CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE LIBRARY AKIP DATE DUE J PRINTED IN U^. A. Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024733002 Cornell University Library QH 17 .L2P11 Atiempt at a reconstrucdon of the Profile of Lamardi from an -unpublished etcliing by Dr. Gacliet. LAMARCK THE FOUNDER OF EVOLUTION HIS LIFE AND WORK WITH TRANSLATIONS OF HIS WRITINGS ON ORGANIC EVOLUTION By ALPHEUS S. PACKARD, M.D., LL.D. Professor of Zoology and Geology in Brown University; author of "'Guide to the Study of Insects," "Text-book of Entomology," etc, etc. «* La post6rit6 vous honorera! *' — MUe. Cornelie de Lamarck LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK LONDON AND BOMBAY 1901 7A/^/ n Copyright, igoi\ b^ LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. All rights reserved Press of .T.J. Little & Co. Astor Place, New York PREFACE Although it is now a century since Lamarck published the germs of his theory, it is perhaps only within the past iifty 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 i8og. The time seems ripe, therefore, for a more extended sketch of Lamarck and his theory, as well as of his work as a philosophical biologist, than has yet appeared. But the seeker after the details of his life is bafHed 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 doges oi 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, V Homme, entitled Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Tr ans for mist es, 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. Mondi^re, who with others, under the leadership of Paul Nicole, met in 1884 and formed a Reunion Lamarck and a Dtner Lam.arck, 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 is a 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 vii 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 mairie 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 Mtres organises, 1888, and viii PREFACE in facilitating the work of collecting data. Intro- duced by him to Professor Hamy, the learned an- thropologist and archivist of the Museum 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- seum. ; i.e., the Prods verbaux des Stances tenues par les Officiers du Jardin des Plantes, from 1790 to 1830, bound in vellum, in thirty-four volumes. These were all looked through, though found to contain but little of biographical interest relating 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 Museum 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 BibHothfeque du Museum 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 for a copy of his valuable Lamarck et le Trans formisme Actuel, reprinted from the noble volume commem- orative of the centennial of the foundation of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, which has proved of much use. Other sources from which biographical details have been taken are Cuvier's dloge, and the notice of La^ marck, with a list of many of his writings, in the Revue biographique de la Socidtd 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 PRE FA CE 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. I., October, igoi. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Birth, Family, Youth, and Military Career . i II. Student Life and Botanical Career . . .15 III. Lamarck's Share in the Reorganization of the Jardin des Plantes and Museum of Natural History 23 IV. Professor of Invertebrate Zoology at the Museum 32 V. Last Days and Death 51 VI. Position in the History of Science ; Opinions OF HIS Contemporaries and Some Later Biologists . . 64 VII. Lamarck's Work in Meteorology and Physical Science 79 VIII. Lamarck's Work in Geology . . . .89 IX. Lamarck the Founder of Invertebrate Pale- ontology 124 X. Lamarck's Opinions on General Physiology and Biology 156 XL Lamarck as a BoTANisr 173 XII. Lamarck the Zoologist 180 XIII. The Evolutionary Views of Buffon and ofC Geoffroy St. Hilaire 198 xii CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XIV. The Views of Erasmus Darwin .... 216 XV. When did Lamarck change his Views regard- ing THE Mutability of Species? . . . 226 XVI. The Steps in the Development of Lamarck's Views on Evolution before the Publication OF HIS " Philosophie zoologique" . . . 232 XVII. The "Philosophie zoologique" .... 279 XVIII. Lamarck's Theory as to the Evolution of Man 357 XIX. Lamarck's Thoughts on Morals, and on the Relation between Science and Religion . 372 XX. The Relations between Lamarckism and Dar- winism ; Neolamarckism 382 Bibliography 425 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Attempt at a Reconstruction of the Profile of Lamarck by Dr. Gachet (Photogravure) . Frontispiece FACING Birthplace of Lamarck, Front View ■* ""^^^ Birthplace of Lamarck, " " Act of Birth 6 Autograph of Lamarck, January 25, 1802 ... 10 Lamarck at the Age of 35 Years 20 Birthplace of Lamarck. Rear View from the West "| Maison de Buffon, in which Lamarck lived in Paris, r 42 1793-1829 J Portrait of Lamarck, when Old and Blind, in the Costume of a Member of the Institute, Engraved in 1824 . 54 Portrait of Lamarck 180 Maison de Buffon, in which Lamarck lived, 1793-1829 198 £. Geoffroy St. Hilaire .... . . 212 Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution. His Life and Work CHAPTER I BIRTH, FAMILY, YOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER The life of Lamarck is the old, old story of a man of genius who 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 Flore Frangaise will never be for- gotten by his countrymen, who called him the French JLiniji ; and he who wrote the Animaux sans Ver fi- bres at once took the highest rank as the leading zoologist 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 2 LAMARCK, HIS 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 zoological philosopher no one of his time approached Lamarck. The period, however, in which he lived was not ripe for the heartv and gen- eral adoption of the theory of descent. (As in the organic world we behold here and there ' prophetic types, anticipating, ih 'their generalized synthetic nature, the incoming, ages after, of more specialized types, sto/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 countiy, 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 rare one. He led a retired life. His youth was tinged with romance, and during the last decade of his life he was blind. He manfully and patiently BIRTH, YOUTH, 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 ^loge 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 P^ronne, Canton d'Albert, a little more than four miles from Albert, between this town and Bapaume, and near Longueval, the nearest post- ofifice to Bazentin. ■ The village of Bazentin-Ie-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, is at infrequent intervals broken by an elderly dame in her sabots, or by a creaking, rickety village cart driven by a farmer-boy in blouse and hob-nailed shoes. The largest inhabited building is the mairie, 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 mairie, 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 mairie. With much kindness he •- ■ ■" • -■ ; •■■*(:' ■ ''■ .. •" JoKtel del., from a photograph by ike author. BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK, FRONT VIEW O '"'^^^^^^^^JsSSi Joutel del., from a ^kotograpk by the author. BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK BIRTH, YOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER 5 left his duties in the schoolroom, and accompanied us to the ancient structure. The modest chdteau 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 salon 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- |^^i 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.f 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 Naissance, and made a copy of it, as follows : Extrait du Registre aux Actes de Baptime de la Com- mune de Bazentin, pour I'Ann^e 1744. L'an mil sept cent quarante-quatre, le premier aoiit est n€ en legitime mariage et le lendemain a 6t6 baptist par moy cur6 soussignd 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- goise de Fontaine demeurant en leur chateau de Ba- zentin le petit, son parrain a €t€ Messire Jean Bap- tiste de Fossd, pretre-chanoine de I'dglise colldgiale de St. Farcy de Pdronne, y demeurant, sa marraine Dame Antoinette Fran^oise de Bucy, nifece de Messire Louis Joseph Michelet, chevalier, ancien commissaire * In the little chapel next the church lies buried, we were told by M. Duval, a Protestant of the family of de Guillebon, the purchaser (acqiiireur) of the ch&teau. Whether the estate is now in the hands of his heirs we did not ascertain. f As stated by G. de Mortillet, the date of his birth is variously given. Michaud's Dictionnaire Biographique gives the date April I ; other authors, April ii ; others, the correct one, August i, 1744, {Lamarck. Par un Groupede Trans formistes, ses Disciples. V Homme iv. p. 28g, 1887.) ir vvi' I A >J.'X^tvG4 v^re .r^i m^^ ^ ?\' ^•NN^ V-" V: >^ '\4 < i ^ ^ BIRTH, YOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER -j de I'artillerie de France demeurante au chMeau de Guillemont, qui ont sign6 avec mon dit sieur de Ba- zentin et nous. Ont sign6 : De Foss6, De Bucy Michelet, Bazentin. Cozette, curd. Of Lamarck's parentage and ancestry there are fortunately some traces. In the Registre aux Actes de B uptime pour I'Annde 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 curd 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 B6arn, whose patrimony was very modest. This house was that of Monet. Another genealogist, Baron C. de Cauna,f tells us that there is no doubt that the family of Monet in Bigorre:): was divided. One of its representatives *"Surla maison de Viella — les Mortiers-brevise et les Montalembert en Gascogne— et sur le naturaliste Lamarck." Par Hippolyte Masson. (Revue de Gascogne, xvii., pp. 141-143, 1876.) \Ibid., p. 194. X A small town in southwestern France, near Lourdes and Pau ; it is about eight miles north of Tarbes, in Gascony. 8 LAMAJiCA', BIS LIFE AND WORK formed a branch in Picardy in the reign of Louis XIV. or later. Lamarck's grandfather, Phihppe de Monet, "sei- gneur de Bazentin et autres lieux," was also "chevalier de I'ordre royal et militaire de Saint-Louis, com'mand- ant pour le roi en la ville et chateau de Dinan, pen- sionnaire de sa majesty." The descendants of Philippe de Lamarck were, adds de Cauna, thus thrown into two branches, or at least two offshoots or stems (brisures), near P^ronne. 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 nobihty 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 Abb6 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 June 20, 1678. He descended (i) from 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, YOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER g esquire, who, by contract dated August 15, 1543, married Marguerite de Sacaze. He was the father of (ill) Pierre de Monet, esquire, " Seigneur d'Ast, en B6arn, 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 WiUiam 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 chS.teau 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 abb6 relates that Philippe, the father of the naturalist, was born at Saint-Martin, in the midst of Bigorre, " in pleine Bigorre" and he very neatly adds that " the Bigorrais have the right to claim for their land of flowers one of the glories of botany."* * The abbe attempts to answer the question as to what place gave origin to the name of Lamarck, and says : " The author of the history of Beam considered the cradle of the race to have been the freehold of Marca, parish of Gou (Basses- Pyrenees). 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 M. la Marqua, or of M. de la Marca, but more often still under that of M. de la Marque, "with the object, no doubt, of making him a Frenchman " (" dans la vue sans doute de le franciser"). (Vie du Cardinal d' Ossat, tome i., p. 319.) " To recall their origin, the branch of Magnoac to-day write their name Marque-Marca. If the Marca of the historian belongs to Eearn, the Lamarque of the naturalist, an orthographic name in prin- ciple, proceeds from Bigorre, actually chosen {ddsignie) by Lamarcq^, lO LAMAHCIC, 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 Abb6 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- Pontacq, or Lamarque prhs B^arn. That the Lamarque of the botanist of the royal cabinet distinguished himself from all the La- marques of Beam or of Bigorre, which it bears (qWil gise) to this day in the Hautes-Pyrenees, Canton d'Ossun, we have many proofs : Aast at some distance, Bourcat and Couet all near I'Abbaye Lal'que, 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 Beam was an ancient province of southern France nearly corresponding to the present Department of Basses- Pyrenees. Its capital was Pau. S ^ BIRTH, YOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER n 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 abbd, 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, iSgg, 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 Lameth, to M. de Lastic, 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 i6th of July, 1 76 1. 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 biographical notice in the Revue biographique de la So- ciH^ Malacologique de Fj-ance, 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 ia play lifted him by the head ; this gave rise to an inflam- 14 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 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- geons met with no better success, and danger had be- come very imminent, when our confrere, 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." CHAPTER II 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 Traits 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 to a 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. 1 6 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK The meditations, the thoughts and aspirations of a contemplative nature Hke 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 Linnd, 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 Franfais au Commencement du XIX Sihle. STUDENT LIFE AND BOTANICAL CAREER 17 / 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 spifit, he was soon invited to ac- company him in his herborizations. Still more recently Professor Giard f has unearthed from the works of Rousseau the following statement by him regarding species : " Est-ce qu'k proprement parler il n'existerait point d'espfeces dans la nature, *Was this quiet place in the region just out of Paris possibly near Mont Valerian ? He must have been about twenty-two years old when he met Rousseau and began to study botany seriously. His Flore Franfaise 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 Rousseau, 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 Geoffrey St. Hilaire, who quotes a ^'Phrase, inalheureusement un peu amhigue, qui semble montrer, dans se grand ^crivaiii, un partisan de plus de la variaUliU du type. " {Rifsum/ des Vues sur Vesphe organique, p. r8, Paris, i88g.) The passage is quotefl in Geoffroy 's Histoire Naiurelle G/n^rale des Regnes organiques, ii., ch. I., p. 271. I have been unable to verify this quotation. \Le(on d'Ouverture du Cours de I' Evolution des Etres organises. Paris, i888. 1 8 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND IVORK mais seulement des individus ? "* In his Discours sur I' Indgalit^ parmi les Homines is the following passage, which shows, as Giard says, that Rousseau perfectly- understood the influence of the milieu 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. "f 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 * Dictionnaire des Termes de la Botanique. Art. Aphrodite. \ Discoars sur I'Originc et les Fondements de V In^gahti parmi les Honimes. 1754. STUDENT LIFE AND BOTANICAL CAREER m 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 Flore Franqaise 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 science h 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 Linne, for whom he_liad;' 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 JBuffon'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- tory. (Haray, 1. t., p. 12.) 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 La- marck having been presented in the second rank {en 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 the . favor of the Court and of the public."t 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 1 78 1, a commission as Royal Botanist, charged * De Mortillet {Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Trans formistes, p. il) 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. f Cuvier's J&loge, p. viii. ; also Revue biographique de la Socidti Malacologique, p. 67. A. de Vaux-Bidon^ del. Frojn an old engraving LAMARCK AT THE AGE OF 35 YEARS STUDENT LIFE AND BOTANICAL CAREER 2 1 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 178 1 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 Gottingen. 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. f Cuvier's &loge, p. viii ; also Bourguignat in Revue Hog. Soc. Ma- lacologique, p. 67. \ He received no remuneration for this service. As was afterwards stated in the National Archives, ^tat des personnel attaches 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 Buflon 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 i,ooo francs. 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. s^um National d* Ilistoire Naturclle a Vefoque du messidor an II de la Repullique, 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 Garden and Cabinet had concentrated in his hands the most varied and extensive powers. Not only did he hold, like his predecessors, the personnel 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 ofiRce relations which enabled him to do almost anything he liked at the Royal Garden." His 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 Derniers Jours du jfar- din du Roi, etc., p. 3.) Buflon, after nearly fifty years of service as In- tendant, died April 16, 1788. CHAPTER III 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 £tat distributed by the Committee of Finance. (Hamy, 1. 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- tures and demonstrations in the museum and school * Hamy, 1. c, p. 29. This brochure, of which I possess a copy, is a small quarto pamphlet of fifteen pages, signed, on the last page, "y. B. Lamarck^ ancien Offi-cier au Regiment de Beaujolais, de 1 Academic dcs Sciences dc Paris, Botaniste attach^ au Cabinet d His- toire Naturelle du Jardin des Flanies." 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 f and Cabinet of * Hamy, 1. c, p. 31 ; also Pihes Justificatives, Nos. il et 12, pp. 97-101. 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 France, 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, " pcitt Hre utile, mats fi est pas absolutement nicessaire." 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 Flore Franfaise 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, 1. c, pp. 34, 35-) f 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 _/a?'a'!» 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 ofificers of the double estab- lishment to draw up rules for its government. The ofificers 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 tinder his admin- istration flourished the great professors, Duverney, Tournefort, Geof- Iroy the chemist, and others (Perrier, I. c, p. 59). r'agon 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, 1. c, p. 37.) REORGANIZATION OF THE MUSEUM 37 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 prot^g^, and, July I, 1791, sent in the name of Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the distinguished author of Paul et Virginie 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 expenses f sent to the Minister of *Hamy, 1. c, p. 37. The Faubourg Saint Victor was a part of the Quartier Latin, and included the Jardin des Plantes. f Devis de la De'pense du Jardin National des Plantes et du Cabinet d'Histoire Natur die pour V Annie lygj, 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 j 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 Musdum d' Histoire Naturelle, was dawning. On the 6th of February, 1793, 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 Linne 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- isme Actual, pp. I'i, 14. (Copied from the National Archives.) "The hfe 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 Rousseau, p. 437, footnote.) *Joseph Lakanal was born in 1762, and died in 1845. He was 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 (dipuU) 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 XVL 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 reelection 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 Sifjow- d'un Membre de VInstitut de France aux £tats- Unis pendant vingt-deux ans. The manuscript mysteriously disappeared, no trace of it ever having been found. (Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire Universe!, Art. Lakanal.) His bust now occupies a prominent place among those of other great men in the French Academy of Sciences. 