generation, there is no doubt that their feet
would gradually and imperceptibly assume a con-
formation 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

366 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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.) Dhat this race“farther advanced in its facul-
ties, 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 preéminence
(luz 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 multiplica-
tion 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 hin-
drance on the part of others, and, living in numer-
ous tribes, will in succession create new needs which
should stimulate industry and gradually render still
more perfect its means and powers;

“*4. (hat, finally, this’ preeminent race have
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

VIEWS ON THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 267

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 modifica-
tions 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 (Szmza troglodytes Lin.) is the
highest animal; it is much more perfect than the
orang of the Indies (Szmza satyrus Lin.), which is
called the orang-outang, and, nevertheless, as re-
gards their structure they are both very inferior to
man in bodily faculties and intelligence. These ani-
mals often stand erect; but this attitude is not ha-
bitual, 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 immedi-
ately 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 atti-
tude 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

308 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

during a limited time and with the aid of the con-
traction of several of his muscles.

‘‘TIf 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 ina 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 an-
terior 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 re-
carding 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 ob-
served 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 nat-
ural tendency to revert to the quadrupedal state.’
(Phystologie, 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

VIEWS ON THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 369
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 ob-
servations, it is fitting to add the following consid-
erations:

‘’ The individuals of the dominant race previously
mentioned, having taken possession of all the in-
habitable places which were suitable for them, and
having to avery considerable extent multiplied their
necessities in propertion 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 in-
creasing 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 em-
ploy every possible means in these efforts, to create,
multiply, and render sufficiently varied the szgus
which their ideas and their numerous wants would
render necessary.

“Tt is not so with any other animals; because,
although the most perfect among them, such as the
Quadrumana, live mostly.in troops, since the emi-
nent supremacy of the race mentioned they have
remained stationary as regards the improvement of
their faculties, having been driven out from every-
where 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

24

370 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

species. There are, then, only very few different
sigus 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 multi-
plying the szguzs 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 < accord-
ing 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 be-
tween 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.

‘*Thenin 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 preéminent race
in question, were distinguished from the animals
only by his physical c haracters, and if his origin were
not different from theirs.’

VIEWS ON THE EVOLUTION OF MAN a7t

This is certainly, for the time it was written, an
original, comprehensive, and bold attempt at ex-
plaining in a tentative way, or at least suggesting,
the probable origin of man from some arboreal crea-
ture allied to the apes. It is as regards the actual
evolutional steps supposed to have been taken by
the simian ancestors of man, a more detailed and
comprehensive hypothesis than that offered by Dar-
win in his Descent of Man,* which Lamarck has an-
ticipated. Darwin does not refer to this theory of
Lamarck, and seems to have entirely overlooked it,
as have others since his time. The theory of the
change from an arboreal life and climbing posture
to-an erect one, and the transformation of the hinder
pair of hands into the feet of the erect human animal,
remind us of the very probable hypothesis of Mr.
Herbert Spencer, as to the modification of the quad-
rumanous posterior pair of hands to form the plan-
tigrade feet of man.

* Vol. i., chapter iv., pp. 135-151; ii., p. 372.

CHAE i hecho

LAMARCK’S THOUGHTS ON MORALS, AND ON THE
RELATION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

ONE who has read the writings of the great French
naturalist, who may be regarded as the founder of
evolution, will readily realize that Lamarck’s mind
was essentially philosophic, comprehensive, and syn-
thetic. He looked upon every problem in a large
way. His breadth of view, his moral and intellec-
tual strength, his equably developed nature, gener-
ous in its sympathies and aspiring in its tendencies,
naturally led him to take a conservative position as
to the relations between science and religion. He
should, as may be inferred from his frequent refer-
ences to the Author of nature, be regarded as a
deist.

When avery young man, he was for a time a friend
of the erratic and gifted Rousseau, and was after-
wards not unknown to Condorcet, the secretary of
the French Academy of Sciences, so liberal in his
views and so bitter an enemy of the Church; and
though constantly in contact with the radical views
and burning questions of that day, Lamarck through-
out his life preserved his philosophic calm, and main-
tained his lofty tone and firm temper. We find no
trace in his writings of sentiments other than the

RELATION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION 373

most elevated and inspiring, and we know that in
character he was pure and sweet, self-sacrificing,
self-denying, and free from sclf-assertion.

The quotations from his Phzlosophie szoolcgique,
published in 1809, given below, will show what were
the results of his meditations on the relations be-
tween science and religion. Had his way of looking
at this subject prevailed, how much misunderstand-
ing and ill-feeling between theologians and savants
would have been avoided! UHad his spirit and
breadth of view animated both parties, there would
not have been the constant and needless opposition
on the part of the Church to the grand results of
scientific discovery and philosophy, or too hasty
dogmatism and scepticism on the part of some
scientists.

In Lamarck, at the opening of the past century,
we behold the spectacle of a man devoting over fifty
years of his life to scientific research in biology, and
insisting on the doctrine of spontaneous generation ;
of the immense length of geological time, so opposed
to the views held by the Church; the evolution of
plants and animals from a single germ, and even the
origin of man from the apes, yet as earnestly claim-
ing that nature has 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 a noter dans ce passage:
d’une part, les termes dignes et conciliants dans
lesquels Lamarck établit la part de la science et de
la religion; cela vaut, mieux, méme en tenant compte

374 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

des différences d’epoques, que les abjurations de
Boron. a

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 exist-
ence to all that we see, as well as to that which ex-
ists 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.’’ +

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 per-
petually give existence to its productions; it varies
and renews them unceasingly, and thus everywhere
preserves the whole order which is the result of it.’” +

‘To regard nature as eternal, and consequently

* Mathias Duval: ‘‘ Le transformiste francais Lamarck,” Bulletin
de la Société d’ Anthropologie de Paris, xii., 1889, p. 345.

+ Philosophie zoologique, p. 50.

Te LOCSClee seas s LIS s

RELATION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION 375

as having existed from all time, is to me an abstract
idea, baseless, limitless, improbable, and not satis-
factory to my reason. Being unable to know any-
thing 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.’’ *

‘ 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 com-
pletely fulfils the end for which it was designed.’’ +

Lamarck’s work on general philosophy ¢ was writ-
ten near the end of his life, in 1820. He begins his
““ Discours préliminaire’’ by referring to the sudden
loss of his eyesight, his work on the invertebrate ani-
mals being thereby interrupted. The book was, he
says, ‘‘rapidly’’ dictated to his daughter, and the
ease with which he dictated was due, he says, to his
long-continued habit of meditating on the facts he
had observed.

PMloc. cht, 1, Pei 30l- + Loc. cit., ii., p. 465.
t Systeme analytique des Connaissances de l’ Homme, etc.

370 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

In the “‘Principes primordiaux’’ he considers man
as the only being who has the power of observing
nature, and the only one who has perceived the
necessity of recognizing a superior and only cause,
creator of the order of the wonders of the world of
life. By this he is led to raise his 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 undoubt-
edly 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 per-
sonally care for and watch over them in all their
changes, their movements, or their actions, to unre-
mittingly 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 gen-
eral 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 pre-
sent, 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 erounded. But it
isnot so; we distinctly see that there exists an order
of things truly created ( (veritablement créé), as un-
changeable 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

RELATION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION 377
name of zature. 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 (dvzse) 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, 2.e., mat-
ter and zature, 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 an-
swer that good and evil are only relative to particu-
lar objects, that they never affect by their temporary
existence the general result expected (frévi), and
that for the end which the Creator designed, there
is in reality neither good nor evil, because every-
thing 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 affirm-
atively 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

378 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

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 cog-
nizance of it. The idea that we have of it is abso-
lutely without base.

‘“ We only know physical objects and only objects
relative to these beings (étves): 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 (éres).
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 conven-
tional 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 [z.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 repre-
sents 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 PAz/oso-

RELATION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION 379

pluie zoologique, the spirit of the remainder may be
imagined from the foregoing extracts.

The author refers to the numerous evils resulting
from ignorance, false knowledge, lack of judgment,
abuse of power, demonstrating the necessity of our
confining ourselves within the circle of the objects
presented by nature, and never to go beyond them
if we do not wish to fall into error, because the pro-
found study of nature and of the organization of
man alone, and the exact observation of facts alone,
will reveal to us ‘‘ the truths most important for us
to know,”’ in order to avoid the vexations, the per-
fidies, the injustices, and the oppressions of all sorts,
and “‘incalculable disorders’’ which arise in the
social body. In this way only shall we discover and
acquire the means of obtaining the enjoyment of the
advantages which we have a right to expect from
our state of civilization. The author endeavors to
state what science can and should render to society.
He dwells on the sources from which man has drawn
the knowledge which he possesses, and from which
he can obtain many others—sources the totality of
which constitutes for him the field of 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 labori-
ous man, so that the length and difficulties of a use-
ful work do not repel him.

2. To the courage of him who, knowing the dan-
ger, exposes himself when he sees that this would
be useful.

380 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

3. To love of wisdom.

Wisdom, according to Lamarck, consists in the
observance of a certain number 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 in unessential wants; indul-
gence, toleration, humanity, good will towards all
men; love of the public good and of all that is neces-
sary to our fellows; contempt for weakness; a kind
of severity towards one’s self which preserves us
from that multitude of artificial wants enslaving
those who give up to them; resignation and, if pos-
sible, moral impassibility in suffering reverses, in-
justices, oppression, and losses; respect for order,
for public institutions, civil authorities, laws, moral-
ity, and religion.

The practice of these maxims and.’ virtues; says
Lamarck, characterizes true philosophy.

And it may be added that no one practised these
virtues more than Lamarck. Like Cuvier’s, his life
was blameless, and though he lived a most retired
life, and was not called upon to fill any public station
other than his chair of zodlogy at the Jardin des
Plantes, we may feel sure that he had the qualities
of courage, independence, and patriotism which
would have rendered such a career most useful to
his country.

As Bourguin eloquently asserts: ‘“ Lamarck was
the brave man who never deserted a dangerous post,
the laborious man who never hesitated to meet any
difficulty, the investigating spirit, firm in his convic-

RELATION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION 381

tions, tolerant of the opinions of others, the simple
man, moderate in all things, the enemy of weakness,
devoted to the public good, imperturbable under the
attaints of fortune, of suffering, and of unjust and
passionate attacks ’

CHAP WERT OX

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN LAMARCKISM AND
DARWINISM; NEOLAMARCKISM

SINCE the appearance of Darwin’s Origin of
Species, and after the great naturalist had converted
the world to a belief in the general doctrine of evolu-
tion, there has arisen in the minds of many working
naturalists a conviction that natural ‘selection, .or
Darwinism as such, is only one of other evolutionary
factors; while there are some who entirely reject the
selective principle. Darwin, moreover, assumed a
tendency to fortuitous variation, and did not attempt
to explain its cause. Fully persuaded that he had
discovered the most efficient and practically sole
cause of the origin of species, he carried the doctrine
to its extreme limits, and after over twenty years of
observation and experiment along this single line,
pushing entirely aside the Erasmus-Darwin and La-
marckian factors of change of environment, though
occasionally acknowledging the value of use and dis-
use, he triumphantly broke over all opposition, and
lived to see his doctrine generally accepted. He had
besides the support of some of the strongest men in
science: Wallace in a twin paper advocated the same
views; Spencer, Lyell, Huxley, Hooker, Haeckel,
Bates, Semper, Wyman, Gray, Leidy, and other rep-

NEOLAMARCKISM 3 8 3

resentative men more or less endorsed Darwin’s
views, or at least some form of evolution, and owing
largely to their efforts in scientific circles and in the
popular press, the doctrine of descent rapidly per-
meated every avenue of thought and became gen-
erally accepted.

Meanwhile, the general doctrine of evolution thus
proved, and the “survival of the fittest’ an accom-
plished fact, the next step was to ascertain “ how,”
as Cope asked, “the fittest originated?” It was felt
by some that natural selection alone was not ade-
quate to explain the first steps in the origin of
genera, families, orders, classes, and branches or
phyla. It was perceived by some that natural selec-
tion by itself was not a vera causa, an efficient agent,
but was passive, and rather expressed the results of
the operations of a series of factors. The transform-
ing should naturaily precede the action of the selec-
tive agencies.

We were, then, in our quest for the factors of or-
ganic evolution, obliged to fall back on the action of
the phvsico-chemical forces such as light, or its ab-
sence, heat, cold, change of climate; and the physio-
logical agencies of food, or in other words on changes
in the physical environment, as well as in the biologi-
cal environment. Lamarck was the first one who,
owing to his many years’ training in systematic botany
and zoédlogy, and_ his philosophic breadth, had stated
more fully and authoritatively than any one else the
results of changes in the action of the primary factors
of evolution. Hence a return on the part of many
in Europe, and especially in America, to Lamarckism

384 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

or its modern form, Neolamarckism. Lamarck had
already, so far as he could without a knowledge of
modern morphology, embryology, cytology, and his-
tology, suggested those fundamental principles of
transformism on which rests the selective principle.

Had his works been more accessible, or, where avail-
able, more carefully read, and his views more fairly
represented; had he been favored in his lifetime by
a single supporter, rather than been unjustly criti-
cised by Cuvier, science would have made more rapid
progress, for it is an axiomatic truth that the general
acceptance of a working evolutionary theory has
given a vast impetus to biology.