30 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK the decree of the loth of June, in spite of its 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 faUing 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 hfe 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 : MJmoire sur les Cabinets d'Histoire Naturelle, et particulihrement sur celui du Jardin des Plantes. REORGANIZATION OF THE MUSEUM 31 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 zoology. 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 zoology is administered at the museum by four professors, in conformity with the division indicated by Lamarck." CHAPTER IV 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 zoologist and evolutionist. He was in his fiftieth year when he assumed the duties of his professorship of the zoology 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 Abb6 Haiiy, the founder of PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY 33 crystallography, had been, the year previous, rescued from prison by young GeofTroy 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 n^fcto 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, cafis, 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 Convention Nationale, worked away quietly at their specialties, each in his own study or laboratory or lecture- room. 34 LAMAXCX, 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 icx),ooo livres. Four days after, June 14th, the assembly met and adopted the name of the establishment in the follow- ing terms : Museum d'Histoire Naturelle d^cr^t^ par la Convention Nationale le \o Juin, 1793; and at a meeting held on the 9th 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 on^^ne 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, qjpanwhile, 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 9th, 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 ov^r 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 assembly of professors, which formed the Board of Administra- tion of the Museum at the time of his appointment. FHOFESSOJi 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 179S. 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 zoology, 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 36 LAMARCK, HIS 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 zoology were filled, one by Lamarck, previously known as a botanist, and the other by the young ^tienne GeofTroy St. Hilaire, then twenty-two years old, who was at that time a student of Haiiy, 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 Lac^pfede * 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 Lacepide, born in 1756, died in 1825, was elected professor of the zoology 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 Histoire Naturelle. He also published Histoire Naturelle des Poissons (1798-1803), Histoire de^s Cifiaci!s (1804), and Histoire Naturelle de VHoniine (1827), Les Ages de la Nature et Histoire de I'Esphe Humaine, tome 2, 1830. PSOFESSOR OF JMVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY 37 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 Re gne Animal of Cuvier, as regards invertebrate classes, is due. The exact title of the chair held by Lamarck is given in the Etat of persons attached to the National Museum of Natural History at the date of the ler messidor, an II. of the Republic (1794), where he is mentioned as follows : " Lamarck — fifty years old ; married for the second time; -wlis: enceinte ; six chil- dren ; professor of zoology, 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 f 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 *Perrier, I. c, p. 14. \ Fragments Biographiques, p. 214. 38 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE 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 Animaux sans Vertebres." 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 pubhshed 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, Bruguifere, Olivier, and the Abb6 Hauy, 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 PJiOFESSOR 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 absorptio'n in matters biological and physical. In 1801 appeared his Systime des Animaux sans Vertebres, 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 1 793-1798, or for a period of six years, he published nothing on zoology, 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 ^tienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire.* " It was impossible to assign him a professorship of botany. M. de Lamarck, then fortyrnine 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 Biographiqucs, 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 Brugui^re 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 zoological geniuses of our epoch." Once settled in his new line of work, Lamarck, the incipient zoologist, 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 PHOFESSOX OF INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY 41 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 Iess~'\ singular to realize that it was almost always from the \ examination of the smallest objects which nature presents to us, and that of considerations which seem to us the most minute, that we have obtained the most \ important knowledge to enable us to arrive at thedis- 3 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 I of nature, and on the means she has employed in the ( creation of her innumerable productions. In this case / we perceive that, relatively to the animal kingdom, we should chiefly devote our attention to the inverte- brate animals^because their enormous multiplicity in nature, the singular diversity of their sy.stems 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 1 1 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 (i 793-1 803) and the one suc- ceeding, Lamarck's mind grew and expanded. Be- 42 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK fore 1 80 1, 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 dbauche) to man, the range of forms from the simple to the complex. Even though not a comparative anatomist like Cilvier, 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 Museurn ' . . ^ % Wm'ii^ jh ^^•^^^^••■wll Front a photograph by the author . BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK. REAR VIEW, FROM THE WEST From a photograph iy F. E. P., 1859. MAISON DE BUFFON, IN WHICH LAMARCK LIVED IN PARIS, 1793-1829 PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY 43 library* With little doubt the windows of his study, where his earlier addresses, the Recherches sur I' 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 zoology, 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 he died. Afterwards Professor Giard kindly wrote that by reference to the proch 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 is a large four- storied one. Lamarck occupied the second ^tage, what we should call the third story ; it was first occupied by Buffon. His bedroom, where he died, was on the premier ^tage. 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 ^tage, or second story, and Dr. J. Deniker, the biblioth^caire and learned anthro- pologist, in the third. The second etage was, about fifty years ago (1840-50), renovated for the use of Fremy the chemist, so that the exact room occupied by Lamarck as a study cannot be identified. This ancient house was originally called La 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 146S, the deed being dated ixbre, 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 : " II est charg6 de sept enfans dont un est sur les vaisseaux de la Rdpublique." 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, " peintre." Geoffroy St. Hilaire, in 1829, spoke of one of his sons, M. Auguste de Lamarck, as a skilful and highly esteemed engineer of Ponts-et-Chauss6es, 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 IL 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 1 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 Franqaise 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 Encyclopcsdia and Illustra- 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 H.) Lamarck was " charg6 de sept enfans," and this appropriation was a most welcome addition to his small salary. The next year (an HI.) he again applied for a simi- 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 Franqaise, and his desire to prepare a second edition of it, and his other works and travels in the interest of botanical science, he says : " If I had been less overburdened by needs of all kinds for some years, and especially since the 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 I'an IV.f This little estate, which was the old domain of Beauregard, was a modest farm-house or country-house at H^ricourt- * In the " avertissement " to his Systlme des Animaux sans Ver- tlbres (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 formee moi-meme par pres de trente annees 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 Ilistoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Vertebrcs 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, 1. c, p. 20). \ Lettre du Ministre des Finances (de Ramel) au Minisire de Vln- tMeur (13 pr. an V.). See Perrier, 1. u. , p. 20. 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 zoology, newly formed by the Faculty 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 Systime 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 vend^miaire, I'an 111.(1795): " In my first memoir I have given you an account of the works which I have published and of those which I have undertaken to contribute to the progress of 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 natures of Linnaeus, 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 Linnaeus), 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. " If the Committee of Public Instruction had the time to devote any attention to the importance of my project, to the utility of publishing such a work, and perhaps to the duty prescribed by the national honor, I would say to it that, after having for a long time reflected and meditated and determined upon the most feasible plan, finally after having seen amassed and prepared the most essential materials, I offer to put this beautiful project into execution. I have not lost sight of the difficulties of this great en- terprise. I am, 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. " I had at first thought that the work should be executed by a society of naturalists ; but after having given this idea much thought, and having already the example of the new encyclopeedia, 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. " If the nation should wish to print the work at its own expense, and then give to the author the profits 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." CHAPTER V LAST DAYS AND DEATH Lamarck's life was saddened and embittered by the loss of four wives, and the pangs of losing three of his children ; * 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 f 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. f " L'examen minutieux de petits animaux, analyses a I'aide d'in- struments grossissants, fatigua, puis affaiblait, sa vue. Bientot il fut completement aveugle. II passa les dix derniers annees de sa vie plonge dans les tenebres, entoure des soins de ses deux filles, a I'une desquelles il dictait le dernier volume de son Histoire des Animaux sans Vertebres" — Le Trans formiste Lamarck, Bull, Soc. Anthro- pologie, xii., 1889, p. 341. Cuvier, also, in his history of the progress of natural science for i8ig, remarks: " M. de La Marck, malgre I'affoiblissement total de sa vue, poursuit avec un courage inalterable 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 — i.e., April 19, 1825 — since his condition did not permit him to giva 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 records for May 23, 1826, as follows: "Vu la c^citd dont M. de Lamarck est frappd, M. Bosc * continuera d'exercer sur les parties confiert k M. Audouin la surveillance attribute au Professeur." But, according to Duval, long before this he had been unable to use his eyes. In his Systime analy- tiquedes Connoissances positives de V 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 worlcs, entitled : Histoire Nattirelle des Coquilles (1801) ; Hist. Nat. des Vers (1802) ; Hist. Nat. des Crus- tac/s (1828), and papers on insects and plants. He was associ- ated with Lamarck in the publication of th» Journal d' Histoire Naturellc. 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 lie 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 botar#cal garden, where he devoted himself to natural history until the quarrel in 1800 between the United Stales and France caused him to return to France. On his return he sent North American insects to his friends Fabricius and Olivier, fishes to Lacepede, birds to Daudin. reptiles to Latreille. Not giTing 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 Eloge.) LAST DAYS AND DEATH S3 Even in advanced life Lamarck seern^ 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, is a 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 Scales 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, Lacepede being the secre- tary, Thouin the treasurer. Daubenton was succeeded by Jussieu ; and Lacepide, first by Desfontaines and afterwards by Lamarck, who was elected secretary 18 fructidor, an II. (i794)- 54 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK meetings from 4 venddmiaire, I'an III., until 4 vend^- miaire, I'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. He was succeeded by E. Geoffrey St. Hilaire, who signed himself plain Geoffrey. In 1802 he acted as treasurer of the Assembly, and again for a peripd of six years, until and including 181 1, when he resigned, the reason given being: " II s'occupe depui^ six ans et que ses travaux et son age lui rendent penibles." Lamarck was,textremely 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 181 8 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 Animaux sans Verth bres ; and August 31, 1819, he was present* and laid before the Assembly tbe sixth volume of the same great work. From the observations of the records we infer that * His attendance this year was infrequent. July lo, T820, 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 KLINP, IN THE COSTUME OF A MEMKEK OF THE IXSTI'I'UTE, liNORAVEI) IN 1824 LAST DAYS A. \'D 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 zoology 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 Animaux sans Vertibres were pre- sented to the Assembly of Professors September 10, 1822. ''''This volume was dictated to and written out by one of his daughters, Mile. 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. V.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.J 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 talte 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 II, 1828. 56 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE 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 i,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. Mondifere,* with the aid of M. Saint-Joanny, archiviste du Department de la Seine, who made special search for the record. 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 Moniteur Universel * See, for the Acte de d/ch, V Homme, iv. p. 289, and Lamarck. Par un Groups de Trajisformistes, etc., p. 24. LAST DAYS AND DEATH 57 of Paris for December 23, 1829, were celebrated on the Sunday previous in the Church of Saint-M^dard, 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 Linn^ of France," was buried as one forgotten and unknown. We read with aston- ishment, in the account by Dr. A. Mondifere, 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. Mondiere in L' Homme, iv. p. 2gi, and Lamarck. Par tin Groupe de Trans formistes , 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. — ( Tht Century Cyclo- pedia of Name 5^ 58 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK Dr. Mondifere's account is as follows. Having found in the Moniteur 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 in a trench off on one side {fosse ii 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, 1st division, 2d line, trench 22.' " At some period later, a friendly hand, without doubt, had written on the margin of the register the following information : '"To the left of M. Dassas.' " M. Lacave kindly went with us to search for the place where Lamarck had been interred, and on the register we saw this : " ' Dassas, ist division, 4th line south, No. 6 to the west, concession 1 165-1829.' On arriving at the spot designated, we found some new graves, but nothing to indicate that of M. Dassas, our only mark LAST DAYS 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 fiat grave, surrounded by an iron railing, and covered with weeds. Its sur- face seemed to me very regular, and I probed this lot. -/?^, ivLsion. ■ a I. ?. s 11^ -^ s. 5t r 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 6o LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK previously said, the remains of Lamarck are no longer there." Mondiere 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 preeminent among the natu- ralists of his time. No monument exists in Montparnasse, but within the last decade, though the repara,tion 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, Palaeontology, 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 brochure containing the letter and plan of Dr. Mondiere 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 DAYS AND DEATH 6 1 Paris, on February lo, 1875, gave the name Lamarck to a street* This is a 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 ^mile Cartailhac to the Municipal Council, which voted to this effect May 12, 1886. In the meetings of the Assembly of Professors no one took the trouble to prepare and enter minutes, however brief and formal, relative to his decease. The death of Lamarck is not even referred to in the Procis-verbaux . This is the more marked because there is an entry in the same records for 1829, and about the same date, of an extraordinary sdance 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 to fill his 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 Sacre-Coeur, 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, Geoff roy 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 extreme 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 " insectes et vermes." The two successors of the chair held by Lamarck were certainly not dilatory in asking for appoint- ments. At a session of the Professors held December 22, 1829, the first meeting after his death, we find the following entry : " M. Latreille 6crit pour exprimer son desir d'etre pr^sente comme candidat k la chaire vacante par le d^ces de M. Lamarck et pour rappeler ses titres ci cette place." M. de Blainville also wrote in the same manner : " Dans le cas que la chaire serait divis^e, il demande la place de Professeur de I'histoire des animaux inar- ticul^s. Dans le cas contraire il se pr^sente 6gale- ment comme candidat, voulant, tout en respectant les droits acquis, ne pas laisser dans I'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 DAYS AND DEATH 63 by the Assembly a candidate to the chair of entomol- ogy, and at a following session (February 1 6th) De Blainville was unanimously elected a candidate for the chair of Molluscs, Vers et Zoophytes, and on the 1 6th 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. Regne Animal. His bust is to be seen on the same side of the Nou- veiie 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, I'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 aide-naturaliste-adjointm charge of MoUusca, Crustacea, Worms, and Zoophytes. 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 pr^parateur ; he became the author of several works on injurious insects and Lepi- doptera. CHAPTER VI 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 Geoffrey Saint- Hilaire, 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 zoology 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 zoology 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 Regne 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 palaeontologist, 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 exsmple, while Csvier's chair was in the field of vertebrate zoOlogfy, owingf to the kindness of Lamarck {"par gracieuseie de la part de M. di Lamarck ") he had retained that of MoUusca, and yet it was in the special classification of the molluscs that Lamarck did his best vrork (Blainville, 1. c, p. ii5). 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, et quel dloge ! 