We will now give a brief historical summary of the
history of opinion held by Lamarckians regarding the
causes of the “ origin of the fittest,” the rise of varia-
tions, and the appearance of a population of plant
and animal forms sufficiently extensive and differ-
entiated to allow for the play of the competitive
forces, and of the more passive selective agencies
which began to operate in pre-cambrian times, or as
soon as the earth became fitted for the existence of
living beings.

The first writer after Lamarck to work along the
lines he laid down was Mr. Herbert Spencer. In
1866-71, in his epochal and remarkably suggestive
Principles of Biology, the doctrine of use and disuse
is implicated in his statements as to the effects of
motion on structure in general; * and in his theory as
to the origin of the notochord, and of the segmenta-

*iVOloii., ps LOZ .eLo7 L-

NEOLAMARCKISM 385

tion of the vertebral column and the segmental ar-
rangement of the muscles by muscular strains,* he
laid the foundations for future work along this line.
He also drew attention in the same work to the com-
plementary development of parts, and likewise in-
stanced the decreased size of the jaws in the civilized
races of mankind, as a change not accounted for by
the natural selection of favorable variations.t In
fact, this work is largely based on the Lamarckian
principles, as affording the basis for the action of
natural selection, and thirty years later we find him
affirming: ‘The direct action of the medium was the
primordial factor of organic evolution.” { In his well-
known essay on “The Inadequacy of Natural Selec-
tion” (1893) the great philosopher, with his accus-
tomed vigor and force, criticises the arguments of
those who rely too exclusively on Darwinism alone,
and especially Neodarwinism, as a sufficient factor to
account for the origin of special structures as well as
species.

The first German author to appreciate the value
of the Lamarckian factors was that fertile and compre-
hensive philosopher and investigator Ernst Haeckel,
who also harmonized Lamarckism and Darwinism in
these words:

‘‘ We should, on account of the grand proofs just
enumerated, have to adopt Lamarck’s Theory of
Descent for the explanation of biological phenom-
ena, even if we did not possess Darwin’s Theory of

“Vile lls, Ps, LOS.
+ Vol. i., § 166, p. 456.
t The Factors of Organic Evolution, 1895, p. 460.

25

386 LAMAKCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

Selection. The one is so completely and adrectly
proved by the other, and established by mechanical
causes, that there remains nothing to be desired.
The laws of Jzheritance and Adaptation are univer-
sally acknowledged physzological facts, the former
traceable to propagation, the latter to the xztrztionu
of organisms. On the other hand, the s/ruggle for
existence is a biological fact, which with mathemati-
cal necessity follows from the general disproportion
between the average number of organic individuals
and the numerical excess of their germs.’’ *

A number of American naturalists at about the
same date, as the result of studies in different direc-
tions, unbiassed by a too firm belief in the efficacy
of natural selection, and relying on the inductive
method alone, worked away at the evidence in favor
of the primary factors of evolution along Lamarckian
lines, though quite independently, for at first neither
Hyatt nor Cope had read Lamarck’s writings.

In 1866 Professor A. Hyatt published the first of
a series of classic memoirs on the genetic relations
of the fossil cephalopods. His labors, so rich in
results, have now been carried on for forty years,
and are supplemented by careful, prolonged work on
the sponges, on the tertiary shells of Steinheim, and
on the land shells of the Hawaiian Islands.

His first paper was on the parallelism between the
different stages of life in the individual and those of
the ammonites, carrying out D’Orbigny’s discovery
of embryonic, youthful, adult, and old-age stages
in ammonites,t and showing that these forms are

* Schépfungsgeschichte, 1868. The History of Creation, New
York; *iseps 355:
+ Alcide d’Orbigny, Paléontologie frangaise, Paris, 1840-59.

NEOLAMARCKISM 387

due to an acceleration of growth in the mature
forms, and a retardation in the senile forms.

In a memoir on the “‘ Biological Relations of the
Jurassic Ammonites,’ * he assigns the causes of the
progressive changes in these forms, the origination
of new genera, and the production of young, ma-
ture, and senile forms to “‘ the favorable nature of
the physical surroundings, primarily producing char-
acteristic changes which become perpetuated and
increased by inheritance within the group.”’

The study of the modifications of the tertiary
forms of Planorbis at Steinheim, begun by Hilgen-
dorf, led among others (nine in all) to the following
conclusions:

‘* First, that the unsymmetrical spiral forms of the
shells of these and of all the Mollusca probably re-
sulted from the action of the laws of heredity, modi-
fied 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 Selec-
tion 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 organi-
zation and bring them within the reach of the laws
of heredity.”’

These views we find reiterated in his later palaon-

* Abstract in Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History,
xvii., December 16, 1874.

388 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

tological papers. Hyatt’s views on acceleration were
adopted by Neumayr.* Waagen,t from his studies
on the Jurassic cephalopods, concludes that the
factors in the evolution of these forms were changes
in external conditions, geographical isolation, com-
petition, and that the fundamental law was not that
of Darwin, but “‘ the law of development.’’ Hyatt
has also shown that at first evolution was rapid.
‘* The evolution is a purely mechanical problem in
which the action of the habitat is the working agent
of all the major changes; first acting upon the adult
stages, as a rule, and then through heredity upon
the earlier stages in successive generations.’’ He
also shows that as the primitive forms migrated and
occupied new, before barren, areas, where they met
with new conditions, the organisms ‘‘ changed their
habits and structures rapidly to accord with these
new conditions.’’ ¢

While the paleontological facts afford complete
and abundant proofs of the modifying action of
changes in the environment, Hyatt, in 1877, from his
studies on sponges,§ shows that the origin of their
endless forms ‘‘ can only be explained by the action
of physical surroundings directly working upon the
organization and producing by such direct action
the modifications or common variations above de-
scribed. -

* Zeitschr. der deutsch. geol. Gesellschaft, 1875.

+ Palzontologica Indica. Jurassic Fauna of Kutch. I. Cephalopoda,
pp. 242-243. (See Hyatt’s Genesis of the Arietide, pp. 27, 42.)

t‘*Genera of Fossil Cephalopods,” Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist.,
xxli., April 4, 1883, p. 265.

§‘‘ Revision of the North American Porifere.” Memoirs Bost.
Soc, Nat. Hist., 'ii:,, partiiv., 0877.

NEOLAMARCKISM 3 89

Mrs Al Agassiz remarks that the ettect tof the
nature of the bottom of the sea on sponges and rhizo-
pods ‘‘is an all-important factor in modifying the
organism.’’ *

While Hyatt’s studies were chietly on the am-
monites, molluscs, and existing sponges, Cope was
meanwhile at work on the batrachians. His Orzgin
of Genera appeared shortly after Hyatt’s first paper,
but in the same year (1866). This was followed by
a series of remarkably suggestive essays based on
his extensive paleontological work, which are in part
reprinted in his Orzgin of the Fittest (1887); while in
his epoch-making book, 7he Primary Factors of Or-
ganic Evolution (1896), we have ina condensed shape
a clear exposition of some of the Lamarckian factors
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 ex-
amples of natural taxonomy that the variations that
result in evolution are not multifarious or promiscu-
ous, but definite and direct, contrary to the method
which seeks no origin for variations other than nat-
ural 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 real-
ity of the Lamarckian factor of use, or motion, as
friction, impact, and strain, as an efficient cause of
evolution. ~ +

* Three Cruises of the ‘* Blake,” 1888, ii., p. 158.
+ The earliest paper in which he adopted the Lamarckian doctrines

390 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

The discussion in Cope’s work of kinetogenesis,
or of the effects of use and disuse, affords an exten-
sive series of facts in support of these factors of
Lamarck’s. As these two books are accessible to
every one, we need only refer the reader to them as
storehouses of facts bearing on Neolamarckism.

The present writer, from a study of the develop-
ment and anatomy of Limulus and of Arthropod
ancestry, was early (1870) * led to adopt Lamarckian
views in preference to the theory of Natural Selec-
tion, which never seemed to him adequate or suffi-
ciently comprehensive to explain the origin of varia-
tions.

In the following year,t+ from a study of the insects
and other animals of Mammoth Cave, we claimed
that “‘the characters separating the genera and
species of animals are those inherited from adults,
modified by their physical surroundings and adapta-
tions to changing conditions of life, inducing certain
alterations in parts which have been transmitted
with more or less rapidity, and become finally fixed
and habitual.’”’

In an essay entitled “‘ The Ancestry of Insects’’ t

’

of use and effort was his ‘‘ Methods of Creation of Organic Types’
(1871). In this paper Cope remarks that he ‘“‘has never read La-
marck in French, nor seen a statement of his theory in English,
except the very slight notices in the Origin of Species and Chambers’
Encyclopedia, the latter subsequent to the first reading of this paper.”
It is interesting to see how thoroughly Lamarckian Cope was in his
views on the descent theory.

* Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science, Troy meeting, 1870. Printed in August, 1871.

+ American Naturalist, v., December, 1871, p. 750. See also pp.
751, 759, 760.

{ Printed in advance, being chapter xili. of Our Common Insects,
Salem, 1873, pp. 172, 174, 179, 180, 181, 185.

NEOLAMARCKISM 391

(1873) we adopted the Lamarckian factors of change
of habits and environment, of use and disuse, to ac-
count for the origin of the appendages, while we
attributed the origin of the metamorphoses of in-
sects to change of habits or of the temperature of
the seasons and of climates, particularly the change
in the earth’s climates from the earlier ages of the
globe, “when the temperature of the earth was
nearly the same the world over, to the times of the
present distribution of heat and cold in zones.”’
From further studies on cave animals, published

4
7

in 1877,* we wrote as follows:

‘““ In the production of these cave species, the ex-
ceptional phenomena of darkness, want of sufficient
food, and unvarying temperature, have been plainly
enough vere cause. To say that the principle of
natural selection accounts for the change of struc-
ture is no explanation of the phenomena; the phrase
has to the mind of the writer no meaning in connec-
tion with the production of these cave forms, and
has as little meaning in accounting for the origina-
tion 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 mis-
used 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 ‘ environ-

* <* A New Cave Fauna in Utah.” Bulletin of the United States
Geological Survey, iii., April 9, 1877, p. 167.

392 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

ment’ 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 organ-
isms. Certainly ‘natural selection’ or the ‘ sur-
vival 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 Amer-
zca,* after stating that Darwin in his Origin of
Species attributed the loss of eyes ‘‘ wholly to dis-
use,’ remarking (p. 142) that after the more or less
perfect obliteration of the eyes, ‘* natural selection
will often have effected other changes, such as an
increase in the length of the antenne or palpi, as a
compensation for blindness,’’ we then summed up as
follows the causes of the production of cave fauna
in general:

‘1, Change in environment from light, even par-
tial, 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-

oe

* 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, xxviil., p. 333.

NEOLAMARCKISM 393

of-door forms, thus insuring the permanency of the
new varieties, species, or genera.

““s5. 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 selec-

tion. *

In an attempt to apply Lamarck’s principle of the
origin of the spines and horns of caterpillars and
other insects as well as other animals to the result
of external stimuli,+ we had not then read what he
says onthe subject. (See p. 316.) Having, however,
been led to examine into the matter, from the views
held by recent observers, especially Henslow, and it
appearing that Lamarck was substantially correct in
supposing that the blood (his ‘* fluids’’) would flow
to parts on the exposed portions of the body and
thus cause the origin of horns, on the principle of
the saying, “‘ ab irritatio, 2bt affuxus,’’ we came to
the following conclusions:

* Carl H. Eigenman, in his elaborate memoir, The Lyes of the
Blind Vertebrates of North America (Archiv fiir Entwickelungs-
mechanik der Organismen, 1899, viii.), concludes that the Lamarckian
view, that through disuse and the transmission by heredity of the
characters thus inherited the eyes of blind fishes are diminished, “* is
the only view so far examined that does not on the face of it present
serious objections’ (pp. 605-609).

+ ‘‘ Hints on the Evolution of the Bristles, Spines, and Tubercles
of Certain Caterpillars, etc.” Proceedings Boston Society of Natural
History, xxiv., 1890, pp. 493-560 ; 2 plates,

394 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

“The Lamarckian factors (1) change (both direct
and indirect) in the szlzeu, (2) need, and (3) habit,
and the now generally adopted principle that a
change of function induces change in organs,* and
in some or many cases actually induces the hyper-
trophy 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 and the Darwinian one of nat-
ural selection are shown by the following summary
at the end of this essay.

““ 1. The more prominent tubercles, and spines or
bristles arising from them, are hypertrophied pilifer-
ous warts, the warts, with the seta or hair which
they bear, being common to all caterpillars.

‘‘2, The hypertrophy or enlargement was prob-
ably [we should rather say foss7bly] 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 devel-
oped 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

*E. J. Marey: ‘‘Le Transformisme et la Physiologie Expéri-
mentale, Cours du Collége de France,” Revue Sctenti figue, 2° série,
iv., p. 818. (Function makes the organ, especially in the osseous and
muscular systems.) See also A. Dohrn: Der Urspruny der Wiedbel-
thiere und das Princip des Functionswechsels, Leipzig, 1875. See
also Lamarck’s opinion, p. 295.

NEOLAMARCKISM 395

(lines and spots) were due to light or shade, with
the general result of protective mimicry, or adapta-
tion 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 dif-
ferent 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 gen-
era, 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 indi-
rect) factors of evolution (Neolamarckism), and the
final stages were due to the secondary factors, segre-
gation and natural selection (Darwinism).”’

From a late essay * we take the following extracts
explaining our views:

‘“TIn seeking to explain the causes of a metamor-
phosis in animals, one is compelled to go back to the

*‘*On the Inheritance of Acquired Characters in Animals with a
Complete Metamorphosis.” Proceedings Amer. Acad. Arts and Sci-
ences, Boston, xxix. (N. S., xxi.), 1894, pp. 331-370; also monograph of
‘*Bombycine Moths,” Memoirs Nat. Acad. Sciences, vil., 1895, p. 33.

390 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK
primary factors of organic evolution, such as the
change of environment, whether the factors be cos-
mical (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 iso-
lation. 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.

‘‘ Tt is not to be denied that in many instances all
through the ceaseless operation of these fundamen-
tal factors there is going on a process of sifting or of
selection of forms best adapted to their surround-
ings, and best fitted to survive, but this factor,
though important, is quite subordinate to the initial
causes of variation, and of metamorphic changes.

‘“ Neolamarckism,* as we understand this doctrine,

*In 1885, in the Introduction to the Standard Natural History,
we proposed the term Neolamarckianism, or Lamarckism in its
modern form, to designate the series of factors of organic evolution,
and we take the liberty to quote the passage in which the word first
occurs. We may add that the briefer form, Neolamarckism, is the
more preferable.

‘“In the United States a number of naturalists have advocated
what may be called Neo-Lamarckian views of evolution, especially the
conception that in some cases rapid evolution may occur. The pres-
ent writer, contrary to pure Darwinians, believes that many species,
but more especially types of genera and families, have been produced
by changes in the environment acting often with more or less rapidity

NEOLAMARCKISM 307

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 di-
rect (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 foun-
dation of the sciences of embryology, cytology,
paleontology, zodgeography, and in short all that
distinguishes modern biology, were necessarily some-
what crude, though the fundamental factors he sug-
gested are those still invoked by all thinkers of
Lamarckian tendencies.

on the organism, resulting at times in a new genus, or even a family
type. Natural selection, acting through thousands, and sometimes
millions, of generations of animals and piants, often operates too
slowly ; there are gaps which have been, so to speak, intentionally
left by Nature. Moreover, natural selection was, as used by some
writers, more an idea than a wera causa. Natural selection also
begins with the assumption of a tendency to variation, and presup-
poses a world already tenanted by vast numbers of animals among
which a struggle for existence was going on, and the few were vic-
torious over the many. But the entire inadequacy of Darwinism to
account for the primitive origin of life forms, for the original diversity
in the different branches of the tree of life forms, the interdependence
of the creation of ancient faunas and floras on geological revolutions,
and consequent sudden changes in the envircnment of organisms, has
convinced us that Darwinism is but one of a number of factors of a
true evolution theory; that it comes in play only as the last term of
a series of evolutionary agencies or causes; and that it rather ac-
counts, as first suggested by the Duke of Argyll, for the preservation
of forms than for their origination. We may, in fact, compare Dar-
winism to the apex of a pyramid, the larger mass of the pyramid
representing the complex of theories necessary to account for the
world of life as it has been and now is. In other words, we believe
ina modified and greatly extended Lamarckianism, or what may be
called Neo-Lamarckianism.”

398 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

“* 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 sym-
biosis—in short, the biological environment; ; together
with geological extinction, natural and sexual selec-
tion, 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 impel-
ling cause in the origination of new species and gen-
era. It does not start the ball in motion; it only,
so to speak, guides its movements down this or that
incline, Itis*the expression; likesthat of the :sur-
vival of the fittest’’ of Herbert Spencer, of the re-
sults of the combined operation of the more funda-
mental 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

NEOLAMARCKISM 399

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 over-
mastered 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 investi-
gation, and especially, if resort be had to experi-
mentation, 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 insect embryology, was, when active as an in-

400 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

vestigator, a strong advocate of the Lamarckian
factors. In his masterly work, Studves in the Theory
of Descent * (1875), although accepting Darwin’s prin-
ciple of natural selection, he also relied on ‘‘ the
transforming influence of direct action as upheld by
Lamarck,’’ although he adds, “‘ its extent cannot as
yet be estimated with any certainty.’’ He con-
cluded from his studies in seasonal dimorphism,
“that differences of specific value can originate
through the direct action of external conditions of
life only.’’ While conceding that sexual selection
plays a very important part in the markings and
coloring of butterflies, he adds ‘* that a change pro-
duced directly by climate may be still further in-
creased by sexual selection.”’ He also inquired into
the origin of variability, and held that it can be
elucidated by seasonal dimorphism. He thus formu-
lated the chief results of his investigations: ‘‘A
species is only caused to change through the influ-
ence of changing external conditions of life, this
change being in a fixed direction which entirely de-
pends on the physical nature of the varying organ-
ism, and is different in different species or even in
the two sexes of the same species.”’

The influence of changes of climate on variation
has been studied to especial advantage in North
America, owing to its great extent, and to the fact
that its territory ranges from the polar to the tropi-
cal regions, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific

* Studies in the Theory of Descent. By Dr. August Weismann.
Translated and edited, with notes, by Raphael Meldola. London,
1882. 2 vols.

NEOLAMARCK/ISM AO!

Ocean. As respects climatic variation in birds, Pro-
fessor Baird first took up the inquiry, which was
greatly extended, with especial relation to the for-
mation of local varieties, by Dr. J. A. Allen,* who
was the first to ascertain by careful measurements,
and by a study of the difference in plumage and
pelage 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 climatic influences, and pass on to
become species; and that species become, in like
manner, differentiated into genera, is abundantly
indicated by the facts of geographical distribution,
and the obvious relation of local forms to the con-
ditions of environment. The present more or less
unstable condition of the circumstances surrounding
organic beings, together with the known mutations
of climate our planet has undergone in past geologi-
cal ages, point clearly to the agency of physical
conditions as one of the chief factors in the evolu-
tion of new forms of life. So long as the environing
conditions remain stable, just so long will perma-
nency of character be maintained; but let changes
occur, however gradual or minute, and differentia-
tions begin.’’ He inclines to regard the modifica-
tions as due rather to the direct action of the con-
ditions of environment than to “the round-about
process of natural selection.’’ He also admits that

*‘* The Influence of Physical Conditions in the Genesis of Spe-
cies,” Radical Review, i., May, 1877. See also J. A. Allen in Bull.
Mus. Comp. Zodl., ii., 1871; also R. Ridgway, American Journal of
Science, December, 1872, January, 1873.

26

402 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

change of habits and food, use and disuse, are
factors.

The same kind of inquiry, though on far less
complete data, was extended by the present writer*
in 1873 to the moths, careful measurements of
twenty-five species of geometrid moths common to
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America
showing that there is an increase in size and varia-
tion in shape of the wings, and in some cases in
color, in the Pacific Coast over Eastern or Atlantic
Coast individuals of the same species, the differences
being attributed to the action of climatic causes.
The same law holds good in the few Notodontian
moths common to both sides of ourcontinent. Sim-
ilar studies, the results depending on careful meas-
urements of many individuals, have recently been
made by C. H. Eigenmann (1895-96), W. J. Moenk-
haus (1896), and H. C. Bumpus (1896-98).

The discoveries of Owen, Gaudry, Huxley, Kowa-
levsky, Cope, Marsh, Filhol, Osborn, Scott, Wort-
mann, and many others, abundantly prove that the
lines of vertebrate descent must have been the re-
sult of the action of the primary factors of organic
evolution, including the principles of migration, iso-
lation, and competition; the selective principle being
secondary and preservative rather than originative.

Important contributions to dynamic evolution or
kinetogenesis ~are the essays of Cope, Ryder, Dall,
Osborn, Jackson, Scott, and Wortmann.

* Annual Report of the United States Geological and Geographical
Survey Territories, 1873. Pp. 543-560. See also the author’s mono-
graph of Geometrid Moths or Phaleenidz of the United States, 1876,
pp. 584-589, and monograph of Bombycine Moths (Notodontide), p. 50.

NEOLAMARCKISM 403

Ryder began in 1877 to publish a series of remark-
ably suggestive essays on the ‘* mechanical genesis,”’
through strains, of the vertebrate limbs and teeth,
including the causes of the reduction of digits. In
discussing the origin of the great development of
the incisor teeth of rodents, he suggested that ‘‘ the
more severe strains to which they were subjected by
enforced or intelligently assumed changes of habit,
were the initiatory agents in causing them to assume
their present forms, such forms as were best adapted
to resist the greatest strains without breaking.’’ *

He afterwards +t claimed that the articulations of
the cartilaginous fin-rays of the trout (Salmo fonti-
nalis) are due to the mechanical strains experienced
by the rays in use as motors of the body of the fish
in the water.

In the line of inquiry opened up by Cope and by
Ryder are the essays of Osborn { on the mechanical
causes for the displacement of the elements of the
feet in the mammals, and the phylogeny of the
teeth. Also Professor W. B. Scott thus expresses
the results of his studies:§

‘To sum up the results of our examination of cer-
tain 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 pres-
ent, acts just as 7f the direct action of the environ-

* Proceedings Academy of Natural Science, Philadelphia (1877),
p- 318. ;

+ Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (1889), p. 546.

¢ Transactions American Philosophical Society, xvi. (18go), and
later papers.

§ American Journal of Morphology (1891), pp. 395, 398.

404 LAMARCK, AIS LIFE AND WORK

ment and the habits of the animal were the efficient
cause of the change, and any explanation which ex-
cludes the direct action of such agencies is con-
fronted by the difficulty of an immense number of
the most’ striking coincidences 2). So. fateas
I can see, the theory of determinate variations and
of use-inheritance is not antagonistic but supple-
mentary to natural selection, the latter theory at-
tempting 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 isola-
tion, due to migration into new regions, was greatly
extended, and shown by Moritz Wagner* to be a
most important agent in the limitation and fixation
of varieties and species.

‘© Darwin’s work,’’ he says, ‘* neither satisfactorily
explains the external cause which gives the first im-
pulse to increased individual variability, and con-
sequently to natural selection, nor that condition
which, in connection with a certain advantage in the
struggle for life, renders the new characteristics indis-
pensable. 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 coun-
try; so that only under favorable conditions would
the home of a new species be founded.”’

* «« Uber die Darwinische Theorie in Besug auf die geographische
Verbreitung der Organismen.” Sitzenb. der Akad. Miinchen, 1868.
Translated by J. L. Laird under the title, Zhe Darwinian Theory
and the Law of the Migration of Organisms, London, 1873. Also
Ueber den Einfluss der geographischen Isolirung und Colonierbildung
auf die morphologischen Ver dnderungen der Organismen. Miinchen,
1870.

NEOLAMARCKISM 405

This was succeeded by Rev. J. T. Gulick’s pro-
found essays “‘On Diversity of Evolution under
One Set of External Conditions ’’* (1872), and on
“ Divergent Evolution through Cumulative Segre-
gation ’’ + (1887).

These and later papers are based on his studies on
the land shells of the Hawaiian Islands. The cause
of their extreme diversity of local species is, he
claims, not due to climatic conditions, food, ene-
mies, or to natural selection, but to the action of
what he calls the *‘ law of segregation.”’

Fifteen years later Mr. Romanes published his the-
ory of physiological selection, which covered much
the same ground.

A very strong little book by an ornithologist of
wide experience, Charles Dixon,t and refreshing to
read, since it is packed with facts, is Lamarckian
throughout. The chief factor in the formation of
local species is, he thinks, isolation; the others are
climatic influences (especially the glacial period), use
and disuse, and sexual selection as well as chemical
agency. Dixon insists on the “‘ vast importance of
isolation in the modification of many forms of life,
without the assistance of natural selection.’” Again
he says: “‘ Natural selection, as has often been
remarked, can only preserve a beneficial variation—it
cannot originate it, it is not a cause of variation; on

* Linnean Society's Journal: Zodlogy, xi., 1872.

¢ Linnean Societys Journal: Zodlogy, xx., 1887, pp. 189-274,
496-505 ; also Mature, July 18, 1872.

{ Zvolution without Natural Selection ; or, The Segregation of Spe-
cles without the aid of the Darwinian Hypothesis, London (1885),
pp. 1-8o.

« 400 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

the other hand, the use or disuse of organs is a
direct cause of ‘variation, and can furnish natural
selection with abundance of material to work upon ’”’
(p. 49). The book, like the papers of Allen, Ridg-
way, Gulick, and others, shows the value of isola-
tion or segregation in special areas as a factor in the
origination of varieties and species, the result being
the prevention of interbreeding, which would other-
wise swamp the incipient varieties.
Here might be cited Delbceuf’s law: *

‘* 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. J/ nen 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 propa-
gated under the same conditions, meet with a num-
ber 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 zlicu, shows us the necessary and sufficient
condition under which a variety or species originates
without the aid of any secondary factor.”’