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 dloge, 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 Abb6 Tessier met the young zoologist at Valmont near Fdcamp, 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). POSITION IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 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 confreres, but I was supported, and only feebly, by M. de Lamarck, who slightly knew M. Cuvier as 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. "Yes [he said, in his eloquent way], for us who knew M. de Lamarck, whom his counsels have guided, whom we have found always indefatigable, devoted, occupied so willingly with the most difficult labors, we shall not fear to say that such a loss leaves in our ranks an immense void. From the blessings of such a life, so rich in instructive lessons, so remarkable for the most generous self-abnegation, it is difficult to choose. " A man of vigorous, profound ideas, and very often admirably generalized, Lamarck conceived them with a view to the public good. If he met, as often 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 Linn6,' 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, zoology 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 Outrages, et les Doctrines de Buffon (1838), Geoff roy 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. . . . Lamarck lived a 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 Biographiqties, pp. 209-219. + L. c. p. 81. X Histoire Naturelle Drolatique et Philosophique des Professeurs du Jardin des Plantes, etc. Par Isid. S. de Cosse. Avec des Annota- tions de M. FrM&ic 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 to thee ! Respect to thy memory ! Thou hast died in the breach while fighting for truth, and the truth assures thee immortality." Lamarck's theoretical views were not known in Germany until many years after his death. Had Goethe, his contemporary (1749-183 2), 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 History 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 Philosophic 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 Philosophie Zoologique. How far it was in advance of its time is perhaps best seen from the circumstance that it was not understood by most men, and for fifty years was not spoken of at all. Cuvier, Lamarck's greatest opponent, in his Report on the Progress of Natural Science, in which the most unimportant anatomical investigations are enumerated, does not devote a single word to this work, which forms an epoch in science. Goethe, also, who took such a lively interest in the French nature- philosophy and in the ' thoughts of kindred minds beyond the Rhine,' nowhere mentions Lamarck, and does not seem to have known the Philosophie Zo- ologique at all." , Again in 1882 Haeckel writes : * ^^ . " We regard it as a truly tragic fact that the Phi- 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 -ji 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. J. 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." J 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.-XXXVL 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 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin. In the chapter. On the Reception of the Origin of Species, by Huxley, are the following extracts from Lyell's Letters iS'^., 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 Zoologie bis auf Joh. MillUr und Charles Darwin, 1872. 72 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, I am 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: " I think the old ' creation ' is almost as much re- 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 BIS 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,' etc. (and in plants even volition was not called in), is in some respects only a change of names. Call a new variety a new 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. Ly ell's Letters, ii., p. 365.) 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 Life 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 Animaux sans Vertkbres should have written that insects, which never see their eggs, should will (and plants, their seeds) to be of particular forms, so as to become 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." (ii., p. 121, 1858.) On the other hand, another great EngHsh 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 emi- nent biologists. In a letter to Romanes, dated in 1882, Huxley thus estimates Lamarck's position in the scientific world : " I am not likely to take a low view of Darwin's position in the history of science, but I am disposed to think that Buffon and Lamarck would run him hard in both genius and fertility. In breadth of view and in extent of knowledge these two men were giants, though we are apt to forget their services. *We have been unable to find these statements in any of La- ^jiarck's writing;s. " ' ' • 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. Muller another." (Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, ii., p. 42, 1900. The memory of Lamarck is deeply and warmly cherished throughout France. He gave his country a second Linn6. One of the leading botanists in Eu- rope, and the greatest zoologist 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 zoology 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 zoologist 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 Zoology at Roscoff, and who still conducts the Journal de Zoologie Expdrimentale. Paris le 28 D^cembre, 1899. M. le Professeur Packard. Cher Monsieur: Vous m'avez fait I'honneur de me demander des renseignements sur la famille de De Lamarck, et sur ses relations, afin de vous en 76 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK servir dans la biographic que vous prdparez de notre grand naturaliste. Je n'ai rien appris de plus que ce que vous voulez bien me rappeler comme I'ayant trouv6 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 r^pondre k vos d^sirs. Lorsque je commensal mes Etudes k Paris, on ne s'occupait gu^re des iddes gen^rales de De Lamarck que pour s'en moquer. Excepts Geoffroy St. Hilaire et De Blainville, dont j'ai pu suivre les belles le9ons et qui le citaient souvent, on parlait peu de la philosophie zoologique. II m'a dt6 possible de causer avec des anciens col- logues du grand naturaliste ; au Jardin des Plantes de tr^s grands savants, dont je ne veux pas ^crire le nom, le traitaient de fou ! II avait lou6 un appartement sur le haut d'une maison, et 1^ cherchait d'aprOs la direction des nuages k pr^voir I'^tat du temps. On riait de ces Etudes. N'est-ce pas comme un observatoire de m^tdorologie que ce savant zoologiste avait pour ainsi dire fond^ avant que la science ne se fut empar^e de I'id^e ? Lorsque j'eus I'honneur d'etre nomm6 professeurau Jardin des Plantes en 1865, je fis I'historique de la chaire que j'occupais, et qui avait 6t6 illustr^e par De Lamarck et De Blainville. Je crois que je suis le premier k avoir fait I'histoire de notre grand naturaliste dans un cours public. Je dus travailler pas mal pour arriver k bien saisir I'id^e fondamentale de la philoso- phic. Les definitions de la nature et des forces qui president aux changements qui modifient les 6tres d'aprfes les conditions auxquelles ils sont soumis ne sont pas toujours faciles £ rendre claires pour un public souvent difficile. Ce qui frappe surtout dans ses raisonnements, c'est ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER AND WORK yy que De Lamarck est parfaitement logique. II com- prend tr^s bien ce que plus d'un transformiste de nos jours ne cherche pas k ^clairer, que le premier pas, le pas difficile k faire pour arriver k expliquer la creation par des modifications successives, c'est le passage de la matifere inorganique k la matifere organis^e, et il imagine la chaleur et I'dlectricit^ comme dtant les deux facteurs qui par attraction ou repulsion finissent par former ces petits amas organises qui seront le point de depart de toutes les transformations de tous les organismes. Voilk le point de d6part — la g6n6ration spontan^e se trouve ainsi expliqude ! De Lamarck 6tait un grand et profond observateur. On me disait au Museum (des contemporains) qu'il avait rinstinct de I'Espfece. II y aurait beaucoup k dire sur cette expression — I'instinct de I'espfece — il m'est difficile dans une simple lettre de ddvelopper des id6es philosophiques que j'ai sur cette question, — laquelle suppose la notion de I'individu parfaitement d^finie et acquis. Je ne vous citerai qu'un exemple. Je ne I'ai vu signals nolle part dans les ouvrages anciens sur De Lamarck. Qu'^taient nos connaissances k I'^poque de De Lamarck sur les Polypiers? Les Hydraires 6taient loin d'avoir fourni les remarquables observations qui parurent dans le milieu k peu prfes du sifecle qui vient de finir, et cependant De Lamarck d^place hardiment la Lucernaire — I'dloigne des Coralliaires, et la rap- proche des ^tres qui forment le grand groupe des Hydraires. Ce trait me parait remarquable et le rap- porte k cette reputation qu'il avait au Museum de jouir de I'instinct de I'espfece. De toute part on acclame le grand naturaliste, et'il n'y a pas meme une rue portant son nom aux environs du Jardin des Plantes? J'ai eu beau rdclamer le conseil municipal de Paris k d'autres favoris que De Lamarck. 78 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK Lorsque le Jardin des Plantes fut r^organisd par la Convention, De Lamarck avait 50 ans. II ne s'dtait jusqu'alors occupy que de botanique. II fut k cet age charge de I'histoire de la partie du rfegne animal renfermant les animaux invertfebres sauf les Insectes et les Crustac6s. La chaire est rest^e la m^me ; elle comprend les vers, les helminthes, les mollusques, et ce qu'on appelait autrefois les Zoophytes ou Rayonn^es, enfin les Infusoires. Quelle puissance de travail ! Ne fallait-il pas pour passer de la Botanique, k 50 ans, k la Zoologie, et laisser un ouvrage semblablek 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 6quit^, il faut se porter a I'dpoque oil il fut fait, et alors on est pris d'admiration pour I'auteur d'un aussi immense travail. J'ai une grande admiration pour le g6nie de De Lamarck, et je ne puis que vous louer de le faire encore mieux connaitre de nos contemporains. Recevez, mon cher collogue, I'expression de mes sentiments d'estime pour vos travaux remarquables et croyez-moi — tout k vous, H. DE Lacaze Duthiers. CHAPTER VII 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. For a 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 I'influence de la lune sur I'atmos- phfere 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 18 10 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 f^tes, journeys, voyages, har- 8o 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 {abaissement) 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 8 1 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 (9 ventose, I'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, I'an VI. (1798). 6 82 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 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, who really liked Lamarck, spoke to him in a jocular way about his weather probabilities, and Lamarck, very much provoked {fris contrari^) 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 observations, and the means of devoting their time to it, to take up with con- fidence an enterprise good in itself, based on a genuine foundation, and from which the public would derive advantageous results." These opuscles, such as they were, in which Lamarck treated different subjects bearing on the winds, great droughts, rainy seasons, tides, etc., be- SPECULATIONS ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE 83 came the precursors of the Annuaires 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 time.* 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 Hydrogdologie (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 vita/ 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, 1900. 84 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK After paying his respects to Priestley, he asks: " What, then, can be the reason why the views a 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 Memoires 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- clopaedic 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. SPECULATIONS ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE 8$ 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." {Encyc. 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 ^thdr6, le feu calorique, et le feu fixd " 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, Ampfere, 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 Larnarck's writings is thus stated by Professor H. Carrington Bolton in a letter dated Washington, D. C, February 9, 1900: " Excuse delay in replying to your inquiry as to the chemical status of the French naturalist, 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 M^moires, but the position of Lamarck is well known. He had no influence on chemistry, and his name is not men- SPECULATIONS ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE 8/ tioned in the principal histories of 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 Eloge {M^moires 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 I'espfece parmi les mindraux," 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. " They teach in Paris," he says, " that the integrant molecule of each kind of compound is invariable in nature, and consequently that it is as old as nature, hence, mineral species are constant. " For myself, I declare that I am persuaded, and even feel convinced, that the integrant molecule of every compound substance whatever, may change its nature, namely, may undergo changes in the number and in the proportions of the principles which cqm- 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 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK be objected that this view will not apply to minerals, because those of the archaean 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. CHAPTER VIII LAMARCK'S WORK IN GEOLOGY Whatever may be said of his chemical and phy- sical lucubrations, Lamarck in his geological and palaeontological 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 Hydrogdologie. It appeared in 1802 go LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK (an X.), or ten years before the first publication of Cuvier's famous Discours 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 Hydro- gMogie 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 Discours sur les Revolutions de la Surface du Globe were held to be models of sound scientific thinking, while the really much more sober and philosophic hypotheses of the HydrogMogie 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, i8g6, p. 212. LAMARCK'S WORK IN GEOLOGY gi ^ " But," says Lyell,* " 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 (1452-15 19), 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. f That versatile and observing genius, Bernard Palissy, as early as 1580, in a book entitled Tke Ori- 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. f 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 (172 1), while Moro published his views in 1745. In the eighteenth century Reaumur f (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 to render it foreign to the other sciences, and, indeed, the professional savants for a long time cast it out of the circle of their studies." Their views, often premature, composed of half- truths, were mingled 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 £loge Historiqtie de Georges Cuvier, Hoefer's edition. Paris, 1854. f Remarqites sur les Coquilles fossiles de qtielques Cantons de la Tournine. Mem. Acad. Sc. Paris, 1720, pp. 400-417. \ Eloge Historiqtie de Werner,-^. I13. LAMARCK'S WORK IN GEOLOGY 53 nitz, in his Thdorie de la Terre, published in 1749, 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, kpoques 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. 94 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 together."* As Perkins f says: "Interest in 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 '''History of Civilization, i. p. 627. \ France tinder 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 : "I have seen as bright 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 encyclopaedists. 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. The 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 (175 1) 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,"f he states that the '^France under Louis XV. , p. 360. f See vol. iii. of his Miinoires stir differentes Parties des Sciences 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. g6 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. Rethought 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 difKcult 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 zoologist 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 Geology. LAMARCK'S WORK IN GEOLOGY 97 by fossiliferous strata. From his observations 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 palaeontology. Meanwhile Soldani, an Italian, had, in 1780, showfJ~ 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 (1750-18 17), the propounder of the Nep- tunian theory, was one of the founders of modern geology and of palaeontology. 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 vifriters, was first clearly taught from actual concrete examples by Desmarest. L. c, p. 65. g8 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK Ueber die aiissern Kennzeichen der Fossilien ap- peared in 1774; his Kurze Klassifikation und Be- schreibung der Gebirgsarten 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 palaeozoic 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. 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 palaeontology.* Hutton's Theory of the Earth appeared in 1785, and in a more developed state, as a separate work, in i79S-t " 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 preexisting 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, \vhere they are spread out and form strata analogous to those of more ancient date. Afthough 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.) f James Hutton was born at Edinburgh, June 3, 1726, where he died March 26, 1797. lOO 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 Abb6 Hauy,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 Hydrogeologie, 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 : I. What are the natural consequences of the in- fluence and the movements of the waters on the sur- face of the globe ? LAMARCK'S WORK IN GEOLOGY loi 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 Discours. 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. " It is then evident to me, that every mountain which is not the result of a volcanic irruption or of some local catastrophe, has been carved out from a plain, where its mass is gradually formed, and was a 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 height." 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 {e'paisseur) 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 hfe 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 debris 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 ddbris, I say, wasting successively on the soil of the plain in question, gradually increases the thickness of its external bed, multiplies there the mineral mat- ters of all kinds and gradually elevatesthe formation." Our author, as is evident, had no conception, nor had any one ' else at the time he wrote, of the slow I04 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 debris of organisms is manifestly inadequate, our aerial 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, etc. 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 reestablish 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 geography 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 I06 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 pfforts to move westward, arrested by America and by {;he 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 resuhed in detaching the island of Tierra del Fuego from South America. In hke 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 level, 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, I08 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK and with wonderful prevision, considering the time he wrote and the Hmited 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 sweUings 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 m.any 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" (Cosmos, i). Yet as late as 1869 we have an essay by H. Trautschold f 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. J * Quoted from Lyell's Principles of Geology, eighth edit., p. 17. f Btilletin Socie'ltf Imp. des Naturalistes de Moscoii, xlii. (1869), pt. I, p. 4, quoted from Geikie's Geology, p. 276, footnote. X Suess also, in his Anlitz, 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 Hydrog^ologie. He 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. no 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 by 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 \\\ 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. " If it is thus, if each point of the surface of the terrestrial globe has been in turn dominated by the seas — that is to say, has contributed to form the bed of those immense masses of water which constitute the ocean — it should result (i) 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, Tellinse, cockle shells, turban shells (sabots), etc., 112 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 (p^lagiennes). He proves the truth of his thesis by the following facts : I . We are already familiar with a marine Gryphsea, 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 Bruguifere,* 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 Memoires 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 tfiese 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, 117). 