Semper,t an eminent zodlogist and morphologist,

* Revue Scientifique, xix. (1877), p. 669. Quoted by Giard in Rev.
Sct., 1889, p. 646.

+ Animal Life as Affected by the Natural Conditions of Existence.
By Karl Semper. The International Scientific Series. New York,
1881.

NEOLAMARCKISM 407

who also was the first (in 1863) to criticise Darwin’s
theory of the mode of formation of coral atolls,
though not referring to Lamarck, published a strong,
catholic, and original book, which is in general essen-
tially Lamarckian, while not undervaluing Darwin’s
principle of natural selection. ‘‘ It appears to me,’’
he says, in the preface, “‘ that of all the properties
of the animal organism, Variability is that which
may first and most easily be traced by exact investi-
gation to its efficient causes.”’

‘“ By a rearrangement of the materials of his argu-
ment, 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 pur-
pose may adapt itself to the altered circumstances,
and alter correspondingly if it contains within itself,
as I have explained above, the elements of sucha
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).

408 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

Dr. H. de Varigny has carried on much farther
the kind of experiments begun by Semper. In his
Experimental Evolution he employs the Lamarckian
factors of environment and use and disuse, regarding
the selective factors as secondary.

The Lamarckian factors are also depended upon
by the late Professor Eimer in his works on the vari-
ation of the wall-lizard and on the markings of birds
and mammals (1881-88), his final views being com-
prised in his general work.* The essence of his point
of view may be seen by 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, moist-
ure, food, etc., and which they transmit by hered-
ity, 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).

Ina later paper + Eimer proposes the term ‘‘ortho-
genesis,’ or direct development, in rigorous con-
formity to law, in a few definite directions. Al-
though this is simply and wholly Lamarckism, Eimer
claims, that 1t as snot, > for,”; he -strancelyenoucnh

Cé . . ;
says, ‘ Lamarck ascribed no efficiency whatever to

* Organic Evolution as the Result of the Inheritance of Acquired
Characters, according to the Laws of Organic Growth. Translated by
J. T. Cunningham, r8go.

+ On Orthogenesis and the Impotence of Natural Selection in
Species Formation. Chicago, 1898.

NEOLAMARCKISM 409

the effects of outward influences on the animal body,
and very little to their effects upon vegetable organ-
isms.’’ Whereas if he had read his Lamarck care-
fully, he would have seen that the French evolu-
tionist distinctly states that the environment acts
directly on plants and the lower animals, but indi-
rectly on those animals with a brain, meaning the
higher vertebrates. The same anti-selection views
are held by Eimer’s pupil, Piepers,* who explains
organic evolution by ‘‘ lawsof growth, . . . un-
controlled by any process of selection.”’

Dr. Cunningham likewise, in the preface to his
translation of Eimer’s work, gives his reasons for
adopting Neolamarckian views, concluding that “‘ the
theory of selection can never get over the difficulty of
the origin of entirely new characters;’’ that ‘* selec-
tion, whether natural or artificial, could not be the
essential cause of the evolution of organisms.’’ In
an article on ‘‘ The New Darwinism ’’ (Westminster
Review, July, 1891) he claims that Weismann’s the-
ory of heredity does not explain the origin of horns,
venomous teeth, feathers, wings of insects, or mam-
mary glands, phosphorescent organs, etc., which
have arisen on animals whose ancestors never had
anything similar.

Discussing the origin of whales and other aquatic
mammals, W. Kiikenthal suggests that the modifi-
cations are partially attributable to mechanical prin-
ciples. (Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist., February,
1891.)

From his studies on the variation of butterflies,

* Die Farbenevolution bei den Pieriden. Leiden, 1898.

410 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

Karl Jordan * proposes the term “‘ mechanical selec-
tion’’ to account for them, but he points out that
this factor can only work on variations produced by
other factors. Certain cases, as the similar variation
in the same locality of two species of different fam-
ilies, but with the same wing pattern, tell in favor
of the direct action of the local surroundings on the
markings of the wings.

In the same direction are the essays of Schroeder +
on the markings of caterpillars, which he ascribes to
the colors of the surroundings; of Fischer t on the
transmutations of butterflies as the result of changes
of temperature, and also Dormeister’s § earlier paper.
Steinach | attributes the color of the lower verte-
brates to the direct influence of the light on the pig-
ment cells, as does Biedermann. 4

In his address on evolution and the factors of
evolution, Professor A. Giard ** has given due credit
to Lamarck’ as ~~ the, creator of transformism,- and
to the position to be assigned to natural selection as
a secondary factor. He quotes at length Lamarck’s

*“*On Mechanical Selection and Other Problems.” MVovttates
Zoologice, iii. Tring, 1896.

+ Entwicklung der Raupenzeichnung und Abhaingigkeit der letzeren
von der Farbe der Umgebung, 1894.

t Zransmutation der Schinetterlinge infolze Temperatur-verinder-
ungen, 1895.

S Ueber den Einfluss der Temperatur bet der Erzeugung der
Schmetierlings-vartetiten, 1880.

|| Ueber Farbenwechsel bet niederen Wirbelthieren, bedingt durch
directe Wirkung des Lichts auf die Pigmentzellen. Centralblatt fiir
Phystologie, 1891, v., p. 326.

q Ueber den Farbenwechsel der Frésche. Pfliiger’s Archiv fir
Physiologie, 1892, li., p. 455.

** Zecon a’ Ouverture du Cours de l’ Evolution des Etres organisés,
Paris, 1888, and ‘‘ Les Facteurs de l’Evolution,” Revue Scientifique,
November 23, 1889.

NEOLAMARCKISM 4II

views published in 1806. After enumerating the
primary factors of organic evolution, he places nat-
ural selection among his secondary factors, such as
heredity, segregation, amixia, etc. On the other
hand, he states that Lamarck was not happy in the
choice of the examples which he gave to explain the
action of habits and use of parts. ‘‘ Je ne rappel-
lerai paf l’histoire tant 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-celled animals, from the sponges
and polyps upward from the one-celled forms or pro-
tozoa, is the principle of animal aggregation or coloni-
zation advanced by Professor Perrier. As civilization
and progressive intelligence in mankind arose from
the aggregation of men into tribes or peoples which
lived a sedentary life, so the agricultural, building,
and other arts forthwith sprang up; and as the social
insects owe their higher degree of intelligence to their
colonial mode of life, so as soon as unicellular organ-
isms began to become fixed, and form aggregates,
the sponge and polyp types of organization resulted,
this leading to the gastra, or ancestral form from
which all the higher phyla may have originated.

M. Perrier appears to fully accept Lamarck’s views,
including his speculations as to wants, and use and
disuse. He, however, refuses to accept Lamarck’s
extreme view as to the origin through effort of en-
tirely new organs. As he says: “ Unfortunately, if
Lamarck succeeded in explaining in a plausible way
the modification of organs already existing, their
adaptation to different uses, or even their disappear-

A412 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

ance from disuse, in regard to the appearance of
new organs he made hypotheses so venturesome
that they led to the momentary forgetfulness of his
other forceful conceptions.’’ *

The popular idea of Lamarckism, and which from
the first has been prejudicial to his views, is that an
animal may acquire an organ by simply wishing for
or desiring it, or, as his French «critics put ait, Un
animal finit toujours par posséder un organe quand il
le'veut.:” Such, “says, Perrier)“ isenot the idea
of Lamarck, who simply attributes the transforma-
tions of species to the stimulating action of external
conditions, construing it under the expression of
wants (desoivs), and explaining by that word what
we now call adaptations. Thus the long neck of the
giraffe results from the fact that the animal inhabits
a country where the foliage is situated at the tops of
high trees; the long legs of the wading birds have
originated from the fact that these birds are obliged
to seek their food in the water without wetting
themselves, ete... (See ps 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. Itis a simple question of measurement.
The possibility of the creation of an organ in conse-

* Revue Encyclopedigue, 1897, p. 325. Yet we have an example of
the aired of a new organ in the case of the duckbill, in which
the horny plates take the place of the teeth which Poulton has dis-
covered in the embryo. Other cases are the adductor muscles of
shelled crustacea. (See p. 418.)

+ La Philosophie Zoologigue avant Darwin. Paris, 1884, p. 76.

NEOLAMARCK/ISM 413
quence of external stimuli is itself a matter which
deserves to be studied, and which we have no right
to reject without investigation, without observa-
tions, 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 inter-
mediate steps by meansof wants. Itis incontestable
that by lack of exercise organs atrophy and disappear.”

Finally, says Perrier: ‘* Without doubt the real
mechanism of the improvement ( ferfectzonnement)
of organisms has escaped him [Lamarck], but neither
has Darwin explained it. The law of natural selec-
tion is not the indication of a process of transforma-
tion 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 per-
fect 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).

Drs. j. A. jefiries, author of an essay On the
Epidermal System of Birds,’’ in a later paper * thus
frankly expresses his views as to the relations of
natural selection to the Lamarckian factors. Re-
ferring to Darwin’s case of the leg bones of domestic
ducks compared with those of wild 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

***Tamarckism and Darwinism.” Proceedings Boston Society
Natural History, xxv., 1890, pp. 42-49.

414 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

is popularly supposed, on direct proof, but is ad-
duced 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 advan-
tage 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 rela-
tions of insects to flowers, the claws of beasts of
prey, are all cases in point.”’

Professor J. A. Thomson’s useful Synthetic Sum-
mary of the Influence of the Environment upon the
Organism (1887) takes for its text Spencer’s apho-
rism, that the direct action of the medium was the
primordial factor of organic evolution. Professor
Geddes relies on the changes in the soil and climate
to account for the origin of spines in plants.

The botanist Sachs, in his Physzology of Plants
(1887), remarks: ‘‘ A far greater portion of the phe-
nomena of life are [is] called forth by external influ-
ences than one formerly ventured to assume.”’

Certain botanists are now strong in the belief that
the species of plants have originated through the
direct influence of the environment. Of these the
most outspoken is the Rev. Professor G. Henslow.
His view is that self-adaptation, by response to the
definite action of changed conditions of life, is the
true origin of species. In 1894* he insisted, ‘* 2 the

* “ The Origin of Species without the Aid of Natural Selection,”
Natural Science, Oct., 1894. Also, ‘* The Origin of Plant Structures.”

NEOLAMARCKISM 415

strictest sense of the term, that natural selection is
not wanted as an ‘aid’ or a‘ means’ in originating
species.’’ In a later paper* he reasserts that all
variations are definite, that there are no indefinite
variations, and that natural selection ‘‘ can take no
part in the origination of varieties.’’ He quotes
with approval the conclusion 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 be-
yond 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 observa-
tions 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 newconditions; . . .
that in the successive generations these changes con-
tinue until ultimately the new conditions become the
naturalones. . . . They can show that through-
out 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 de-
mand it, produce marked changes.’ ”’ +

Mr. Henslow adduces observations and experi-
ments by Buckman, Bailey, Lesage, Lothelier, Cos-

* “ Does Natural Selection play any Part in the Origin of Species
among Plants?” Matural Science, Sept., 1897.
Her Essay on the Development Hypothesis,” 1852, London 7%mes.

416 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

tantin, Bonnier, and others, all demonstrating that
the environment acts directly on the plant.

Henslow also suggests that endogens have origi-
nated from exogenous plants through self-adaptation
to an aquatic habit,* which is in line with our idea
that certain classes of animals have diverged from the
more primitive ones by change of habit, although this
has led to the development of new class-characteris-
tics by use and disuse, phenomena which naturally do
not operate in plants, owing to their fixed conditions,

Other botanists—French, German, and English—
have also been led to believe in’ the*directiniluence
of the mzlzeu, or environment. Such are Viet,t+ and
Scott Elliot,{ who attributes the growth of bulbs to
the “" direct influence of the climate.”

In a recent work Costantin§ shares the belief em-
phatically held by some German botanists in the
direct influence of the environment not only as modi-
fying the form, but also as impressing, without the
aid of natural selection, that form on the species or
part of its inherited stock; and one chapter is de-
voted to an attempt to establish the thesis that
acquired characters are inherited.

**° A Theoretical Origin of Endogens from Exogens through
Self-Adaptation to an Aquatic Habit,” Zznnean Society Journal:
Botany, 1892, /. ¢., xxix., pp. 485-528. A case analogous to kineto-
genesis in animals is his statement based on mathematical calcula-
tions by Mr. Hiern, ‘‘ that the best form of the margin of floating
leaves for resisting the strains due to running water is circular, or at
least the several portions of the margin would be circular arcs” (p.
G7):

+‘* De l’'Influence du Milieu sur la Structure anatomique des
Végétaux,” Ann. Sct. Nat. Bot., ser. 6, xii., 1881, p. 167.

{ ‘‘ Notes on the Regional Distribution of the Cape Flora,” 7vans-
actions Botanical Society, Edinburgh, 1891, p. 241.

S$ Les Végétaux et les Milieux cosmigues, Paris, 1898, pp. 292.

NEOLAMARCKISM 417

In his essay ‘‘On Dynamic Influences in Evolu-
tion’’ W. H. Dall* holds the view that—

*“ The environment stands in a relation to the in-
dividual such as the hammer and anvil bear to the
blacksmith’s hot iron. The organism suffers during
its entire existence a continuous series of mechani-
cal impacts, none the less real because invisible, or
disguised by the fact that some of them are precipi-
tated by voluntary effort of the individual itself.
. . . Itis probable that since the initiation of life
upon the planet no two organisms have ever been
subjected to exactly the same dynamic influences
durine their development, .. =. The reactions
of the organism against the physical forces and
mechanical properties of its environment are abun-
dantly 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, he has pointed out a number
of the particular ways in which the dynamics of the
environment may act on the characters of the hinge
and shell of bivalve molluscs. He has also shown
that the initiation and development of the columel-
lar plaits in Voluta, Mitra, and other gastropod mol-
luscs ‘‘ are the necessary mechanical result of certain
comparatively simple physical conditions; and that
the variations and peculiarities connected with these
plaits perfectly harmonize with the results which fol-
low within organic material subjected to analogous
stresses.’”

* Proceedings Biological Society of Washington, 1890,
27

A418 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

In the same line of study is Dr. R. T. Jackson’s*
work on the mechanical origin of characters in the
lamellibranch molluscs. ‘* The bivalve nature of the
shell doubtless arose,’’ he says, “‘ from the splitting on
the median line of a primitive univalvular ancestor;’’
and he adds: ‘* A parallel case is seen in the develop-
ment of a bivalve shell in ancient crustaceans;’’ in
both types of shells “‘ the form is induced by the
mechanical conditions of the case.’” The adductor
muscles of bivalve molluscs and crustaceans are, he
shows plainly, the necessary consequence of the
bivalvular condition.

In his theory as to the origin of the siphon of the
clam (MZya arenaria), he explains it in a manner
identical with Lamarck’s explanations of the origin
of the wading and swimming birds, etc., even to 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 ani-
mal 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 paleon-
tology 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.’’

* «* Phylogeny of the Pelecypoda,”” Memoirs Boston Society Natural
History, iv., 1890, pp. 277-400. Also, American Naturalist, 1891,
XXV., pp. II-2I.

NEOLAMARCKISM 419

‘“ The tendency to equalize the form of growth in
a horizontal plane, or the geomalic tendency of Pro-
fessor Hyatt,* 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 perpen-
dicular 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 (espe-
cially in the Vola division of the group); but the in-
duced 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 per-
pendicular. In this case the geomalic growth corre-
sponds 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 con-
cave, the free valve flat; but they are not only un-
equal, 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

* «Transformations of Planorbis at Steinheim, with Remarks on
the Effects of Gravity upon the Forms of Shells and Animals,” Pro-
ceedings A. A. A. 5., xxix., 1880.

420 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK
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 at-
tached pelecypods is camerated structure, which is
most frequent and extensive in the thick attached
valve. The form as above described is characteris-
tic of the Ostreide, Hinnites, Spondylus, and Plica-
tula, Dimya, Pernostrea, Aetheria, and Mulleria;
and Chama and its near allies. These various gen-
era, though ostreiform in the adult, are equivalvular
and of totally different form in the free young. The
several types cited are from widely separated fam-
ilies 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 re-
searches, that the Lamarckian factors of change of
environment and consequently of habit, effort, use
and disuse, or mechanical strains resulting in the
modifications of some, and even the appearance of
new organs, as the adductor muscles, have originated
new characters which are peculiar to the class, and
thus a new class has been originated. The mollusca,
indeed, show to an unusual extent the influence of
a change in environment and of use and disuse in the
formation of classes.

NEOLAMARCKISM 421

Lang’s treatment, in his 7ert-book of Comparative
Anatomy (1888), of the subjects of the musculature
of worms and crustacea, and of the mechanism of
the motion of the segmented body in the Arthro-
poda, is of much value in relation to the mechanical
genesis of the body segments and limbs of the mem-
bers of this type. Dr. B. Sharp has also discussed
the same subject (American Naturalist, 1893, p. 89),
also Graber in his works, while the present writer in
his Zeat-book of £ntomology (1898) has attempted to
treat of the mechanical origin of the segments of
insects, and of the limbs and their jointed structure,
along the lines laid down by Herbert Spencer, Lang,
Sharp, and Graber.

W. Roux* has inquired how natural selection
could have determined the special orientation of the
sheets of spongy tissue of bone. He contends that
the selection of accidental variation could not origi-
nate species, because such variations are isolated,
and because, to constitute a real advantage, they
should rest on several characters taken together.
His example is the transformation of aquatic into
terrestrial animals.

G. Pfeffer+ opposes the efficacy of natural selec-
tion, as do C. Emery t and O. Hertwig. The essence
of Hertwig’s The Biological Problem of To-day (1894)
is that ‘‘in obedience to different external influ-

* Der Kampf der Theile tm Organismus. Leipzig, 1881. Also
Gesammelte Abhandlungen tiber Entwickelungsmechantk der Organts-
men, Leipzig, 1895. _

+ Die Unwandlung der Arten ein Vorgang functioneller Selbs-
gestaltung. Leipzig, 1894.

t Gedanken sur Descendens- und Vererbungstheorie : Biol. Cen-
tralblatt, xiii., 1893, 397-420.

422 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

ences the same rudiments may give rise to different
adult structures’’ (p. 128). Delage, in his 7héorzes
sur Ll Hérédité, summarizes under seven heads the
objections of these distinguished biologists. Species
arise, he says, from general variations, due to change
in the conditions of life, such as food, climate, use
and disuse, very rarely individual variations, such as
sports or aberrations, which are more or less the re-
sult of disease.

Mention should also be made of the essays and
works of H. Driesch,* De Varigny,ft Danilewsky,{
Verworn,§ Davenport,| Gadow,4 and others.

In his address on ‘** Neodarwinism and Neola-
marckism,’’ Mr. Lester F. Ward, the palzobotanist,
says:

‘*T shall be obliged to confine myself almost ex-
clusively to the one great mind, who far more than
all others combined paved the way for the new sci-
ence 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

* Enitwickelungmecanische Studien, 1892-93.

+ Experimental Evolution, 1892 ; also, ‘‘ Recherches sur le Nanisme
experimental,” Journ. Anat. et Phys., 1894.

t ‘‘ Ueber die organsplastischen Krafte der Organismen,” Ardcit.

nat. Ges., Petersburg, xvi., 1885 ; Protok, 79-82.

8 General Physiology, 1899.
|| Zaperimental Morphology, 1897-99, 2 vols.

4] ‘‘ Modifications of Certain Organs which seem to be Illustrations
of the Inheritance of Acquired Characters in Mammals and Birds,”
Zool, Jahrb, Syst. Abth., 1890, iv., pp. 629-646 ; also, Zhe Lost Link,
by E. Haeckel, with notes, etc., by H. Gadow, 18gg9.

NEOLAMARCKISM 423

genealogical descent of all organic beings, the more
complex from the more simple; he nevertheless
failed to conceive the selective principle as formu-
lated by Darwin and Wallace, which so admirably
complemented these great laws.’’ *

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 char-
acters 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 posi-
tive 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 mul-
titude of ingenious and important arguments to
diminish the force of the objection.”’ t

* Proceedings Biological Society of Washington, vi., 1892, pp.

host:
+ Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews, 1870, p. 323.

424 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK

We have cited the foregoing conclusions and opin-
ions of upwards of forty working biologists, many of
whom were brought up, so to speak, in the Darwin-
ian faith, to show that the pendulum of evolutionary
thought is swinging away from the narrow and re-
stricted conception of natural selection, pure and
simple, as the sole or most important factor, and
returning 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 three
centuries after’’ him. Only the change of belief,
due to the rapid accumulation of observed facts,
has come in a period shorter than ‘‘ two or three
centuries;’” for, at’ the end of the very century,
in which Lamarck, whatever ‘his crudities, vague-
ness, and lack of observations and experiments,
published his views, wherein are laid the foundations
on which natural selection rests, the consensus of
opinion as to the direct and indirect influence of the
environment, and the inadequacy of natural selec-
tion as an initial factor, was becoming stronger and
deeper-rooted each year.

We must never forget or underestimate, however,
the inestimable value of the services rendered by
Darwin, who by his patience, industry, and rare
genius for observation and experiment, and _ his
powers of lucid exposition, convinced the world of
the truth of evolution, with the result that it has
transformed the philosophy of our day. We are all
of us evolutionists, though we may differ as to the
nature of the efficient causes.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS
OF J. B. DE LAMARCK *

1778—1828

1778
Flore francaise ou description succinte de toutes les plantes qui
croissent naturellement en France, disposées selon une nouvelle mé-
thode d’analyse et a laquelle on a joint la citation de leurs vertus les
moins €quivoques 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. I-q.
Discours préliminaire. pp. i-cxix.
Principes élémentaires de Botanique. pp. 1-223.
Méthode analytique.—Plantes cryptogames. pp. I-132, viii, pl.
Vol. II. Méthode analytique.—Plantes adultes, ou dont les fleurs
sont dans un état de développement parfait. pp. iv, 684.
Vol. III. Méthode analytique. pp. 654, x.
Idem. 2e édit. Paris, 1793.

(1805-15)

Flore francaise ou description succinte de toutes les plantes qui
croissent naturellement en France, disposées selon une nouvelle mé-
thode d’analyse, et précédées par un exposé des principes €lémentaires
de la Botanique.

(En collaboration avec A. P. de Candolle). Edition III. Paris
(Agasse), 1805. 4 vol., 8vo.

Vol. I. Lettre de M. de Candolle a M. Lamarck. pp. xv.

Discours préliminaire. (R¢impression de la Ire €dit.) pp. 1-60.
Principes élémentaires de Botanique. pp. 61-224.

* Prepared by M. G. Malloisel, with a few titles added by the author.

426 BIBLIOGRAPHY

analyse des genres. pp. I-76.
analyse des especes. pp. 77-388, Io pl.
Vol. II. Explication de la Carte botanique de France. pp. i-xii.
Plantes acotylédonées. pp. I-600. Carte coloriée,

Vol. IIT. Monocotylédonées phanérogames. pp. 73I.

Vol. IV. i. a Pp- 944.

Méme édition, augmentée du tome 5 et tome 6, contenant 1300
espéces non décrites dans les cing premiers volumes. Paris (Desray),
1815. 8vo, pp. 622.

Lettre de M. A. P. de Candolle 4 M. Lamarck. pp. ro.

Méthode analytique : 1

1783
Dictionnaire botanique.—(En Encyclopédie méthodique. Paris, in
4to.) I, 1783; II, 1786; pour le IIIe volume, 1789, Lamarck a été
aidé par Desrousseaux. Le IVe, 1795, est de Desrousseaux, Poiret et
Savigny. Les derniers: V, 1804; VI, 1804; VII, 1806; et VIII, 1808,
sont de Poiret.
Lamarck et Poiret. Encyclopédie méthod.: Botanique. 8 vols. et
suppl. 1 a 3, avec goo pl.
1784
Mémoire sur un nouveau genre de plante nommé Brucea, et sur le
faux Drésillet d’Amérique. Mém. Acad. des Sci. 21 janvier 1784.
PP. 342-347-
1785
Mémoire sur les classes les plus convenables 4 établir parmi les
végétaux et sur l'analogie de leur nombre avec celles déterminées dans
le régne animal, ayant égard de part et d’autre a la perfection graduée
des organes. (De la classification des végétaux.) Mém. Acad. des
Sci. 1755. 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 particulicrement
sur celui du Jardin des Plantes; contenant l’exposition du régime et
de l’ordre qui conviennent a cet établissement, pour qu'il soit vraiment
utile. (No imprint.) 4to, pp. 15.
Considérations en faveur du Chevalier de la Marck, ancien officier
au Régiment de Beaujolais, de l’Académie Royale des Sciences; Bota-

BIBLIOGRAPHY 427

niste du Roi, attaché au Cabinet d’Histoire Naturelle. [Paris] 1790.
8vo, pp. 7-
I791

Instruction aux voyageurs autour du monde, sur les observations
les plus essentielles 4 faire en botanique. Soc, Philom. (Bull.) Paris,
I791, pp. 8.

Illustrations des genres, ou exposition des caracteres de tous les
genres de plantes ¢tablis par les botanistes (Encyclopédie méthodique):
I, 1791; I1, 1793; ILI, 1800, avec goo planches. (Le supplément, qui
constitue le tome IV, 1823, est de Poiret.)

Extrait de la flore francaise. Paris, 1792. I vol. in-8vo.

Tableau encyclopédique et méthodique des trois régnes de la nature.
Botanique continuée par J. L. M. Poiret. Paris (Panckoucke), 1791-
1823. Text, 3 v.; Pls., 4 v. (Encyclopédie methodique.) 4to.

Tableau encyclopédique et méthodique des trois régnes de la nature.
Mollusques testacés (et polypes divers). Paris (Panckoucke) [etc. ],
1791-1816. Text (3), 180 pp. Pls. 2. (Encyclopédie méthodique.)
4to.

Zdem. Continuator Bruguiére, Jean Guillaume. Histoire naturelle des
vers. Par Bruguiere [et J. B. P. A. de Lamarck ; continuée par G. P.
Deshayes]. Paris (Panckoucke) [etc.], 1792-1832, 3v. (Encyclopédie
méthodique.) 4to.