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. 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 debris." 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. " I 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 cor alligenous polyps, which we might therefore call testaceous polyps, because, like the testaceous molluscs, these polyps have the faculty of forming, by a transudation or a continual secretion of their bodies, the stony and calcareous polypidom on which they live. " In truth these polyps are animals so small that a single one only forms a minute quantity of calca- reous matter. But in this case what nature does not obtain in any volume or in quantity from any one individual, she simply receives by the number of ani- mals in question, through the ^enormous multiplicity Il6 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, astraeae, meandrinae, etc., prepare on a great scale at the bottom of the sea, by a continual secretion of their bodies, and as the result of their enormous multiplication and their accumulated generations, the greatest part of the 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 serpulae, different kinds of oysters, patellae, 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, thfen the slow but combined alteration that these great masses undergo, left uncovered and exposed to the incessant action of the air, light, and a variable humidity, changes them gradually into fossils and destroys their membranous or gelatinous part, which is the readiest to decompose. This alteration, which the enormous masses of the corals in 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 \\y 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 primitive 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 Gryphaeae, 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 Il8 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 in such great numbers in all the exposed parts of the globe, both in elevated situations and at considerable depths in the earth ; the other, the number and disposition of the beds, as also the nature and order of the materials which compose the external crust of this globe studied throughout * 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 Principles). 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 ftiodified, everything becomes lost or destroyed. Every living language insensibly changes its idiom ; at the end of a thousand years the writings made in any language can only be read with difficulty ; after two thousand years none of these writings will be understood. Besides wars, vandalism, the greediness of tyrants and of those who guide religious opinions, who always rely on the ignorance of the human race and are supported by it, how many are the causes, as proved by history and the sciences, of epochs after epochs of revolutions, which have more or less completely destroyed them. " How many are the causes by which man loses all trace of that which has existed, and cannot believe nor even conceive of the immense antiquity of the earth he inhabits ! " How great will yet seem this antiquity of the terrestrial globe in the eyes of man when he shall form a just idea of the origin of living bodies, as also of the causes of the development and of the gradual process of perfection of the organization of these bodies, and especially when it will be conceived that, time and favorable circumstances having been neces- sary to give existence to all the living species such as we actually see, he is himself the last result and the 120 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK actual maximum of this process of perfecting, the limit {terme) of which, if it exists, cannot be known." In the fourth chapter of the book there is less to interest the reader, since the author mainly devotes it to a reiteration of the ideas of 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 primitive, 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 JN GEOLOGY 121 mountains, which are generally arranged in more or less regular chains. But he strangely assumes that the constituents of granite, i.e., 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 Discours (sixth edition, p. 49), in referring to this view, states that it originated with Rodig {La Physique, p. 106, Leipzig, 1801) and De Maillet {Telliamed, tome ii, p. 169), "alsoaninfinity of new German works." He adds : "M. de Lamarcli has recently expanded this system in France at great length in his HydrogMogie and in his Philosophic zoologique." Is the Rodig re- ferred to 111. Chr. Rodig, author of Beitrdge ziir Naturwissenschaft (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 WORIC matter, he thinks he can, without great error, consider the mean rate as 324 mm. (i foot) a century. As a concrete example it has been observed, he says, that one river valley has risen a foot higher in the space 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 (reunion) 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, Biologie, the third and last part of the Terrestrial Physics, a work which was not published, but which was probably comprised in his Philosophie zoologique. The HydrogMogie closes with a " Mdmoire sur la matiere du feu " and one " sur la matiire du son" both being reprinted from the Journal de Physique. CHAPTER IX LAMARCK THE FOUNDER OF INVERTEBRATE PAL^- ONTOLOGY It was fortunate for palaeontology that the two greatest zoologists 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 lesfossiles") on fossils * Although Defrance (born I75g, died in 1850) aided Lamarck in collecting tertiary shells, his earliest palseontological paper (on Hip- pon3'x) did not appear until the year 1819. WORK IN PALEONTOLOGY 125 in general was published at the end of his Systime des Animaux sans VcrUbres (pp. 401-41 1), in 1801, a year before the publication of the HydrogMogie. " I give 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 ,1 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 silicious fossils, and examples of this kind are the different oysters (' des ostracites '), many terebratulae (' des terebratulites '), trigonise, 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." I) 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 Hydrogiologie, published in the follow- ing year. *' Voyez a ce sujet mon ouvrage intituU: De Vinflnence du mouvement des eatis sur la surface du globe terrestre, et des indices du dlplacement contitiuel du bassin des mers, ainsi que de son transport successif sur Us diffirens points de la surface du globe " (no date). WORK IN PALEONTOLOGY 127 sils are extinct species, and that the earth has passed through a general catastrophe {un bouleversement uni- versel) with the result that a multitude of species of animals and plants were consequently absolutely lost or destroyed, and remarks in the following telHng and somewhat derisive language : /a universal catastrophe {bouleversement) which necessarily regulates nothing, mixes up and disperses everything, is a very convenient way to solve the problem for those naturalists who wish to explain everything, and who do not take the trouble to observe and investigate the course followed by nature as re- spects its production and everything which constitutes its domain. I have already elsewhere said what should be thought of this so-called universal overturning of the globe ; I return to fossils. i^lt is very true that, of the great quantity of fossil shells gathered in the different countries of the earth, there are yet but a very small number of species whose living or marine analogues are known. Nevertheless, although this number may be very small, which no one will deny, it is enough to suppress the universality announced in the proposition cited above. / It is well to remark that among the fossil shells whose marine or living analogues are not known, there are many which have a form closely allied to shells of the same genera known to be now living in the sea. However, they differ more or less, and cannot be lig- 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. / I am 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 knowri, 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 of the ani- WORJC IN PALEONTOLOGY I2g 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 as a result 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 I30 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK the first genealogical tree ; his phylogeny, in the second volume of his Philosophie 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. V^ In this first published expression of his views on palseontology, we find the following truths enumerated on which the science is based : (i) 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 evolutional rdX\\ev than uniformitarian. 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 PALEONTOLOGY 131 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 palaeontology. " Lamarck's first memoir on fossil shells, in which he described many new species, was published in 1802, after the appearance of his Hydroge'ologie, to which he refers. It was the first of a series 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 Nauti- lius 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 remarlcable forerunner of modern palseon- 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 i66g, 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 l588, but published posthumously in 1705, was aware that the fossil ammonites, 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 peculiar 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 Principles). Geikie estimates very highly Guettard's labors in pala;ontology, say- ing that " his descriptions and excellent drawings entitle him to rank as the first great leader of the palaeontological 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 (Iltenus) 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 palasontology, and one of the genera of chalk sponges which he described has been named after him, Guettardia. 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 PALEONTOLOGY 133 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 " (Piseium Querelae et Vindiciae, Germany, 1708), " a work of zoological 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 Fossillia Hantoniensia, published in 1766, which contained " excellent figures of fossil shells from the more modern (or Eocene) marine strata of Hampshire. In his opinion fossil 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 Fossiles 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 Annales, 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 in i823.f This (the text * Annales du Museum d'Hisioire Nalurelle, vi., 1805, pp. 222-228. f Recueil de Planches des Coquilles fossiles des environs de Paris (Paris, 1823). There are added two plates of fossil fresh-water shells (twenty-one species of Limnjea, etc.) by Brard, with sixty-two figures. tVOJfJ^ IN PALAEONTOLOGY 135 published in 1806) is the first truly scientific palaeon- tological work ever pubHshed, preceding Cuvier's Ossemens fossiles by six years. When we consider Lamarck's — at his time un- 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 palaeontology, as Cuvier was of vertebrate or mammalian paleontology. We have entered the claim that Lamarck was one of the chief founders of palaeontology, and the first French author of a genuine, detailed palseontological 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 palaeontology. 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 palaeontology is taken from Blainville's posthumous work entitled Cuvier et Geoffrey Saint- 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 palaeontology. Blain- ville has little or nothing to say of the first steps in * Cuvier et Geoffroy Saint- Hilaire. Biographies scienttjiques , par Ducrotay de Blainville (Paris, 1890, p. 446). 136 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK invertebrate paleontology, 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 palceontology, 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 in a 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) f 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). * " Memoire sur des os fossiles decouverts aupres de la ville d'Aix en Provence" (Mem. Acad. Sc, Paris, 1760, pp. 209-220). f " Sur un osd'une grosseur enorme qu'on a trouve dans une couche de glaise au milieu de Paris ; et en general sur les ossemens fossiles qui ont appartenu a de grands animaux " (Journal de Physique, tome xvii, 1781, pp. 393-405). Lamanon also, in 17S0, published in the same Journal an article on the nature and position of the bones found at Aix en Provence ; and in 1783 another article on the fossil bones belonging to gigantic animals. WORK IN PALEONTOLOGY 137 " But it was especially in Germany, in the hands of Pallas, Camper, Blumenbach, anatomists and physi- cians, also those of Walch, Merck, HoUmann, 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 fossilium ad genera naturalia pro- totyporum — Nov. Comin. Soc. Scient. Goettingensis, t. ii.), that palaeontology applied to quadrupeds had already settled all that pertained to the largest species." 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 * HoUmann had still earlier published a paper entitled De corporum marinortim, aliorumque peregrinorum in terra continente origine (Commentarii Soc. Goetiingen., torn, 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 fossilia instead oi petrefacta, 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 zoological 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 palaeontology a remarkable impulse, and one which since then has not abated." Blumenbach,f the most eminent and all-round Ger- man anatomist and physiologist of his time, one of the founders of anthropology as well as of palaeontol- * Novi Commentarii Soc. Sc. Goettingensis, torn, ii., Commentat., torn. i. f His first palasontological article appears to have been one entitled Beiirdge zur Naturgeschichte der Vorwelt (Lichtenberg, Voigfs Magaz., Bd. vi, S. 4, 1790, pp. 1-17). I have been unable to ascer- tain in which of his publications he describes and names the cave^ bear. WORK IN PALEONTOLOGY 139 ogy, had meanwhile established the fact that there were two species of fossil cave-bear, which he named Ursus spelcsus and If. arctoideus. He began to pub- lish his ArckcBologia 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 Gottingen 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 Gottingen, probably brought Blumenbach's labors to an end, for after a second " specimen " of his work, of less importance than the first, the Archczologia telluris was discon- tinued. * specimen archaologia telluris terrarumque imprimis Hannove- rana, pts. i., ii. Cum 4 iabl. aen. 4 maj. Gottingse, 1803. I40 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 palaeon- 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 was 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 Bolca (1820) ; on a fish from Nanterre (1802) and a fossil turtle (1803) ; on two species of fossil ox, whose skulls were found in Germany, France, and England (1S03), 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 PALMONTOLOGY 141 built up his own vast reputation and thus added to the glory of France. His first contribution to palaeontology * 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 Palaeotherium 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 iii. of the Annales du Museum, 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 d'ouvrage " being the Ossemens fossiles, which was issued in 1812 in four quarto volumes, with an atlas of plates. It is with much interest, then, that we turn to Cuvier's great work, which brought him such 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 Monimartre {Bulletin des sciences pour la Soci^U philomatique, tomes I, 2, 1798, pp. 154-155)- 142 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK in the preliminary remarks in his well-known " Essay on the Theory of the Earth " (i 8 12), which was fol- lowed in 1 82 1 by his Discours sur les Revolutions 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 palaeontology ; 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 Discours, speaking of the difificulty 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 PALEONTOLOGY 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 Essay on the Theory of the Earthy 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 .f In his time, and applied to the forms * In the first edition of the Thiorie he says fifteen years, writing in 1812. In the later edition he changed the number of years to thirty. f 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 in an animal. It is a great thing if the memory, aided by a strong imagination, can thus pass from a bone to the entire skeleton, even in an animal well known and studied even to satiety ; but for an unknown animal, there is no one except a man but slightly acquainted with the .inatomy 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 palseontology, without having made any preliminary study, with the aid of dividers, and, on the other hand, rvORK IN PALAEONTOLOGY 145 occurring in the Paris Basin, it was a most valuable, ingenious, and yet obvious method, and even now is the principal rule the palseontologist follows in identi- 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 palseontological 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, inter 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 stir les Revolutions de la Surface du Globe, strangely credits himself, and has ever since been credited by others, with the invention of a new method of paleontological research. But if you will turn to the Recherches sur les Ossemens fossiles, 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; coordinated " (Science and Hebrew Tradition. Rise and Progress of Paleontology 1881, p. 23). * History and Methods of Paleontological Discovery (1879). 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 Discours, 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 Osseniens fossiles" the first edition of which appeared in 1812, or ten years after the pub- lication of the Hydrogeologie. The original I have not seen, but I have compared Jameson's translation with the sixth edition of the Discours (1820). Pf^OJ?£- IN- PALEONTOLOGY 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 a long time and in a 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 exuviae 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 hori- 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 7 ~ duced revolutions in the basins of the sea we^c p. 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 PALEONTOLOGY 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 of a 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 stop here. 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 ISO 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 Rbgne 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 PALEONTOLOGY 151 our present knowledge, properly be deemed not only totally inadequate, but childish and fantastic. Cuvier cites the view of Dolomieu, the well-known geologist and mineralogist (i 770-1 801), only, how- ever, to reject it, who went to the 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 ail 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 Palseotherium 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 palceo- 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 I am far from believing to be the case, that the fossil elephants, rhinoceroses, elks, and bears do not differ further from the present existing species of the same genera than the present races of dogs differ among themselves, this would by no means be a sufficient reason to conclude that they WORK IN PALEONTOLOGY 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 18 13, Von Schlotheim, the founder of vegetable palaeontology, refused to admit that each set of beds was the result of such a thoroughgoing revolution.f At a later date Bronn " demonstrated that certain species indeed really passed from one formation to * Discours, etc. Sixth edition. f Felix Bernard, The 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 wliich Schlotheim expressed this opinion. E. v. Schlotheim's first work. Flora der Vorwelt, appeared in 1804, entitled Beschreibung merkwilrdigcr Krailterabdrucke und Pflanzenversteinerungen. Ein Beytrag zur Flora der Vorvelt. i Abtheil. Mit 14 Kpfrn. 