1792

Journal d’Histoire naturelle, rédigé par MM. Lamarck, Bruguicre,
Olivier, Haity et Pelletier. Tomes I, II. Pl. 1-24, 25-40. Paris (Impr.
du Cercle social), 1792. In-8vo, 2 vol.

Le méme, sous le titre: Choix de mémoires sur divers objets d’his-
toire naturelle, par Lamarck ; formant les collections du Journal
d’Hist. nat. 3 vol. in-8vo, tirés de format in-a4to, dont le 3me con-
tient 42 pl. Paris (Imprim. du Cercle social), 1792.

Nota.—Tous les exemplaires de cet ouvrage que l'on rencontre
sont incomplets. Un exemplaire de format in-8vo, provenant de la
Bibliothéque Cuvier (et qui se trouve 4 la Bibliothéque du Museum),
contient les pages 320 4 360; 8 pages copiées 4 la main terminent le
volume, dont on connait complet un seul exemplaire.

Sur Vhistoire naturelle en général.

Sur la nature des articles de ce journal qui concernent la Botanique.

Philosophie botanique. L’auteur propose dans cet article un nou-
veau genre de plante: le Genre Rothia (Rothia Carolinensis, p. 17,

428 BIBLIOGRAPHY

pl. 1). Journ. d’Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 1-19. (Ce recueil porte aussi
le titre suivant: Choix de mémoires sur divers objets d’ Histoire natu-
relle, par MM. Lamarck, Bruguicre, Olivier, Haity 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 cet article 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 Linnzeus pour la botanique,
il le fit aussi pour la zoologie; et ne donna pas moins de preuves de
son génie en traitant le régne minéral, quoique dans cette partie de
histoire naturelle il fut moins heureux en principes et en conve-
nances dans les rapprochements et les déterminations, que dans les
deux autres régnes.)

Sur une nouvelle espece 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 Drapétes. Dra-
petes muscosus et seq. p. 189, pl. 10, fig. 1. Journ. d’Hist. nat. I,
1792. pp. I-Igo.

Sur le Phyllachne. Phyllachne uliginosa. p. 192, pl. 10, fig. 2.
Journ. d’Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. Ig0-I92.

Sur l’Hyoseris Virginica. p. 222, pl. 12. Journ. d’Hist. nat. I,
1792. pp. 222-224.

Sur le genre des Acacies ; et particuli¢rement sur l’Acacie hétéro-
phille. Mimosa heterophylla. p. 291, pl. 15. Journ. d’Hist. nat. I,
1792. pp. 288-292.

Sur les Systémes et les Méthodes de Botanique et sur ]’Analyse.
Journ. d’Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 300-307.

Sur une nouvelle espéce de Grassette. Pinguicula campanulata.
p. 336, pl. 18, fig. 1. Journ. d’Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 334-338.

Sur l'étude des rapports naturels. Journ. d’Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp.
3601-371.

Sur les relations dans leur port ou leur aspect, que les plantes de
certaines contrées ont entre elles, et sur une nouvelle espéce d’Hy-
drophylle. Hydrophyllum Magellanicum. p. 373, pl. I9. Journ.
d’Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 371-376.

Notice sur quelques plantes rares ou nouvelles, observées dans
l’Amérique Septentrionale par M. A. Michaux; adressée a la Société
d’Histoire naturelle de Paris par l’auteur; et rédigée avec des obser-

LIBLIOGRAPHY 429

vations. Canna flava—Pinguicula lutea—Ilex Americana—Ilex zsti-
valis—Ipomea rubra—Musseenda frondosa—Kalmia hirsuta—Andro-
meda mariana—A. formosissima. Journ. d’Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp.
409-419.

Sur une nouvelle espéce de Loranthe. Loranthus cucullaris. p-
444, pl. 23. Journ. d’Hist. nat. I, 1792. Pp. 444-448.

Sur le nouveau genre Polycarpea. Polycarpzea Teneriffe. p. 5,
pl. 25. Journ. d’Hist. nat. II, 1792. pp. 3-8.

Sur l’augmentation continuelle de nos connaissances a l'égard des
especes et sur une nouvelle espéce de Sauge. Salvia scabios:efolia.
p. 44, pl. 27. Journ. d’Hist. nat. II, 1792. pp. 41-47.

Sur une nouvelle espéce 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 espéces dans beaucoup de
genres qui n’en offraient depuis longtemps qu’une, et particuli¢rement
sur une nouvelle espéce d’Hélénium. Helenium caniculatum. p. 213,
pl. 35. Journ. d’Hist. nat. Il, 1792. pp. 210-215.

Observations sur les coquilles, et sur quelques-uns des genres qu’on
a établis dans l’ordre des Vers testacés. Purpurea, Fusus, Murex,
Terebra, etc. Journ. d’Ilist. nat. II, 1792. pp. 269-280.

Sur l’Administration forestiére, et sur les qualités individuelles des
bois indigénes, ou qui sont acclimatés en France ; auxquels on a joint
la description 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 espéces d’Hélices. Journ. d’Hist. nat. II, 1792. pp.
347-353.

Prodrome d’une nouvelle classification des coquilles, comprenant
une rédaction appropriée des caractéres génériques et |’établissement
d’un grand nombre de genres nouveaux.—In Mem. Soc. Hist. nat.,
Paris, I, 1792. p. 63.

Sur les ouvrages généraux en Histoire naturelle ; et particulicre-
ment sur l’édition du Systema Nature de Linneus, que M. Gmelin
vient de publier. Act. Soc. Hist. nat., Paris, I. tre Part., 1792.
pp. 81-85.

1794

Recherches sur les Causes des principaux Faits physiques, et parti-

culiérement sur celles de la Combustion, de l’Elévation de l’eau dans

ih

430 BIBLIOGRAPHY
l’état de vapeurs; de la Chaleur produite par le frottement des corps
solides entre eux; de la Chaleur qui se rend sensible dans les décom-
positions subites, dans les effervescences et dans le corps de beaucoup
d’animaux pendant la durée de leur vie; de la Causticité, de la Saveur
et de l’Odeur de certains composés ; de la Couleur des corps ; de I’Ori-
gine des composés et de tous les minéraux; enfin, de l’Entretien de la
vie des étres organiques, de leur accroissement, de leur état de vigueur,
de leur dépérissement et de leur mort. Avec une planche. Tomes 1,
2. Paris, seconde année de la république [1794]. 8vo.

Mémoire sur les molécules essentiels des composes. Soc. philom.
Rapp., 1792-98. pp. 56-57.

Voyage de Pallas dans plusieurs provinces de l’empire de Russie et
dans l’Asie septentrionale, traduit de l’allemand par Gauthier de la
Peyronnerie. Nouvelle édition revue et enrichie de notes par Lamarck,
Langleés et Billecoq. Paris, an II (1794). 8 vol. in-Svo, avec un atlas
de 108 pl, folio.

1796

Voyage au Japon, par le cap de Bonne-Espérance, les iles de la
Sonde, etc., par Thunberg, traduit, rédigé (sur la version anglaise),
etc., par Langleés, et reva, guant a Uhistoire naturelle, par Lamarck.
Paris, 1796. 2 vol. in-4to (8vo, 4 vol.), av. fig.

Réfutation de la théorie pneumatique et de la nouvelle théorie des
chimistes modernes, etc. Paris, 1796. I vol. 8vo.

1797

Mémoires de physique et d’histoire naturelle, établis sur des bases
de raisonnement indépendantes de toute théorie ; avec l’explication de
nouvelles considérations sur la cause générale des dissolutions, sur la
matiére du feu; sur la couleur des corps; sur la formation des compo-
sés; sur l’origine des minéraux; et sur l’organisation des corps vivants.
Lus 4 la premiére classe de l'Institut national, dans ses séances ordi-
naires. Paris, an V (1797). 1 vol. 8vo. pp. 410.

De Vinfluence de la lune sur l’atmosphére terrestre, etc. Bull.
Soc. philom. I., 1797; pp. 116-118. Gilbert Annal. VI, 1800; pp.
204-223; et Nicholson’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’atmosphére terrestre. Journ. de Phys.
XLVI, 1798; pp. 428-435. Gilbert Annal. VI, 1800; pp. 204-223.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 431
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
trois régnes de la nature. Paris, an VI (1798). 1 vol. in-4to de 299
pl., formant suite a l’Histoire des Vers de Bruguiére (1792), continuée
par Deshayes (1830), de l’Encyclopédie méthodique.

1799

Mémoire sur la mati¢re du feu, considéré comme instrument chi-
mique dans les analyses. 1°, De l’action du feu employe comme ins-
trument chimique par la voie seche; p. 134. 2°, De I’action du feu
employé comme instrument chimique par la voie humide; p. 355.
Journ. de Phys. XLVIII, 1799. pp- 345-361.

Mémoire sur la matiére du son. (Lu 4 l'Institut national, le 16
brumaire an VIII, et le 26 du meme mois.) Journ. de Phys. XLIX,
1799. Pp. 397-412.

Sur les genres de la Scche, du Calmar et du Poulpe, vulgairement
nommeés polypes de mer, (Lu a 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
une rédaction appropri¢e des caracteres génériques, et I’ctablissement
d'un grand nombre de genres nouveaux, (Lu a l'Institut national le
et frimaire an VII.) Soc. Hist. nat., Paris (Mém.), 17f0. pp- 63-
gt. Tableau systématique des Genres—126 g.

Sur les fossiles et l’influence du mouvement des eaux, considérés
comme indices du déplacement centinuel du bassin des mers, et de
son transport sur différents points de la surface du globe. (Lu a
l'Institut national le 21 pluvidse an VIL [1799]. Hydrogéologie, p-
i725

Annuaire météorologique pour I’an ViIT de la République frangaise,
etc. (Annonce.) Paris, Soc. philom. (Bull.) HI, 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.

432 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mémoire sur le mode de rédiger et de noter les observations météo-
rologiques, afin d’en obtenir des résultats utiles, et sur les considérations
que l’on doit avoir en vue pour cet objet. Journ. de Phys. LI, 1800.
Pp- 419-426.

Annuaire météorologique, contenant l’exposé des probabilités ac-
quises par une longue suite d’observations sur l'état du ciel et sur les
variations de l’atmosphére, etc. Paris, 1800-1810, I1 volumes, dont
les 2 premiers in-18mo, les autres in-8vo.

18o1r

Systeme des Animaux sans Vertébres ou Tableau général des classes,
des ordres et des genres de ces animaux. Présentant leurs caractéres
essentiels et leur distribution d’aprés leurs rapports naturels, et de leur
organisation ; et suivant l’arrangement établi dans les galeries du Mu-
seum d’Histoire naturelle parmi les dépouilles conservées. Précédé
du discours d’Ouverture du Cours de Zoologie donné dans le Muséum
d'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 de
l’atmosphére, et sur les moyens de s’assurer de son existence et de sa
determination. (Lues a l'Institut national de France, le 26 ventése
an IX.) Journ. de Phys. LII, 1801. pp. 296-316.

Réfutation des résultats obtenus par le C. Cotte, dans ses recherches
sur l’influence des constitutions lunaires, et imprimés dans le Journal
de Physique, mois de fructidor an IX. p. 221. Journ. de Phys. LITI,
I80Il. pp. 277-281.

Sur la distinction des tempétes d’avec les orages, les ouragans, etc.
Et sur le caractére du vent désastreux du 18 brumaire an IX (9 no-
vembre 1800), (Lu a l'Institut national le 11 frimaire an IX.) Journ,
de Phys. LII, floréal, 1801. pp. 377-382.

1802

Sur les variations de l'état du ciel dans les latitudes moyennes entre
l'équateur et le pole, 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 particuli¢rement
sur son origine, sur la cause de ses développements et des progres de
sa composition, et sur celles qui, tendant continuellement a la détruire,
dans chaque individu, aménent nécessairement sa mort. (Précédé du

BIBLIOGRAPHY 2
433
Discours d’Ouverture du Cours de Zoologie au Mus. nat. d’Hist. nat.,
an X de la Republique.) Paris (Maillard) [1802]. 1 vol. 8vo. pp.
216.

Affinités chimiques, p. 73.—Anéantissement de la colonne ver-
téebrale, p. 21.—Du cceur, p. 26.—De lorgane 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, Di25.
—Degradation de l'organisation d’une extrémité a l’autre de la
chaine des animaux, p. 7.—Echelle animale, p. 39.—Les élé-
ments, p. 12.—Les especes, pp. 141-149.—Exercice d’un organe,
PP. 53, 56, 65, 125.—Les facultés, pp. 50, 56, 84, 125.—Fécon-
dation, p. 95.—Fluide nerveux, pp. 114, 157, 166, 169.—Forma-
tion directe des premiers traits de lorganisation, pp. 68, 92, 94,
98.—Génerations 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.—lInsectes,
p. 28.—Irritabilité, pp. 109, 179, 186.—Mammaux, p. 15.—Mo-
lécules 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.—Kadiaires, p. 32.—Raison, p.
125.—KReptiles, p. 18.—Sentiment, p. 177.—Troglodyte, p. 126.
—Tableau du régne animal, p. 37.—Vie, p. 71.

Mémoire sur la Tubicinelle. (Lu a l’Assemblée des Professeurs du
Muséum d’Histoire naturelle.) Ann. Mus. Hist. nat., Paris, I, 1802.
pp. 4, pl. 464. Bull. Soc. philom. III, Paris, 1801-1804. pp. 170-
Tie (Extrait.)

Mémoires sur les Cabinets d'Histoire naturelle et particuli¢rement
sur celui du Jardin des Plantes; contenant l’exposition du régime et
de l’ordre qui conviennent a cet établissement, pour qu'il soit vraiment
utile. Ext. des Ann. du Mus. (1802). Paris. in-4to. 15 p.

Des diverses sortes de Cabinets ot l’on rassemble des objets
d’Histoire naturelle. p. 2.

Vrais principes que l’on doit suivre dans l’institution d'un Cabi-
net 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 sur

28

434 BIBLIOGRAPHY
la surface du globe terrestre ; sur les causes de l’existence du bassin
des mers; de son déplacement et de son transport successif sur les
différents points de la surface de ce globe ; enfin, sur les changements
que 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 la dé- .
termination des espéces qui appartiennent aux animaux marins sans
vert¢ébres, et dont la plupart sont figurés dans la Collection des Velins
du Muséum.

ter 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; 385-301.

Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) III, 1804. pp. 163-170; 266-
274.

Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) IV, 1804. pp. 46-55; 105-115;
212-222 ; 289-298 ; 429-436.

Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) V, 1804. pp. 28-36; gI-98 ;
179-180 ; 237-245 ; 349-356.

Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) VI, 1805. pp. 117-126; 214-
OOT229-028.. 337—3A5.

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.

Tiragea part. Paris. In-a4to. 1806. pp. 284.

rer mémoire. Genres Chiton, Patella, Fissurella. pp. 308-312.

2e i He
Terebellum et Oliva. pp. 383-391.
3e mémoire. Genres Ancilla, Voluta. pp. 474-479.
Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) I, 1802.

Emarginula, Calyptraa, Conus, Cyprea,

4e mémoire. Genres Mitra, Marginella, Cancellaria, Purpura.
pp. 57-64.

5e mémoire. Genres Buccinum, Terebra, Harpa, Cassis. pp.
163-169.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 435

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.

ge mémoire. Genre Pleurotoma. pp. 163-170.
ioe mémoire. Genres Pleurotoma, Cerithium. pp. 266-274.
Ile 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 a ‘* Turbo, Delphinula, Cyclostoma. pp.
105-115.

15e mémoire. Genres Scalaria, Turritella, Bulla. pp. 212-222.

16e iy ““ Bulimus, Phasianella, Lymnza. 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. ;

Ige mémoire. Genres Helicina, Nerita, Natica. pp. 91-98.

20e ‘* Nautilus, Discorbis, Rotalia, Lenticu-
lina. pp. 179-188.

2te mémoire. Genres Nummulites, Lituola, Spirolina. pp.
237-245.

22emémoire. 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 ‘© Cucullzea, Cardita, Cardium. pp. 337-

346.
26e mémoire. Genres Crassatella, Mactra, Erycina. pp. 407-

ALS
Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) VI, 1805.

27e mémoire. Genres Erycina,Venericardia, Venus. pp. 53-62.

28e ue ‘© Venus, Cytherea, Donax. pp. 130-140.
29e aC ‘* — Tellina, Lucina. pp. 231-239.
30e ee ‘« Cyclas, Solen, Fistulana. pp. 419-430.

Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) VII, 1806.

436 BIBLIOGRAPHY

31e mémoire, Genre Ostrea. pp. 156-158.
32e G Genres Chama, Spondylus, Pecten. pp. 347-
350.
33e méemoire. Genres Lima, Corbula. pp. 461-470.
Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) VIII, 1806.

Sur la crénatule, nouveau genre de coquillage. Pl. 2. Cr. avicu-
laris.—Cr. mytiloides.—Cr. phasianoptera. Ann. Mus, Hist. nat.,
Paris il D804) pp 25—3rupl. 2)

Sur deux nouveaux genres d’insectes de la Nouvelle Hollande:
Chiroscelis bifenestra ; p. 262. Panops Baudini; p. 265. Ann. Mus.
Hist. nat., Paris, III, 1804. pp. 260-265.

Sur une nouvelle espéce de Trigonie, et sur une nouvelle espéce
d’Huitre, découvertes dans le voyage du Capitaine Baudin. Trigonia
suborbiculata ; p. 355, pl. 4, fig. 1. Ostrea ovato-cuneiformis ; p. 358,
pl. 4, fig. 2. Ann. Mus Hist. nat., Paris, [V, 1804. pp. 351-359.

Mémoire sur deux nouvelles especes de Volutes des mers de la
Nouvelle Hollande. 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 4 la théorie du globe,
observés par M. Péron dans son voyage aux terres australes, et sur
quelques questions géologiques qui naissent de la connaissance de ces
faits. (Observations zoologiques propres 4 constater l’ancien séjour
de la mer sur le sommet des montagnes des iles de Diemen, de la
Nouvelle Hollande et de l’ile Timor.) Ann. Mus. Hist. nat., Paris,
VI, 1805. pp. 26-52.

Zusatz das Nordlicht am 22sten Octob., 1804, betreffend. (Trans-
lated from 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, Vil
1805. pp. 298-302.

Sur ’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

BIBLIOGRAPHY 437

pour faire des recherches sur l’histoire et les antiquités, les arts, les
sciences, etc., traduits de l’anglais par La Baume, revues et augmentés
de notes, pour la partie orientale, par Langlés; pour la partie des
sciences, par Lamarck, etc. Paris, 1805. 2 vol. 4to, av. pl.

1805-1809
Recueil de planches des coquilles fossiles des environs de Paris,
avec leurs explications. On ya joint 2 planches de Lymnées fossiles
et autres coquilles qui les accompagnent, des environs de Paris ; par
M. Brard. Ensemble 30 pl. gr. en taille douce. Paris (Dufour &
d’Ocagne), 1823. In-4to.
Explic. des 4 premiéres planches, I-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. Ordinum generumque anomalorum Clavis analytica. pp. i-
xxiv.

Discours d’Ouverture du Cours des Animaux sans Vertebres, pro-
noncé dans le Muséum d’Histoire naturelle en mai 1806. Paris, 1806.
br., in-Svo.

1807

Sur la division des Mollusques acéphalés conchyliferes, et sur un
nouveau genre de coquille appartenant a cette division (Etheria).
Ann. Mus. X, 1807. pp. 389-408, 4 pl.

438 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Etwas iiber die Meteorologie. Gilbert Annal. XVII, 1807. pp.
355-359.

Sur la division des Mollusques acéphalés conchyliféres et sur un
nouveau genre de coquille appartenant a cette division. (Genre Ethe-
ria.) Ann. Mus. Hist. nat., Paris, X, 1807. pp. 389-398.

Sur l’Ethérie, nouveau genre de coquille bivalve de la famille des
Camacées. Etheria elliptica; p. 4o1, pl. 29 et 31, fig. 1. Etheria
trigonule ; 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 rat-
tache au précédent.)

1809

Philosophie zoologique, ou exposition des considerations relatives 4
Vhistoire naturelle des animaux; a la diversité de leur organisation
et des facultés qu’ils en obtiennent ; aux causes physiques qui main-
tiennent en eux la vie et donnent lieu aux mouvements qu’ils exé-
cutent ; enfin, a celles qui produisent, les unes les sentiments, et les
autres l’intelligence de ceux quien sont doués. Paris (Dentu), 1809.
2 vol. in-8vo, XXV, 428. 475 pages.

Ldem, nouvelle Edition. Paris, J. B. Bailliere. 1830. (A reprint of
the first edition.)

2me Edition. Revue et précédée d’une introduction biographique
par Charles Martins. Paris, Savy. 1873. 2 vol. 8vo. LXXXIV,
412; 431 pages.

Vol. I. Premiére Partie.—Considération sur l'histoire naturelle
des animaux, leurs caractéres, leurs rapports, leur organisation,
leur distribution, leur classification et leurs espéces.

Chap. I. Des parties de l’art dans les productions de la nature.
Disl7:

Chap. II. Importance de la considération des rapports. p. 39.

Chap. III. De l’Espéce parmi les corps vivants et de l’idée
que nous devons attacher 4 ce mot. p. 53.

Chap. IV. Généralités sur les animaux. p. 82.

Chap. V. Sur l’état actuel de la distribution et de la classifi-
cation des animaux. p. 102.

Chap. VI. Dégradation et simplification de l’organisation d’une
extrémité 4 l’autre de la chaine animale, en procédant du plus
composé vers le plus simple. p. 130.

Chap. VII. De linfluence des circonstances sur les actions et

BIBLIOGRAPHY 439

les habitudes des animaux, et de celle des actions et des habitudes
de ces corps vivants, comme causes qui modifient leur organisa-
tion et leurs parties. p. 218.

Chap. VIII. De l’ordre naturel des animaux, et de la disposition
quwil faut donner 4 leur distribution générale pour la rendre con-
forme a l’ordre méme de la nature. p. 269.

Deuxiéme 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
possedent et les résultats de son existence dans ces corps.

Chap. I. Comparaison des corps inorganiques avec les corps
vivants, suivie d’une paralléle entre les animaux et les végétaux.
P. 377-

Chap. II. De la vie, de ce qui la constitue, et des conditions
essentielles a son existence dans un corps. p. 400.

Vol. II. 2me Partie.

Chap. III. De la cause excitatrice des mouvements organiques.
joe te

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.
Pings

Chap. VIII. Des facultés communes 4 tous les corps vivants.
p.. 113.

Chap. IX. Des facultés particuli¢res 4 certains corps vivants.

Dp. 127.

Troisiéme Partie.—Considérations sur les causes physiques du
sentiment; celles qui constituent la force productrice des ac-
tions ; enfin, celles qui donnent lieu aux actes d’intelligence qui
s’observent dans différents animaux. p. 169.

Chap. I. Du systéme 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.

Dp. 2523

440 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chap. IV. Du sentiment intérieur, des émotions qu’il est sus-
ceptible 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 mémes actions; p. 318. De l’instinct
des animaux; p. 320. De lindustrie de certains animaux; p.
327.

Chap. VI. De la volonté. p. 330.

Chap. VII. De I’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
limagination ; p. 411. De la raison et de sa comparaison avec
Vinstinct ; p. 441.

(Ces notes ont été relevées sur l’édition de 1809.)

1810-1811
Sur la détermination des espéces parmi les animaux sans verteébres,
et particulicrement parmi les mollusques testacés. (Tirage a part,
Paris, 1817. 4to. 5 pls.)
Ann. Mus. Hist. nat., Paris, XV, 1810. pp. 20-26.
Descript. des Espéces.—Cone (Conus). pp. 26-40; pp. 269-
292; pp. 422-442.
Descript. des Espéces.—Porcelaine (Cyprea). pp. 443-454.
Ann. Mus. Hist. nat., Paris, XVI, 1810.
Descript. des Espéces.—Porcelaine (Cyprza), suite. pp. 89-

108.
Descript. des Espéces.—Ovule (Ovula). pp. 109-114.
i i a Tarriere (Terebellum). pp. 300-302.
os Ss a Ancillaire (Ancillaria). pp. 302-306.

is a o Olive (Oliva). pp. 306-328.
Ann. Mus. Hist. nat. XVII, 1811.
Descript. des Espéces.—Volute (Voluta). pp. 54-80.
“ ay * Mitre (Mitra). pp. 195-222.
Description des Espéces du Genre Conus, Ann. Museum, XV,
1810. pp. 29-40, 263-292, 422-442.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 441

Description du genre Porcelaine (Cypraea) et des Espéces qui le
composent. Ann. Mus. XV, 1810. pp. 443-454.

Suite de la détermination des Espéces de Mollusques testacés. Con-
tinuation du genre Porcelaine. Ann. Mus. XVI, 1811. pp. 89-114.

1812
Extrait du cours de zoologie du Muséum d’ Histoire naturelle sur les
Animaux sans Vertébres, présentant la distribution et classification de
ces animaux, les caractéres des principales divisions et une simple
liste des genres, a l’usage de ceux qui suivent ce cours. Paris, oc-
tobre 1812. 8vo. pp. 127.

1813
Sur les polypiers empatés.
Ann. Mus. Hist. nat., Paris, XX, 1813.
Pinceau (Penicillus). pp. 294, 297-299.
Flabellaire (Flabellaria). pp. 298-303.
Synoique (Synoicum). pp. 303-304.
Eponge (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 corticiféres.
Mém. Mus. Hist. nat., Paris, I, 1813. p. 401.
Corail (Coraillium). pp. 407-410.
Meélite (Melitea). 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 4 l'Institut (en collaboration avec Cuvier) sur les obser-
vations sur les Lombrics, ou les Vers de terre, etc., par Montégre.
Paris, 1815. Br., in-8vo, 1 pl.

442 BIBLIOGRAPHY

1815-22

Histoire naturelle des Animaux sans Vertébres, présentant les carac-
téres généraux et particuliers de ces animaux, leur distribution, leurs
classes, leurs familles, leurs genres, et la citation des principales
Espéces qui s’y rapportent; précédée d’une introduction offrant la
détermination des caractéres essentiels de l’Animal, sa distinction du
Végeétal et des autres corps naturels ; enfin, l’exposition des principes
fondamentaux de la zoologie. Paris, mars 1815 4 aofit 1822. 7 vol.
8vo. 2e édit., Paris, 1835-45. I1 vol. in-8vo.