4° Gotha, 1804., A later work was Beytrdge zur Naturgeschichte der Versteinerungen in geognostischer Hinsicht (Denkschrift d. k. Academie d. Wissenschaften zu Milnchen fiir den Ja/tren lilt und liiT. 8 Taf. MUnchen, i8ig). He was followed in Germany by Sternberg ( Versuch einer geognostischbotan- ischen Darstellung der Flora der Vorvelt. 1-8. 1811. Leipzig, 1820-38) ; and in France by A. T. Brongniart, 1801-1876 (Histoire des Ve'g/taux fossiles, 1828). These were the pioneers in palzeophytology. 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 palaeontology. When we compare the HydrogMogie of Lamarck with Cuvier's Discours, 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 palaeontol- 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 palaeontology f is * Bernard's History and Methods of Paleontological Discovery (1879), p. 23. f In his valuable and comprehensive Geschichte der Geologic und Paldontologie (i?>qq), Prof. K. von Zittel, while referring to Lamarck's works on the tertiary shells of Paris and his Animaux savs Vertebres, also giving a just and full account of his life, practically gives him the credit of being one of the founders of invertebrate palaeontology. 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- WOJl/ir IN PALEONTOLOGY IS5 substantiated by the philosophic Lyell, who as early as 1836, in his Principles 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 palaeontologist, 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 Hydrogiologie . Probably so rare a book was overlooked by the eminent German palaeontologist. * History and Methods of Paleontological Discovery (1879), P- 23. CHAPTER X LAMARCK'S OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY AND BIOLOGY Lamarck died before the rise of the sciences of morphology, embryology, and cytology. As to palae- 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 in 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 {In- troduction a I' Etude de la Pale'ontologie stratigrapliiqtie, ii., p. 49), he had sound ideas on the theory of descent, claiming that " la diversite et la multitude des conjunctions, peut-etre m^me la diversite des climats et des nourritures, ont donne naissance A de nouvelles esp^ces ou a des individus intermediaires " {Qiuvres d'Hist. nat. et de Philosophic, in-8vo, p. 230, 1779). OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY 157 We know that he was a firm beHever 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 1 65 1, 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 greatest geniuses, and they could only seize on half- truths. Lamarck, both a practical botanist, system- atic zoologist, 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 h priori thinking and reasoning, so that he labored under a disadvantage due largely to the age in which he lived. * See his remark : ' ' On a dit avcc raison que tout ce qui a vie pro- ■uient d'un oiuf" {M/moires de Physique, etc., I7g7, 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 I '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 {pr^pare'e) 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 which 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 vitalis) 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. He 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 * Elementa physiohgiae corporis humani, iv. Lausanne, 1762. f Theoria generationis, 1774. X Me'moires de Physique (1797), p. 250. 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 preexistent 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. " In 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 direct, at the extremity of each organic kingdom or where the simplest organic bodies occur.'' This proposition, he allows, is so far removed from the view generally held, that it will be for a long time, and perhaps always, regarded as one of the errors of the human mind. " I do not," he adds, " ask any one to accord it the least confidence on my word alone. But as surely it will happen, sooner or later, that men on the one l6o 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 gUmpse 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 {Chdmie, 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 hfeat, " 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 i6l 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 such a mass of substances the subtile and expansive fluids spread, and, always in motion in the milieu environing it, unceasingly penetrate it and likewise dissipate it, arranging while traversing this mass the internal disposition of its parts, and 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 {dissous) 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." 1 62 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK This is certainly a sufficiently vague and unsatisfac- tory theory of spontaneous generation. This sort of guess-york 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 ti priori 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 zoology, 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 Pre'existence 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, i.e. in the mul- tiplication of individuals for the preservation of species," and says : " I am not inclined to believe it if this preexistence 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 egg. . . . But the eggs being the envelope of every kind of germ, they preexist 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 preexisting germs.f 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 Mdmoires de Physique (p. 250), where * Mdmoires de Physique, etc. (1797), p. 272. f 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." X Buffon did not accept Bonnet's theory of preexistent germs, but he assumed the existence ol^'germes accumuUs" which reproduced parts or organs, and for the production of organisms he imagined " moUcules organiques." Reaumur had previously (17 12) conjectured that there were ^^ germ.es cacMs et accumuUs" to account for the re- generation of the limbs of the crayfish. The ideas of Bonnet on germs are stated in his Mdmoires sur les Salamandres (1777-78-80) and in his Considerations sur les corps organises (1762.) 1 64 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 hy juxtaposition, as most mineral substances, that is to say, by the external and successive apposi- tion of particles aggregated en masse by attraction, but essentially formed by generation, in its principle, it has then grown by intussusception — namely, by the introduction, the transportation, and the internal 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, i.e., nutrition. The environing containable fluids are, then, for the living body of very great simplicity, a veritable chyle entirely prepared by nature. " Mutilation cannot operate without gradually 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, growth 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 feehng, 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 l66 LAMARCK, BIS 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. " It will then be obliged to take nourishment not only to obtain any development whatever, but also to preserve its individual existence, because it is 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 (amoeba), volvoces, monads, etc. " This digestive canal is," he says — proceeding with his k priori morphology — " a little different from that of this day, produced by contractions of the body, which are stronger in one part of the body than in another, until a little crease is produced on the 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 ic priori 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 ^chelle des itres 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 * Mtfmoires 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. 1 68 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 vitaHst. Life, he says,f 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 is a very natural phenomenon, a physical fact ; in truth a little compHcated 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 reestablishment, then you cause death." Afterwards, in the Philosophie 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., iSgg, p. 17). In France vitalism was founded by Bordeu (1722-1766), developed further by Barthez (1734-1806) 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 (/. c, p. 18). \ Recherches sur l' organisation des corps mvans (1S02), p. 70. The same view was expressed in M^moires tie physique (1797), pp. 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 Hydroge'ologte,'p\ih\{sh.e6. in 1802. It is 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, Biologic, der Philosophie der lebenden iVi^/ar, published in 1802-1805 (vols, i.-vi., 1802-1822), the first volume appearing in 1802. In the second part of the Philosophie zoologique he considers the physical causes of life, and in the in- troduction he defines nature as the ensemble of objects which comprise: (i) All existing physical bodies; (2) the general and special laws which regula'te the changes of condition and situation of these bodies ; (3) finally, the movement eveiywhere 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 Biainville, 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. I70 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 — i.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 Y\i&-~i.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 sufificient to constitute containing parts, will be the body most fitted to receive the first traces of organization and Hfe." In the third part of the Philosophie zoologique Lamarck considers the physical causes of feeling — i.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 Physiologic, 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 ^tyr^ " animalized by the circumstances under which it occurs." In his Recherches sur V organisation des corps vivans (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 fixe 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 {sentiment). Finally he concludes that feu fix^, 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 Pubhc 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 f oreignersA A 1\Si|M , " I 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, Linnd 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 Frangaise, 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 Frangaise 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 Discours PrMminaire, comprising over a hundred pages, while the main body of the work opens with the Principes EUmentaires 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 Linne, 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 Franqaise he LAMARCK AS A BOTANIST 175 projected two other works which gave him a still higher position among botanists. His Dictionnaire de Botanique W3.S 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 zoological work. His second great undertaking was L' Illustration des Genres (1791- 1800), with a supplement by Poiret (1823). Cuvier speaks thus of these works : " U Illustration des Genres is a work especially fitted to enable one to acquire readily an almost complete idea of this beautiful science. The precision of the descriptions and of the definitions of Linnaeus 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 Dictionnaire 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 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 Frangaise, 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 original in its execution. . . . The second treatise, entitled Illustration des Genres, presents in the order of the sexual system the figures and the details of all the genera known in botany, and with a concise 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 Eloge also adds : " It is astonishing that M. de Lamarck, who hitherto had been studying botany as an amateur, was able so rapidly to qualify himself to produce so extensive a work, in which the rarest plants were described. It is because, from the moment he undertook it, with all the enthusiasm of his nature, he collected them from the gardens and examined them in all the available herbaria ; passing the days at the houses of the 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 Pondichdry 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 th.e Journal d' Histoire nature lie, which he founded, and in the Memoires 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 (1798). Although not in the front rank of botanists, com- pared with Linn6, 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 178 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK impetus to botany in France, and fully earned the title of " the French Linn6." Lamarck not only described a number of genera and species of plants, but he attempted a general classifi- cation, as Cleland states : " In 1785 {Hist, de I'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." — Encycl. Brit., Art. LAMARCK. A genus of tropical plants of the group Solanacea was named Markea by Richard,, in honor of Lamarck, but changed by Persoon and Poiret to Lamarckea. The name Lamarckia of Moench and Koeler was proposed for a genus of grasses ; it is now Chrysurtis. 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 il les dutj moins ti ses m/rites quaux petits passions de la science officielle. The illustrious Buffon, who was at the same time a very great lord at court, was jealous of Linn6. 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 Linn6." Lamarck's style was never a 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 Abb6 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, Hauy, and the zoologists 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. CHAPTER XII 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 zoologist. He was undoubtedly the greatest zoolo- gist of his time. Lamarck is the one dominant per- sonage who in the domain of zoology filled the inter- val between Linn6 and Cuvier, and in acuteness and sound judgment he at times surpassed Cuvier. His was the master mind of the period of systematic zoology, which began with Linn6 — the period which, in the history of zoology, preceded that of compara- tive anatomy and morphology. After Aristotle, no epoch-making zoologist arose until Linne was born. In England Linn6 was pre- ceded by Ray, but binomial nomenclature and the first genuine attempt at the classification of animals dates back to the Systema Natures of Linnd, 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 •'^'n^rvurc Tan^ieiuc&raci^ I'ORTRAIT OF LAMARCK LAMARCK THE ZOOLOGIST i8l 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 zoologist in the interval between Linn^ and Lamarck. In France there were only two zoologists of promi- nence when Lamarck assumed his duties at the Mu- seum. These were Bruguifere the conchologist and Olivier the entomologist. In Germany Hermann was the leading systematic zoologist. 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 DoUinger. 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 zoology, un- like that of Linn6, 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 Linnd, 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 l82 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 Rigne 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 Linn6 having LAMARCK THE ZOOLOGIST 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 Linn6, 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, antennae, 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- 1 84 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 zoological 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 zoSlogists Tilesius, Langsdorff, Chamisso, Eschscholtz, and Brandt, all of them of Ger- LAMARCK THE ZOOLOGIST 185 The zoologists 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 Brugui^re, Olivier, Bory de St. Vincent, Pdron, 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 illustrated 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 Bruguifere, 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 a maritime country, at a later date, Humboldt, Spix, Prince Wied- Nieuwied, Natterer, Perty, and others made memorable exploring expeditions and journeys. 1 86 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 zoologi- cal subject by Lamarck was a modest one on shells, which appeared in 1792 in the Journal d' Histoire naturelle, the editors of which were Lamarck, Bru- guifere, Olivier, Haiiy, and Pelletier. This paper was a review of an excellent memoir by Bruguifere, who preceded Lamarck in the work of dismemberment of the Linnaean genera. His next paper was on four new species of Helix. To this Journal, 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 Geoffrey St. Hilaire." In the second article — i.e., on the anatomy of the limpet — Cuvier, in considering the organs, follows no definite plan ; he gives a description " tout-a-fait fantastique " 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 matirielles incon- cevables, mime & Vipoque ou elle fut re'digie." 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 ; " Nous sommes done descendus par degrh, des Ecrevisses aux Squilles,^de celles~ei aux Aselles, puis aux Cloportes, aux Armadilles et aux lules " {Journal d'Hist. nat., torn, ii., p. 29, LAMARCK TBE 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 Tableau Mmen- 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 {^puissamment second^') by Lamarck, who had even indicated the most of the subdivisions established in his Tableau ddmentaire for the insects (Blainville, /. 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 zoological article reserved his strength and elaborated his first general zoological work, a thick octavo volume of 452 pages, entitled Systime des Animaux sans Vertibres, which appeared in 1801. Linnd 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 Mimoires pour servir i I'Histoire et d V Anatomic des MoUusques (1817). 1 88 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WOSK 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 1798. Classification of Lamarck. Classification of Cuvier. I. MoUusca. I. MoUusca. 2. Crustacea. II. Insectes et Vers. 3- Arachnides (com- I. Insectes. prising the Myri- 2. Vers. apoda). III. Zoophytes. 4- Insectes. I. Echinodermes. 5- Vers. 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 {Radiaires^ from the Polypes. His LAMARCK THE ZOOLOGIST 189 "Radiaires" included the Echinoderms (the Vers echinoderms of Bruguifere) and the Medusae (his Ra- diaires molasses"), the latter forming the Discophora and Siphonophora of present zoologists. This is an an- ticipation of the division by Leuckart in 1 839 of the Ra- diata of Cuvier into Coelenterata 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, i.e., 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 c6phal6s and Mollusques ac6phalds being much less natural. With the elimi- nation of the MoUusca, Cuvier allowed the Vers or Vermes of Linn6 to remain undisturbed, except that the Zoophytes, 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 zoologists at the present day. He states in the Philosophie Zoologique \ that in his course of lec- * Tableau iUmentaire de VHistoire naturelle des Animaux. Paris, An VI. (1798). 8vo, pp. 710. With 14 plates, f Tome i., p. 123. igo 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 Discours d'ouverture du Cours des Animaux sans Vertebres, published in 1806. * In his Histoire des Progrh des Sciences naturelles Cuvier takes to Iiimself part of the credit of founding the class Crustacea, stat- ing that Aristotle had already placed them in a class by themselves, and adding;, " MM. Cuvier et de Laviarck les en oni distingu^s par des caracth-es de premier ordre iirh 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 191 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 {Sauche) from which living bodies have descended. From the monad nature passes to the Volvox, Pro- teus (Amoeba), and Vibrio. From them are derived the Polypes rotifires and other " Radiaires," and then the Vers, Arachnides, and Crustacea. On page "JJ a tabular view is presented, as follows : 1 . Les Mollusques. 2. Les Cirrhipedes. 3. Les Annelides. 4. Les Cruslac/s. 5. Les Arachnides. 6. Les Insectes. 7. Les Vers. 8. Les Radiaires. 9. Les Polypes. It will be seen that at this date two additional classes are proposed and defined — i.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 iga 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 {crustac^s)." 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 Thonipson 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 CirrhipMes. Les Annelides. Les Crustac^s. Les Arachnides. Les Insectes. Les Vers. Les Radiaires. Les Polypes. Les Infusoires. At the end of the second volume Lamarck gives a tabular view on a 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 TABLEAU Servant h montrer V origine des differ ens animaux. Vers, Infusoires. Polypes. Radiaires. Annelides. Cirrhipfedes. MoUusques. Insectes. Arachnides. Crustac6s. Poissons. Reptiles, Oiseaux. Monotremes. M. Amphibies. M. Ce'taces. M. Onguicules. ■*3— M. Ongules. 194 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK The next innovation made by Lamarck in the Extrait du Cours de Zoologie, in l8l2, 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, Sensibks, 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, Histoire naturelle des Animaux sans VerVebres {i%ii,~i?,22). 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- pdte's; 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 Coelen- terates, though for over twenty years they have by some American zoologists 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. yj, is the position assigned Lucernaria among his Radiaires molasses near what are now Ctenophora and Medusae, though one would have * See A. Hyatt's Revision of North American Poriferce, Part II. (Boston, 1877, p. 11); also the present writer in his Text-book of Zoology (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 1 81 8 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 Tunicata, following the Sipunculus worms. Yet he allowed them to remain near the Holothurians (then including Sipunculus) in his group of Radiaires 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 all 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 Histoire des Progres 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 Ip6 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK molluscs. . . . M. de 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" (CEuvres 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 preeminent 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, "UNiTEtj 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 Linn6. 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 Animaux sans Vertibres. 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. " I remain, " Yours sincerely, "William H. Dall." CHAPTER XIII 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 Linn6. He died 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- CHARACTER OF BUFFON igg 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 Histoire 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 natveti 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 Vhomme mime," 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 Montb^liard and the Abb6 Bexon for his zoological 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 Reaumur, 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 Reaumur, had no * Mr. Morley, in his Rousseau, 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 P" ranee, 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 laLibraire. " The process was this : a book was submitted to him ; he named a cen- 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 Rousseau, p. 266). EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON 20I 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 Linn6 and other systematists, neither grasping their prin- ciples nor apparently caring to know their methods. His single positive addition to zoological 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. * Histoire naturelle, gMe'rale et parliculihre. 1st edition. Im- primerie royale. Paris : 1749-1804, 44 vols. 4to. Tome iv., p. 357. This is the best of all the editions of Butfon, says Flourens, from whose Histoire des Travaux et des Iddes 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 froifi Buffon translated by Butler in his "Evolution, Old and New" (London, 1879). 202 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK " The species " is then " an abstract and general term." * " There only exist individuals and suites of individuals, that is to say, species. "f He also says that Nature " imprints on each species its unalterable characters ; " that " each species has an equal right to creation \"\ 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, ex Butler), u The volumes of the Histoire naturelle on animals, ^ L. c, tome iv., p. 384 (1753). Thjs is ^h? first volume on the animals below man. f Tome xi., p. 369 (1764). 1 Tome xii., p. 3 (1764). I Tome v., p. 59 (1755). \ Teme xiii., p. vii. (1765). EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFO N 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 beUef in it. . . . 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." f 'In this point he anticipates Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck. As we shall see, however, his notions were much less firmly *Osborn adopts, without warrant Ave 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 £tienne Geoffroy, have not the vigor, exactness, or depth of those of his father. \ 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 D^gindration 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 mufiflon, 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: ^^ " If we consider each species in the different climates which it inhabits we shall find perceptible varieties as regards size and form ; they all derive an impress to a greater or less extent from the climate in which they live. These changes are only made slowly and imperceptibly. Nature's great workman is time. He marches ever with an even pace and does nothing by leaps and bounds, but by degrees, gradations, and succession he does all things ; and the changes which he works — at first imperceptible — become little by little perceptible, and show themselves eventually in results about which there can be no mistake. 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." * ff 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 to a 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.f 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). f Butler, /. t., pp. 145-146. 2o6 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK that is to say, become perfected or degraded, through great changes in the distribution of land and ocean ; througli the cultivation or neglect of the countiy which they inhabit ; through the long-continued effects of climatic changes, so that they are no longer the same animals that they once were. Yet of all living beings after man the quadrupeds are the ones whose nature is most fixed and form most constant ; birds and fishes vary much more easily ; insects still more again than these ; and if we descend to plants, which certainly cannot be excluded from animated nature, we shall be surprised at the readiness with which species are seen to vary, and at the ease with which they change their forms and adopt new natures." * 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 *Tome ix., p. 127, 1761 (ex. Butler). EV0LU7V0NARY VIEtVS OF BUFFO N 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, I inaintain, is in a state of con- tinual flux and movement. It is enough for man if he can grasp her as she is in his own time, and throw but a glance or two upon the past and future, so as to try and perceive what she may have been in form.er 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 sufificient to compensate for excess in any past generation." f " He also adds, " The species the least perfect, the most delicate, the most unwieldy, the least active, the most unarmed, etc., have already disappeared or will disappear." \ '' 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, 1761 {ex Butler). f Tome vi., p. 252, 1756 (quoted from Butler, /. 6., pp. 123-126). \ Quoted from Osborn, who takes it from De Lanessan. 2o8 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK the animal modified, change of condition being the indirect cause. * 'rHe, 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 generahze, 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 glance," 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 th« species themselves ; it is that more ancient modificationiwhich 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." f 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 gradation 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, /. c, p. 122 (from Buffon, tome v., 1755). f 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 it 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." f 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 1753: "Although we cannot demonstrate that the pro- duction of a species by modification is a thing impos- * Tome i., p. 13- t Tome xiv., p. 358. 14 2IO LA MARC a; HIS 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 {d(fge'n^r^), we may likewise say that the monkey is of the same family as man, that it is a modified man, that man and the monkey have had a common origin like the horse and ass, that each family has had but a single source, and even that all the animals have come from a single animal, which in the succession of ages has produced, while perfecting and modifying itself, all the races of other animals " (tome iv., p. 382). " If it were known that in the animals there had been, I do not say several species, but a single one which had been produced by modification from another species ; if it were true that the ass is only a modified horse, there would be no limit to the power of nature, and we would not be wrong in supposing that from a single being she has known how to derive, with time, all the other organized beings " {ibid., p. 382). The next sentence, however, translated, reads as follows : " But no. It is certain from revelation that all ani- mals have alike been favored with the grace of an act EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON 2II of direct creation, and that the first pair of every species issued fully formed from the hands of the Creator " (tome iv., p. 383). In which of these views did Buffon really believe ? Yet they appear in the same volume, and not at dif- ferent periods of his Hfe. He actually does say in the same volume (iv., p. 358): "It is not impossible that all species maybe derivations {issues)." 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 bein^ realized, to change or become perfected by circumstances ; so that, relatively 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 is a type whose principal features are graven in characters forever ineffaceable and permanent. "f 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. f Tome xiii., p. ix. 212 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 lesalt is-^rirat the tentative views of Buffon, whi^^h— haste-to Jae-w-it-h-much research-extraet-ed. from -rt-her-loft-y^f our volume-s- 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 St. Hilaire. Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire was born at Etampes, April 15, 1772. He died in Paris in 1844. He was destined for the church, but his tastes were for a scientific career. His acquaintance with the Abb6 Haiiy and Daubenton led him to study mineralogy. He was the means of liberating Haiiy from a political prison ; the Abb6, as the result of the events of August, 1792, being promptly set free at the request 6i 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 zoology in t. GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE VIEWS OF GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE 21 3 the museum, in charge of the department of mammals and birds. He was the means of securing for Cuvier, then of his own age, a position in the museum as professor-adjunct of comparative anatomy. For two years (1795 and 1796) the two youthful savarrts 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 (i 789-1 802). 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 18 1 8 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. degenerations 214 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK d'un mime 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 " fix^ sous la raison du m.aintien de r^tat conditiomiel de son ^nilieii ambiant." It is modified, it changes, if the environment {milieu ambiant) varies, and according to the extent {selon la port^e) of the variations of the latter.* As the result, among recent or living beings there are no essential differences as regards them — " cest le meme cours d'^vdnements," or "la mime marche d' excitation." \ On the other hand, the monde am,biant 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, X 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. f Ibid. X Sitr i' Influence du Monde ambiant pour modifier les Formes animaux {Mdmoires 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 Hving to-day have been derived by a series of unin- terrupted generations from the extinct animals of the antediluvian world." f 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 esphe antediluvienne primitive." \ It will be seen that Geoffrey St. Hilaire's views were chiefly based on palaeontological evidence. He was throughout broad and philosophical, and his eloquent demonstration in his Philosophie anatomiqiie 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 V Organisation des Gavials {Memoires du Museum d' Histoire naturelle, xii., p. 97 (1825). f Sur I' Influence du Monde ambiant, p. 74. \ Dictionnaire de la Conversation, xxxi., p. 487, 1836 (quoted by I. Geoffroy St. Hilaire); Histoire nat. gin. des Rhgnes organiques, ii., 2= partie ; also Rdsumi, p. 30 (1859). CHAPTER XIV 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 The 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 Zoonomia, which was published in two volumes in 1794, and translated into German in 1795-99. He was not a zoologist, 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 Zoonomia, * 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. VIS IV S OF ERASMUS DARWIN 217 nomia, 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 Natural 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. " It is curious," he says in the ' Historical Sketch ' of the Origin of Species—" it is curious how largely my grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, anticipated the views and erroneous grounds of opinion of Lamarck in his Zoonomia (vol. i., pp. 500-510), published in 1794." It seems a 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 Erasmus Darwin may thus be sum- marily stated : I. 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 ' Athenaeum,' March, 1875, p. 423." 21 8 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). Only a 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 great 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 Hmbs, many of these enormities of shape are propagated and con- tinued as a variety, at least, if not as a new species of animal. I have seen a breed of cats with an additional claw on every foot ; of poultry also with an additional 220 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 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 221 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 {Fringilla carduelis), are fur- 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 stated by Dr. Darwin in his earlier book, The loves of the Plants, and, as Krause states, though Rflsel von Rosenhof in his Insekten-Belusti- gungeti (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." 222 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK tables seem consequent to the other properties of the materials which possess them " {The Loves of the Plants, p. 38, note). In his Zoonomia (§ xxxix., vi.) Darwin also speaks of the 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 greenish, 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. He adds : " The final cause of their 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 DAS WIN 223 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). 9. 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, Vl 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 oesophagus must be formed previous to the sensation or appetites of hunger and thirst^ {Zoonomia, p. 222). Again (Zoonomia, 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 22% 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 Evolution^ 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. Dar«'in's poem, The 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 zoSlogist. 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 CHAPTER XV 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. Buflon, 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 CH4NGE? 227 and patronage in early life, frequenting his house, and was for a time the travelling companion of Buf- fon's son: 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 Halier, Bonnet, or by the philosophic views of Con- dillac, whose Essai sur V Origine des Connaissances humaincs appeared in 1 786 ; or of Condorcet, whom he must personally have known, and whose Esquisse d'un Tableau historique des Progres de r Esprit hu- mainvfSis published in 1794?! 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 to deny the fixity of specfes ? 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. f 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." — Rousseau, 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 zoologi- 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 _ .O , ST -.^11 II— 1 III -^"^ species," * but the use ot the word " partisan " appears to be quite incorrect, as he only in one instance ex- presses such views. / The only place where we iiave 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 1704. The treatise was actually presented April 22, ij78p, to the Academic des Sciences.f 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 Philosophic zoologique : " 685. Although my sole object in this article [article premier, p. 188] has only been to treat of the * Butler's JSvolation, Old and Mezo (p. 244), and Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire's Histoire naturelle g/n^rale, tome ii. , p. 404 (1859). f 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 From the Greeks to Darwin, p. 152, and reference to Huxley's Evolution in Biology, 1878 (" Darwiniana," p. 2lo), where the paragraphs translated above are quoted in the original. WHEN DID LAMARCK'S VIEWS CHANGE? 229 physical cause of the maintenance of Ufa of organic beings, still I have ventured to urge at the outset that the existence of these astonishing beings by no means depends on nature ; that all which is meant by the word nature cannot give life — namely, that all the faculties of matter, added to all possible circum- stances, and even to the a-clivity 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 (c^j vari^tds ne dinaturent 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 Mdmoires de Physique et d'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 hi& 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 species were constant in nature, and that they were constituted by the individuals which belong to each of them. I am now convinced that I was in error in this respect, and that in reality only 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 Systhne des Animaux sans Vertibres (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 parenth,esis: "Dans mes legons j' ai touj'ours insiste sur ces considerations." Are we to infer from WHEN DID LAMARCK'S VIEWS CHANGE? 23 1 this that these evolutionary views were expressed in his first course, or in one of the earlier courses of zoological lectures — i.e., soon after his appointment in 1793 — and if not then, at least one or two, or perhaps several, years before the year 1800? 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. ' CHAPTER XVI THE STEPS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LAMARCK'S VIEWS ON EVOLUTION BEFORE THE PUBLICA- TION OF HIS PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE I. From the Systime des Animaux sans Vertibres{\%oi). 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 Systbme des Animaux sans Vertibres, this being the first sketch or prodromus of his later great work on the invertebrate animals. In the preface of this book, referring to the opening lecture, he says : " I 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- * Discoiirs d''ouverture du Cours de Zoologie donni dans le Mushun national d^ Histoire natureUe^ le '2.