1818

Suite de la détermination des Espéces de Mollusques testacés.
Genres Volute et Mitre. Ann. Mus. XVII, 1818. pp. 54-80 et
195-222.

Description des genres Tarriére (Terebellum), Ancillaria et Oliva.
Ann. Mus. XVII, 1818. pp. 300-328.

1820

Systeme analytique des connaissances de l’homme restreintes a celles
qui proviennent directement ou indirectement de l’observation. Paris
(Belin), 1820. In-Svo. pp. 362.

Premiére Partie.—Des Objets que l’homme peut considérer hors

de lui, et que l’observation peut lui faire connaitre. p. 13.

Chap. 1. De la Matiere. ip. 5:

Chap. II. De la Nature; p. 20. Definition de la nature, et
exposé des parties dont se compose l’ordre des choses qui la cons-
titue ; p. 50. Objets métaphysiques dont l’ensemble constitue la
nature; p. 51. De la nécessité d’étudier la nature, c’est-a-dire
lordre des choses qui la constitue, les lois qui régissent ses actes,
et surtout, parmi ces lois, celles qui sont relatives 4 notre étre
physique; p. 60. Exposition des sources ot l’homme a puisé
les connaissances qu’il posséde 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.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ae 443

Deuxiéme Partie.—De l’Homme et de certains systémes orga-
niques observes en lui, lesquels concourrent a l’exécution de ses
actions ; p. 149. Géneéralités sur le sentiment; p. 161. Analyse
des phénoménes qui appartiennent au sentiment; p. 175.

Sect. I.—De la sensation. p. 177.
Chap. I. Des sensations particuli¢res. p. 180.
Chap. II. De la sensation générale.

Sect. II1.—Du sentiment intérieur et de ses principaux produits.
Pp. Io;
Chap. I. Des penchants naturels. p. 206.
Chap. II. De l’instinct. p. 228.

Sect. III.—De I’intelligence, des objets qu’elle emploie, et des
phénoménes 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, avec
leurs explications. On ya joint deux planches de Lymnées fossiles et
autres coquilles qui les accompagnent, des environs de Paris; par M.
Brard. Paris, 1823. I 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-t8mo. Paris, 1799-1802.
Déterville (Roret).

Storia naturale de’ vegetabili per famiglie con la citazione de la
Classe et dell’ ordine di Linnes, e 1’ indicazione dell’ use che si puo
far delle piante nelle arti, nel commercio, nell’ agricultura, etc. Con
disegni tratti dal naturale e un genere completo, secondo il sistema
linneano, con de’ rinvii alla famiglie naturali, di A. L. Jussieu. Da
G. B. Lamarck e da B. Mirbel. Recata in lingua italiana dal A.
Farini con note ed aggiunte. 3 Tom. de 5-7. Fasc. 1835-41. (En-
gelmann’s Bibliothec. Hist. nat., 1846.)

444 BIBLIOGRAPHY

EULOGIES AND BIOGRAPHICAL ARTICLES ON LAMARCK

Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Etienne.—Discours sur Lamarck. (Recueil
publié par l'Institut. 4to. Paris, 1829.)

Cuvier, George.—Eloge de M. de Lamarck, par M. le Baron Cuvier.
Lu a l’Académie des Sciences, le 26 novembre 1832. [No imprint. ]
Paris. (Trans. in Edinburgh New Philosophical Journ. No. 39.)

Bourguin, L. B.—Les grands naturalistes frangais au commence-
ment du xIxe siécle (Annales de la Société linnéenne du Département
de Maine-et-Loire. 6me Année. Angers, 1863. 8vo. pp. 185-221).
Introduction, pp. 185-193.

Lacaze-Duthiers, H. de.—De Lamarck. (Cours de zoologie au
Muséum d’Histoire naturelle.) Revue scientifique, 1866. Nos. 16-
18-19.

Memoir of Lamarck, by J. Duncan. See Jardine (Sir W.), Bart.,
The Naturalist’s Library. Vol. 36, pp. 17-63. Edinburgh, 1843.

Quatrefages, A. de.—Charles Darwin et ses précurseurs frangais.
Etude sur le transformisme. Paris, 1870. 8vo. pp. 378.

Martins, Charles.—Un naturaliste philosophe. Lamarck, sa vie et
ses ceuvres. Extrait de la Revue des Deux Mondes, Livraison du
Ier mars 1873. Paris.

Haeckel, Ernst.—Die Naturanschauung von Darwin, Goethe und
Lamarck. Vortrag in der ersten dffentlichen Sitzung der fiinf und
fiinfzigsten Versammlung Deutscher Naturforscher und Aerzte zu
Eisenach am 18 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 volume commémoratif du Centenaire de la fondation du Muséum
d’Histoire naturelle.) Paris, 1893. Folio. pp. 61.

Bourguignat, J. R.—Lamarck, J. B. P. A. de Monnet de. (Biogra-
phical sketch, with a partial bibliography of his works, said to have
been prepared by M. Bourguignat.) Revue biographique de la So-
ciété malacologique de France. Paris, 1886. pp. 61-85. With a
portrait after Vaux-Bidon.

Mortillet, Gabriel de.—Lamarck. Par G. de Mortillet. (L’ Homme,
IV, No. 1. 10 jan. 1887. pp. 1-8. With portrait and handwriting,
including autograph of Lamarck.

Mortillet, Gabriel de, and others.—Lamarck. Par un groupe de

BIBLIOGRAPHY A45

transformistes, ses disciples. (Reprinted from L’Homme, IV. Paris,
1887. 8vo. pp. 31.) With portrait and figures.

Mortillet, Gabriel de.—Réunion Lamarck. (La Société, l’Ecole et
le Laboratoire d’Anthropologie de Paris, 4 l’Exposition universelle de
Paris.) Paris, 1889. pp. 72-84.

Mortillet, Adrien de.—Recherches sur Lamarck (including acte de
naissance, acte de décés, and letter from M. Mondiére regarding his
place of burial). L’ Homme, IV, No. 10. Mai 25 1887. pp. 289-
295. With portrait and view of the house he lived in. On p. 620, a
note referring to a movement to erect a monument to Lamarck.

Giard, Alfred.—Lecon d’ouverture du cours de 1’évolution des étres
organisés. (Bull. sc. de la France et de la Belgique.) Paris, 1888.
pp. 28. Portrait.

Claus, Carl.—Lamarck als Begriinder des Descendenzlehre.
Wien, 1888. 8vo. pp. 35.

Duval, Mathias.—Le transformiste francais Lamarck. (Bull. Soc.
d’Anthopologie de Paris. Tome XII, IIe Série.) pp. 336-374.

Lamarck.—Les maitres de la science: Lamarck. Paris, 1892.
G. Masson, Editeur. 12mo. pp. 98.

Hamy, E, T.—Les derniers jours du Jardin du Roi et la fondation
du Muséum d’Histoire naturelle. pp. 40. (Extrait du volume com-
mémoratif du Centenaire de la fondation du Muséum d’ Histoire natu-
relle.) Paris, Io juin 1893. Folio. pp. 162. Paris, 1893.

Osborn, H. F.—From the Greeks to Darwin. An outline of the
development of the evolution idea. New York, 1894. 8vo. pp. 259.

Houssay, Frédéric.—Lamarck, son ceuvre et son esprit. Revue
encyclopédique. Année 1897. pp. 969-973. Paris, Librairie La-
rousse.

Hermanville, F. J. F.—Notice biographique sur Lamarck. Sa vie
et ses ceuvres. Beauvais, 1898. S8vo. 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, and on the Relation of Science to Religion. The Monist,
Chicago, Oct., 1900. Chapters XVIII and XIX of the present work,

INDE X

ADAPTATION, 322, 367, 392, 412.

/Erobates, 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,
3341 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.

Bose, £; A:G:;, 52:

Bourguin, L. B., 30, 31.

Bradypus tridactylus, 320.

Brain, 337, 360; human, 358.

Bruguiére, J. G., 38, 113.

Buffalo, 315.

Buffon, G. L. L., 19,92, 198; factors of evo-
lution, 205, 356; views on descent, zor.

Bulla, 348. Pan

CALLosITIES, origin of, 203.

Camelo-pardalis, 316, 351.

Carnivora, 317; origin of, 343.

Catastrophism, 3105, 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 ter-
tiary beds, 133.

Costantin, 416.

Creation by evolution, 130.

Crossing, swamping effects
320.

Crustacea, origin of, 341.

of, 246,

445

Cunningham, J. T., 409.
Cuvier, George, 66, 140; eulogy on La-
marck, 65 ; first paper, 185.

Dati, W. H., estimate of Lamarck’s
work, 106.

Darkness, influence of, 308.

Darwin, Charles, 423, 424; estimate of
Lamarck’s views, 73; factors tabu-
lated, 356; origin of man, compared
with Lamarck’s, 371; views on descent,
2174407.

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.

Delbceuf’s law, 406.

Desiring, 236, 351, 412.

Digits, modifications of, 234, 311,
321, 338. 344 ; reduction of, 315.
Direct action of environment, 324,

410, 414, 416.

Disuse, 274, 290, 296, 303, 306, 307,
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, 208, 312, 318.

Duckbill, 412.

317,
409,

3il,

Earth, greatage of, 119; revolutions of,
109, 147, 150; theory of, 149.

Earth’s interior, 105.

Effort, 218, 234, 257, 295, 339, 348, 351, 353,
354, 370, 411, 420.

Egypt, mummied species of, 271, 286.

Eigenman, C. H., 393.

Eimer, G. H. T., 408.

Elephant, 315.

Emotion, 353.

Encasement theory, 162, 218, 222.

Environment, 214, 410, 417, 421.

Epigenesis, 156.

INDEX.

Erosion, ror.

Evil, 377.

Evolution, dynamic,
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.

417; Lamarck’s

FaujaAs DE St. Fonp, 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; fac-
tors 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; preéx-
istence 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, 60.

Hamy, E. T., 19, 22, 25.

Hearing, 308.

INDEX.

Henslow, G., 414.

Heredity, 250, 276, 303, 306, 319, 336; of
acquired characters, 219, 224, 246, 276,
3035 319.

Hertwig, R., 282.

Hoofs, origin of, 315.

Hooke, Robert, 132.

Horns, origin of, 316, 354, 393, 409.

Horse, 274, 304, 315.

Hutton, James, go.

Huxley, T. H., 423, 424; estimate of La-
marck’s scientific position, 74, go.

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; va-
riations in, 335, 337, 349-

Isolation, 392, 394, 404; in man, 320, 369.

JAcKO, 364.

Jardin des Plantes, 23.
Jeffries, Jia A.,'413;
Jordan, K., 410.
Juncus bufonius, 252.

KANGAROO, 318.

Lacaze-Durtuierrs, H. pe, 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
of evolution, 233, 356; founder of pa.
leontology, 124; house in Paris, 42;
meteorology and physical science, 79;
military career, 11; origin of man,
357; parentage, 7; share in reorganiza-
tion of Museum, 24; shells, collections

29

449

of, 46; on spontaneous generation,
158; style, 179; travels, 20; views on
religion, 372; work in geology, 89;
zoblogical 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, 7r.

MaAmmaLs, 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, ro1, 103.

Muscles, adductor, 418.

Museum of Natural History, Paris, 34.

Mya arenaria, 353, 418.

450

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.

Opuipra, atrophy of legs of, 290, 309.

Organic sense, 325, 327, 336.

Organs, changes in, 310; origin of, pre-
cedes 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.

PALONTOLOGY, 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, 504.

Planorbis, 387.

Plants, changes due to cultivation, etc.,
251, 267, 274, 283, 296, 297; Cultivated,
298.

Population, over-, checks on, 287, 238.

Preformation, 162, 218, 222.

Propensities, 293, 328,
351.

Proteus, 308.

Pteromys, 339.

281,

335, 3495

INDEX.

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, 110,
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, 211;
definition of, 252, 255, 262, 267, 275; ex-
tinct, 126; Geoffroy St. Hilaire, views
on, 214; Lamarck’s views on,
modification of, 131; origin of, 131, 283;
stability of, 271, 277, 401; variation in,

mSgie

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.

INDEX.

Symmetry, radial, 291.
Swan, 313.

Tait, of kangaroo, 318.

Teeth, 307 ; atrophy of, 307; in embryo
birds, 307 ; in whales, 307.

Temperature, 410.

Tentacles of snail, 348, 354.

Tertiary shells, rro, 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.

451
Use originates organs, 276, 311, 346.

VARIABILITY, 407.

Variation, climatic, 204, 218, 401 ;
of, 218, 266.

Varieties, gor.

Varigny, H. de, 408.

Vestigial organs, 307, 308.

Vital force, 167.

Vitalism, 168.

Volucella, 338.

causes

Waane_er, M., 404.

Wallace, A. R., on origin of giraffe’s
neck, 351.

Wants, 245, 270, 274, 281, 295, 302,
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.

324,

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