\ jlpr^al^ an& de la j^/publiqiie {1%0laced, which have, with time, brought 244 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK about the form of its body, the number and condition of its organs, finally the faculties which it possesses. "Time and favorable circumstances are the two principal means which nature employs to give 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 {besoin) and which she employs every day to bring about variations in all that she continues to produce, we can say that they are in her in some degree 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 meansi^^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- t served and propagate themselves by generation " ,{Systhne des Animaux salts Vertibres, p. 12). " It is easy for any one to see that the habit of exercising an organ in every living being which has not reached the term of diminution of its faculties 1 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- Lamarck:' s theory of evolution 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 a long time or made habitually by certain parts of a living body, to satisfy the needs called out \exig^s) by nature or by circumstances, develop these parts and cause them to acquire dimensions and a form which they never would have obtain^^fcf these efforts had not become an habitual action^w 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 becorne 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. " It results from this that multiplied repetitions of these acts of organization strengthen, extend, develop, and even create the organs which afe 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 charvge acquired in an organ by habitual use sufificient to have formed {op&i) it is preserved by generation, if it is comrnon to the in- dividuals which unite in the reproduction of their 246 LAMARCK, ms LIFE AND WORIC 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 {g^n&ation). " You can now understand how, by such means and an inexhaustible diversity of circumstances, nature, with sufficient lengj^fcof time, has been able to and should produce all^rcse results. " If 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 Lac^pfede, 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 zoological 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 Hfe, and all the other influential circumstances which have with time produced the form of the bodies and organs of animals. With new forms new faculties have been acquired, and gradually nature has arrived at the state where we actually see it. " Finally as it is only at that extremity of the animal kingdom where occur the most simply 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 arid 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 {usage) 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 provps 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 — " I. What really is life. " 2. How nature herself creates the first traces of organization in appropriate groups where it had not existed. ■y " 3. How the organic or vital movement is excited by it and held together with the aid of a stimulating and active cause which she has at her disposal in abundance in certain climates and in certain seasons of the year. " 4. Finally, how this organic movement, by the 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. " I have for a long time thought that species were constant in nature, and that they were constituted by the individuals which belong to each of them. " I am now convinced that I was in error in this respect, and that in reality only individuals exist in nature. " The origin of this error, which I have shared with many naturalists who still hold it, arises from the long duration, in relation to us, of the satne 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 oi 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 ; * in a 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- * I have cited the incontestable proofs in ray HydrogSologie, 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- ization and its form. I " 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 {gdn^ratioti). 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. " I very well know that to our eyes there seems in this respect a stability 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 {Phcenicopterus) 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 stability of things in nature will always be taken for reality by the average of mankind, because in general it judges everything only relatively to itself. " But, I repeat, this consideration which has given rise to the admitted error owes its source io 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 S *2 S-rt ^ a; m £ C « ;= o >< < • 0) ^ a %^ •O *- -'O flj -« wzj en ^-^.a a "-S-S Kgs3 E.S-S .fags " ...S o ■ss-sa' "2Bl V ^ o 3^ 00 I" to h .S !>-i5 0. «j K *3 M a u j3 : lis o u u b«iH.3 o 3 2 .9 a rt o bj" B ! flj u> 3 J o o « b in '■gS"S2-5!i2 "a " p- o -a SCO) ~o , w tn.S >'^r^ rt ittj v 4^ oj u O j:; o o-aSf H "U rt.2 n] OJ C< O " s. b£,a O ri C oni 10 > w I- 0) C ?■ rt QDtn a i> o o rt ^ etc S o O •S 2? "5. .5 a pi's « ^i *i !* . ■2 "5 "-Sao « t^iS "1 S is rt "S "i-" ° I- u u Oji !>.= ■"_, « 1 be u Sj :e.Eoa ■■ca-gs ;eo££ Q M ^S °i 3 "" &" •a fc, 3 § ■sse rt oj O *^ ■ip °-P a 3.5t) S O U.n U S O ™'r: o 5 ™ 05 -e. a tflv^ p . bflw o — m ra m u mm 53bi.2-s.S ■a rt ' u bo^ yog bJ943 M u to 3.^ *J ".2 o 2 u *:; a tj'u tj W w 2030 O O'Zj as osa o SSua£"5!'2 „^a.2-3-5'g "e>-aa'aMa CHAPTER XVIIl 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 Philosophie zoologique, 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. In 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. 358 LAMARCK, BIS 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 igtioratice 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 tiie fads 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 tlian 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 LAMARCK, 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. " Such is, in fact, the fatality attached to the destiny of man that, with the exception of a small number of individuals who live under favorable though special circumstances, the multitude, forced to continually busy itself with providing for its needs, remains permanently deprived of the knowl- edge which it should acquire; in general, exercises to a very slight extent the organ of its intelligence; preserves and propagates a multitude of prejudices which enslave it, and cannot be as happy as those who, guiding it, are themselves guided by reason and justice. " As to the animals, besides the fact that they in descending order have the brain less developed, they are otherwise proportionally more limited in the means of exercising and of varying their intellectual processes. They each exercise them only on a single or on some special points, on which they become more or less expert according to their species. And while their degree of organization remains the same and the nature of their needs (besoins) does not vary, they can never extend the scope of their 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 OAT THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 36 1 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. " The sole acts of variation, i.e., the only acts which rise above the limits of habits, and which we see performed in animals whose organization allows them to, are acts of imitation. 1 only speak of actions which they perform voluntarily or freely {actions qu'ils font de leur plein gr^). " 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 tlaese 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 with a greater variety of objects with which to exercise their brain. It will doubtless be said: But although man may be a true mammal in his general structure, and although among the mammals the Quadrumana are most nearly allied to him, this will not be denied, not only that man is strongly distinguished from the Quadrumana by a great superiority of intelligence, but he is also very considerably so in several structural features which characterize him. " First, the occipital foramen being situated 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 363 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. " I appreciate all these reasons, and I see that man, although near the Quadrumana, is so distinct that he alone represents a separate order, belonging to a single genus and species, offering, however, many different varieties. This order may be, if it is desired, that of the Bimatia. 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 beeft gradually acquired at the close of a long period of time, with the aid of circumstances which have proved favorable ? * What a subject for reflection for those who have the courage to enter into it ! " If 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, " I have not observed the situation of the occipital opening of the jacko or orang-outang (Simla 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 are already much shorter than the other digits, would gradually cease to be placed in opposition to the other toes, and to be useful in grasping. The 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 Grandpre on the habits of the chimpanzee. It is not of sufifi- cient importance to be here reproduced. Seven years after the publication of these views, * " How much this unclean beast resembles man !" — Ennius. " Indeed, besides other resemblances the monkey has mamm3e, u 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 ! " — Linnceus. VIEWS ON THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 365 Lamarck again returns to the subject in his Philoso- phie zoologique, which we translate. " Some Observations Relative to Man. " If man were distinguished from the animals by his structure alone, it would be easy to show that the structural characters which place him, with his varieties, in a family by himself, are all the product of former changes in his actions, and in the habits which he has adopted and which have become special to the individuals of his species. " Indeed, if any race whatever of Quadrumana, especially the most perfect, should lose, by the 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 Bimana, and that the thumbs of their feet would cease to be shorter than the fingers, their feet only being of use for walking. " Moreover, if the individuals of which I speak were impelled by the necessity of rising up and of looking far and wide, of endeavoring to stand erect, and of adopting this habit constantly from 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: " I. That 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 preeminence {lui disputer les biens de la terre) and that it wiil 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. That, finally, this preeminent race having acquired an absolute supremacy over all the others, there arose between it and the highest animals a difference and indeed a considerable interval. " Thus the most perfect race of Quadrumana will VIEWS ON THE EVOLUTION OF MAN itj 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 (Siniia troglodytes Lin.) is the highest animal; it is much more perfect than the orang of the Indies [Simla 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 368 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK during a limited time and with the aid of the con- traction of several of his muscles. " If the vertebral column of the human body should form the axis of this body, and sustain the head in equilibrium, as also the other parts, the man standing would be in a state of rest. But who does not know that this is not so ; that the head is not articulated at its centre of gravity; that the chest and stomach, as also the viscera which these cavities contain, weigh heavily almost entirely on the 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- garding 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 surj^ender themselves to their proper forces; they stand subject to frequent falls and have a nat- ural tendency to revert to the quadrupedal state.' {Physiologic, 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 a very considerable extent multiplied their necessities in proportion as the societies which they formed became more numerous, were able equally to increase their ideas, and consequently to feel the need of communicating them to their fellows. We conceive that there would arise the necessity of 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 signs which their ideas and their numerous wants would render necessary. " It is not so with any other animals; because, although the most perfect among them, such as the Quadrumana, live mostly in troops, since the 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 signs which they employ among their fellows, so that some movements of the body or of certain of its parts, certain hisses and cries raised by the simple inflexions of the voice, suffice them. " On the contrary, the individuals of the dominant race already mentioned, having had need of multi- plying the signs for the rapid communication of their ideas, now become more and more numerous, and, no longer contented either with pantomimic signs or possible inflexions of their voice to represent this multitude of signs now become necessary, would succeed by different efforts in forming articulated sounds : at first they would use only a small number, conjointly with the inflexions of their voice; as the result they would multiply, vary, and perfect them, according to their increasing necessities, and 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. " Then in this respect necessities alone would have accomplished everything; they would give origin to efforts; and the organs fitted for the articulation of sounds would be developed by their habitual use. " Such would be the reflections which might be made if man, considered here as the preeminent race in question, were distinguished from the animals only by his physical characters, and if his origin were not different from theirs." VIEWS ON THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 371 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. CHAPTER XIX 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 a very 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 RELA TION 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 self-assertion. The quotations from his Pkilosophie zoologique, published in i8og, 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 ! Had 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 estabHshed 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 ^tablit la part de la science et de la religion ; cela vaut, mieux, m^me en tenant compte 374 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK des differences d'epoques, que les abjurations de Buff on. " * 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." f 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 fran9ais Lamarck,'' Bulletin de la SocUie d^ Anthropologic de Pay-is, xii., l88g, p. 345. f Philosophie zoologique, p. 56. i Loc. cit., i., p. 113. RE LA TION BE T WEEN SCIENCE A ND 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 totahty 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." f Lamarck's work on general philosophy:]: was writ- ten near the end of his life, in 1820. He begins his " Discours pr^liminaire " 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. * Loc. cit., i., p. 361. f Loc. cit., ii., p. 465. X Systime analytique des Connaissances de V Homme, etc. 376 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 {inouvement), 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 grounded. But it is not so ; we distinctly see that there exists an order of things truly created (v^ritableinent creY), 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 RELA TION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION ^yy name of nature. The Supreme Author of all that exists is, then, the immediate creator of matter as also of nature, but he is only indirectly the creator of what nature can produce. " The end that God has proposed to himself in creating matter, which forms the basis of all bodies, and nature, which divides {divise) this matter, forms the bodies, makes them vary, modifies them, changes them, and renews them in different ways, can be easily known to us ; for the Supreme Being cannot meet with any obstacle to his will in the execution of his works ; the general results of these works are necessarily the object he had in view. Thus this end could be no other than the existence of nature, of which matter alone forms the sphere, and should not be that causing the creation of any special being. " Do we find in the two objects created, i.e., mat- ter and nature, the source of the good and evil which have almost always been thought to exist in the events of this world ? To this question I shall 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 {pr^vu), 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 afifirm- atively or negatively on this subject. " What is a spiritual being ? It is what, with the aid of the imagination, one would naturally suppose {I'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 {itres): 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 {itres). 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 [i.e., supreme power] is to our minds. To create, or to make anything out of nothing, this is an idea we cannot conceive of, for the reason that in all that we can know, we do not find any model which 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 Philoso- RELA TION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION 379 phie 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 zoology 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- RELA TION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION 38 1 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 ' CHAPTER XX 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 383 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 naturally 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 physico-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 zoology, 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- *VoI. ii., p. 167, 1S71. NEOLAMARCKISM 385 tion of the vertebral column and the segnaental 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.f 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 sufificient 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 *Vol. ii., p. 195. fVol. i., §l66, p. 456. \ The Factors of Organic Evolution, 1895, p. 460. 25 386 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK Selection. The one is so completely and directly proved by the other, and established by mechanical causes, that there remains nothing to be desired. The laws of Inheritance and Adaptation are univer- sally acknowledged physiological facts, the former traceable to propagation, the latter to the nutrition of organisms. On the other hand, the struggle for existence is a biological fact, which with 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 * Schdpfungsgeschichte, 1868. The History of Creation, New York, ii., p. 355. f Alcide d'Orbigny, PaUontologie franfaise, 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 palaeon- * 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,-]- 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." X While the palaeontological facts afford complete and abundantLjjroofs 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. f Palitontologica Indica. Jurassic Fauna of Kutch. I. Cephalopoda, pp. 242-243. (See Hyatt's Genesis of Ihe Arietida, pp. 27, 42.) if "Genera of Fossil Cephalopods," Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., xxii., April 4, 1883, p. 265. §" Revision of the North American Poriferce." Memoirs Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., ii., partiv., 1877. NEOLAMARCKISM 389 Mr. A. Agassiz remarks that the effect of 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 chiefly on the am- monites, molluscs, and existing sponges, Cope was meanwhile at work on the batrachians. His Origin 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 palaeontological work, which are in part reprinted in his Origin of the Fittest (1887); while in his epoch-making book. The Primary Factors of Or- ganic Evolution (1896), we have in a 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." f * Three Cruises of the ''Blake" 1888, ii., p. 158. f The earliest paper in which he adopted the Lamarckian doctrines 390 LAMARCK, BIS LIFE AND IVOHHT 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.f 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 " | 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' Encyclopcudia, 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. X Printed in advance, being chapter xiii. 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 in 1877,* we wrote as follows: " In the production of these cave species, the ex- ceptional phenomena of darkness, want of sufificient food, and unvarying temperature, have been plainly enough vera causce. 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 merit ' of the organism undergoing modificj^tion ; and thus a form of Lamarckianism, greatly modified by recent scientific discoveries, seems to meet most of the difiSculties 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- ica,'^' 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 antennae or palpi, as a compensation for blindness," we then summed up as follows the causes of the production of cave faunas in general: " I. 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- * Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, iv. , 188S, pp. 156; 27 plates. See also American Naturalist, Sept., 1888, xxii. , p. 808, and Sept., 1894, xxviii., p. 333. NEOLAMAKCKISM 393 of-door forms, thus insuring the permanency of the new varieties, species, or genera. "5. Heredity, operating to secure for the future the permanence of the newly originated forms as long as the physical conditions remain the same. " Natural selection perhaps expresses the total result of the working of these five factors rather than being an efficient cause in itself, or at least constitutes the last term in a series of causes. Hence Lamarckism in a modern form, or as we have termed it, Neolamarckism, seems to us to be nearer the truth than Darwinism proper or natural 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, f we had not then read what he says on the subject. (Seep. 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, " ubi irritatio, ibi affluxus," we came to the following conclusions : *Carl H. Eigenman, in his elaborate memoir. The Eyes of the Blind Vertebrates of North America {Archiv fiir Entwickelungs- mechanik der Organismen, iSgg, 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). f " 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 (i) change (both direct and indirect) in the milieu, (2) need, and (3) habit, and the now generally adopted principle that a change of function induces change in organs,* 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. " I. 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 sd.y possibly] primarily due to a change of station from herbs to trees, involving better air, a more equable temperature, perhaps a different and better food. " 3. The enlarged and specialized tubercles 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 Experi- mentale, Cours du College de France," Revue Scienti/itjue, 2°"= serie, iv., p. 8l8. (Function makes the organ, especially in the osseous and muscular systems, ) See also A. Dohrn : £>er Ursprung der Wiebel- thiere und das Princip des Functionswechsels, Leipzig, 1875. See also Lamarck's opinion, p. 295. NEOLAMARCKISM 35)5 (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: " In 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, vii., 1895, p. 33. 396 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. " It 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 1S85, 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 397 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 rehed 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, palaeontology, zoogeography, 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 plants, 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 vera 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 environment 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 Xhi. 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 in a 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. It is the expression, like that 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 3gg 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 ■■kQplicitly to the supposed vera causa, one may close hisisyes 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, Studies in the Theory of Descent* {12,7s), 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. NEOLAMARCKISM 401 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 bur 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. Zoal., 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 our continent. 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- 543~56o. See also the author's mono- graph of Geometrid Moths or Phalsenidse of the United States, 1876, pp. 584-589, and monograph of Bombycine Moths (Notodontidae), 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:j: 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 if the direct action of the environ- * Proceedings Academy of Natural Science, Philadelphia (1877), p. 318. f Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (1889), p. 546. X Transactions American Philosophical Society, xvi. (1890), and later papers. % American Journal of Morphology (1891), pp. 395, 398. 404 LAMARCK, HIS 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. ... So far as 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." * " Cber die Darwinische Theorie in Eesug auf die geographische Verbreitung der Organismen." Sitzenb. der Akad. Munchen, 1868. Translated by J- L. Laird under the title, The Darwinian Theory and the Law of the Migration of Organisms . London, 1873. Also Ueber den Einfluss der geographischen Isolirung and Colonierbildung auf die morphologischen Verdnderungen der Organismen. MUnchen, 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 " f (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,:]: 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 * Linnaan Society' s Journal : Zoblogy, xi., 1872. \ Linncean Society 5 Journal : Zoblogy, xx., 1887, pp. 189-274, 496-505 ; also Nature, July 18, 1872. X Evolution without Natural Selection ; or. The Segregation of Spe- cies without the aid of the Darwinian Hypothesis, London (1885), pp. 1-80. 4o6 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 Delboeuf'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. // 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 milieu, shows us the necessary and sufificient condition under which a variety or species originates without the aid of any secondary factor." Semper, f an eminent zoologist and morphologist, * Revue Scientifique, xix. (1877), p. 66g. Quoted by Giard in Rev. Set., i88g, p. 646. f Animal Life as Affected by the Natural Conditions of Existence. By Karl Semper. The International Scientific Series. New York, i88i. 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 efiScient 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 such a change. Then the influence exerted by the changed conditions will be transforming, not selective. " This last view may seem somewhat bold to those readers who know that Darwin, in his theory of selection, has almost entirely set aside the direct transforming influence of external circumstances. Yet he seems latterly to be disposed to admit that he had undervalued the transforming as well as the selective influence of external conditions; and it seems to me that his objection to the idea of such an influence rested essentially on the method of his argument, which seemed indispensable for setting his theory of selection and his hypothesis as to the transformation of species in a clear light and on a firm footing" (p. 37). 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). In a later paper f 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 it is not, " for," he strangely enough says, " Lamarck ascribed no efificiency 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, 1890. \ On Orthogenesis and the Impotence of Natural Selection in Species Formation. Chicago, i8g8. NEOLAMARCKISM 4O9 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 Rimer's pupil, Piepers,* who explains organic evolution by " laws of growth, . . . un- controlled by any process of selection." Dr. Cunningham likewise, in the preface to his translation of Elmer's work, gives his reasons for adopting Neolamarckian views, concluding that " the theory of selection can never get over the difificulty 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. Kukenthal 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. 4IO 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 Schroederf on the markings of caterpillars, which he ascribes to the colors of the surroundings; of Fischer ;}: 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.^ 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." Novitates Zoologiccs, iii. Tring, 1896. \ Sntwicklung der Raupcnzeichnung und Abhdngigkeit der letzeren von der Farbe der Umgebung, 1894. \ Transmutation der Schmetterlinge infolge Temperatur-verdnder- ungen, 1895. § Ueber den Einfluss der Temperatur hei der Erzeugung der Schmetterli7Zgs-varietaten, 1 880. II Ueber Farbenwechsel bei niederen Wirbelthieren, bedingt durck directe Wirkung des Lichts auf die Pigmentzellen. Centralhlatt fur Physiologie, 1891, v., p. 326. T[ Ueber den Farbenwechsel der Frosche. Pfluger's Archiv fiir Physiologic, i8g2, li., p. 455. ** Lefon d' Ouverture du Qours de V Evolution des £tres organises, Paris, 1888, and " Les Facteurs de VEvoXution.," 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 par I'histoire tant de fois critique du cou de la giraffe et des cornes de I'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 gastrjea, 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- 412 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 it, " Un animal finit toujours par possdder un organe quand il le veut." " Such," says Perrier,t " is not 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 {besoins), 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," etc. (See p. 350.) " Many cases," says Perrier, " may be added to- day to those which Lamarck has cited to support his first law [pp. 303, 346] ; the only point which is open to discussion is the extent of the changes which an organ may undergo, through the use it is put to by the animal. It is a simple question of measurement. The possibility of the creation of an organ in conse- * Revue Encyclopedique, 1897, p. 325. Yet we have an example of the appearance 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.) ■j- La Philosophie Zoologique avant Darwin, Paris, 1884, p. 76; NEOLAMARCKISM 4 1 3 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 means of wants. It is incontestable that by lack of exercise organs atrophy and disappear." Finally, says Perrier: " Without doubt the real mechanism of the improvement {perfectionnemetit) 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). Dr. J. A. Jeffries, 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 * " Lamarckism and Darwinism." Proceedings Boston Society- Natural History, xxv., l8go, 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 Physiology 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, " in the * " The Origin of Species without the Aid of Natural Selection," Natural Science, Oct., 1894. Also, " The Origin of Plant Structures. " NEOLA MARCKISM 4 1 5 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 new conditions; . . . that in the successive generations these changes con- tinue until ultimately the new conditions become the natural ones. . . . 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 influente which, though slow in its action, does in time, if the circumstances de- mand it, produce marked changes.' " f Mr. Henslow adduces observations and experi- ments by Buckman, Bailey, Lesage, LotheHer, Cos- * " Does Natural Selection play any Part in the Origin of Species among Plants?" Natural Science, Sept., 1897. f " Essay on the Development Hypothesis," 1852, London Times. 4l6 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 direct influence of the milieu, or environment. Such are Viet,f and Scott Elliot, :j: 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," Linnean Society Journal : Botany, i8g2, /. c, 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. 517)- f_"De I'lnfluence du Milieu sur la Structure anatopiique des Vegetaux," Ann. Sci. Nat. Bot., ser. 6, xii., 1881, p. 167. i " Notes on the Regional Distribution of the Cape Flora," Trans- actions Botanical Society, Edinburgh, 1891, p. 241. S^Les Vigdtaux et les Milieux cosmiques , Paris, 1898, pp. 292. NEOLAMARCKISM A^7 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. . . . It is probable that since the initiation of life upon the planet no two organisms have ever been subjected to exactly the same dynamic influences during their development. . . . The reactions of the organism against the physical forces and mechanical properties of its environment are 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, i8go. 27 4i8 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WOKK 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 {Mya 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 thePelecypoda," Memoirs Boston Society Natural History, iv. , l8go, pp. 277-400. Also, American Naturalist, 1891, XXV., pp. 1 1-2 1. 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. S., 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 Ostreidas, 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 Text-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 Text-book of Entomology {\%(^'S)\i^.s2X\.e:TCiT^X.&A 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. Pfefferf opposes the efificacy of natural selec- tion, as do C. Emery:}: and O. Hertwig. The essence of Hertwig's The Biological Problem of To-day (1894) is that " in obedience to different external influ- * Der Kamff der Theile itn Organismus. Leipzig, 1881. Also Gesammelie Abhandlungeii uber Entwickelungsmechanik der Organis- men. Leipzig, iSgg. t Die Unwandlung der A rten ein Vorgang functiqneller Selbs- gestaltung. Leipzig, 1894. \ Gedanken zur Descendenz- -und Vererbungstheorie : Biol. Cen- Irallilall, 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 Theories sur r He'rMit^, 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.-f Danilewsky,:j: Verworn,§ Davenport, | Gadow,T[ and others. In his address on " Neod4rwinism and Neola- marckism," Mr. Lester F. Ward, the palaeobotanist, says: " I 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 * Eniwickelungmecanische Studien, 1892-93. \ Experimental Evoliction, 1892 ; also, " Recherches sur le Nanisme experimental," /.?«;•«. Anat. et Phys., 1894. X " Ueber die organsplastisclien Krafte der Organismen," Arbeit, nat. Ges., Petersburg, xvi., 1885 ; Protok, 79-S2. § General Physiology, 1 899. \Experi7nental Morphology, 1897-99, 2 vols. i[ " 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, The Lost Link, by E. Haeckel, with notes, etc., by H. Gadow, 1899. 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." f * Proceedings Biological Society of Washington, vi., 1892, pp. 13, 19. \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 franfaise ou description succinte de toutes les plantes qui croissent naturellement en France, disposees seloti una nouvelle me- thode d'analyse et a laquelle on a joint la citation de leurs vertus les moins equivoques en me'decine et de leur utilite dans les arts. Paris (Impr. Nationale), 1778. 8vo, 3 vol. Vol. I. Ext. du Rapport fait par MM. Duhamet et Guettard de cet ouvrage. pp. 1-4. Discours preliminaire. pp. i-cxix. Principes elementaires de Botanique. pp. 1-223. Methode analytique. — Plantes cryptogames. pp. 1-132, viii, pi. Vol. II. Methode analytique. — Plantes adultes, ou dont les fleurs sont dans un etat de developpement parfait. pp. iv, 684. Vol. III. Methode analytique. pp. 654, x. Idem. 26 edit. Paris, 1793. (1805-1S) Flore fran9aise ou description succinte de toutes les plantes qui croissent naturellement en France, disposees selon une nouvelle me- thode d'analyse, et precedees par un expose des principes elementaires de la Botanique. (En collaboration avec A. P. de CandoUe). Edition III. Paris (Agasse), 1805. 4 vol., 8vo. Vol. I. Lettre de M. de CandoUe a M. Lamarck, pp. xv. Discours preliminaire. (Reimpression de la ire edit.) pp. i-5o. Principes elementaires de Botanique. pp. 61-224. * Prepared by M. G. Malloisel, with a few titles added by the author. 426 BIBLIOGRAPHY , , , , , , . I analyse des genres, pp. 1-76. Methode analytique : S , , , oq , ( analyse des especes. pp. 77-300, 10 pi. Vol. II. Explication de la Carte botanique de France, pp. i-xii. Plantes acotyledonees. pp. l-6oo. Carte coloriee. Vol. III. Monocotyledonees phanerogames. pp. 731. Vol. IV. " " pp. 944. Meme edition, augmentee du tome 5 et tome 6, contenant 1300 especes non decrites dans les cinq premiers volumes. Paris (Desray), 1815. 8vo, pp. 622. Lettre de M. A. P. de CandoUe k M. Lamarck, pp. 10. 1783 Dictionnaire botanique. — (En Encyclopedic methodique. Paris, in 4to.) I, 1783 ; II, 1786 ; pour le Ille volume, 1789, Lamarck a e'te aide 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. Encyclopedie method. : Botanique. 8 vols, et suppl. 1^3, avec 900 pi. 1784 Memoire sur un nouveau genre de plante nomme Brucea, et sur le faux Bresillet d'Amerique. Mem. Acad, des Sci. 21 Janvier 1784. pp. 342-347- 178S Memoire sur les classes les plus convenables i etablir parmi les vegetaux et sur I'analogie de leur nombre avec celles determinees dans le rigne animal, ayant egard de part et d'autre k la perfection graduee des organes. (De la classification des vegetaux.) Mem. Acad, des Sci. 1785. pp. 437-453. 1788 Memoire sur le genre du Muscadier, Myristica. Mem. Acad, des Sci. 1788. pp. 148-168, pi. v.-ix. 1790 Memoire sur les cabinets d'histoire naturelle, et particulierement sur celui du Jardin des Plantes; contenant I'exposition du regime et de I'ordre qui conviennent a cet etablissement, pour qu'il soit vraiment utile. (No imprint.) 4to, pp. 15. Considerations en faveur du Chevalier de la Marck, ancien ofificier au Regiment de Beaujolais, de I'Academie Royale des Sciences; Bota- BIBLIOGRAPHY 427 niste du Roi, attache au Cabinet d'Histoire Naturelle. [Paris] 1790. 8vo, pp. 7. 1791 Instruction aux voyageurs autour du monde, sur les observations les plus essentielles a faire en botanique. See. Philom. (Bull.) Paris, 1791, pp. 8. Illustrations des genres, ou exposition des caractires de tous les genres de plantes etablis par les botanistes (Encyclopedie methodique): I, 1791; II, 1793; III, 1800, avec goo planches. (Le supplement, qui constitue le tome IV, 1823, est de Poiret.) Extrait de la flore fran9aise. Paris, 1792. I vol. in-8vo. Tableau encyclopedique et methodique des trois r^gnes de la nature. Botanique continuee par J. L. M. Poiret. Paris (Panckoucke), 1791- 1823. Text, 3 V. ; Pis. , 4 V. (Encyclopedie methodique.) 4to. Tableau encyclopedique et methodique des trois regnes de la nature. MoUusques testaces (et polypes divers). Paris (Panckoucke) [etc.], 1791-1816. Text (3), 180 pp. Pis. 2 v. (Encyclopedie methodique.) 4to. Idem. Continuator Brugui^re, Jean Guillaume. Histoire naturelle des vers. Par Bruguiere [et J. B. P. A. de Lamarck ; continuee par G. P. Deshayes]. Paris (Panckoucke) [etc.], 1792-1832, 3 v. (Encyclopedie methodique.) 4to. 1792 Journal d'Histoire naturelle, r^dige par MM. Lamarck, Bruguiere, Olivier, Hauy et Pelletier. Tomes I, II. PI. 1-24, 25-40. Paris (Impr. du Cercle social), 1792. In-8vo, 2 vol. Le meme, sous le titre : Choix de memoires sur divers objets d'his- toire naturelle, par Lamarck ; formant les collections du Journal d'Hist. nat. 3 vol. in-8vo, tires de format in-4to, dont le 3me con- tient 42 pi. Paris (Imprim. du Cercle social), 1792. Nota. — Tous les exemplaires de cet ouvrage que Ton rencontre sont incomplets. Un exemplaire de format in-8vo, provenant de la Bibliotheque Cuvier (et qui se trouve i la Bibliothique du Museum), contient les pages 320 a 360 ; 8 pages copiees a la main terminent le volume, dont on connait complet un seul exemplaire. Sur I'histoire naturelle en general. Sur la nature des articles de ce journal qui concement 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 pi. i). Journ. d'Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 1-19. (Ce recueil porte aussi le titre suivant: Choix de memoires sur divers objets d'Histoire natu- relle, par MM. Lamarck, Bruguiere, Olivier, Hauy et Pelletier.) Sur le Calodendron (Calodendron Capense), pp. 56, pi. 3. Journ. d'Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 56-62. Philosophie botanique. Journ. d'Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 81-92. (Dans cet article I'auteur donne la description de : Mimosa obliqua. pp. 89, pi. 5.) Sur les travaux de Linne. Journ. d'Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 136- 144. (L'auteur conclut que tout ce que fit Linnaeus pour la botanique, il le fit aussi pour la zoologie ; et ne donna pas moins de preuves de son genie en traitant le r^gne mineral, quoique dans cette partie de I'histoire naturelle il fut moins heureux en principes et en conve- nances dans les rapprochements et les determinations, que dans les deux autres r^gnes.) Sur une nouvelle e'sp^ce de Vantane. Ventanea parviflora. p. 145, pi. 7. Journ. d'Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 144-148. Exposition d'un nouveau genre de plante nomme Drapetes. Dra- petes muscosus et seq. p. 189, pi. 10, fig. i. Journ. d'Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 1-190. Sur le Phyllachne. Phyllachne uliginosa. p. 192, pi. 10, fig. 2. Journ. d'Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 190-192. Sur I'Hyoseris Virginica. p. 222, pi. 12. Journ. d'Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 222-224. Sur le genre des Acacies ; et particulierement sur I'Acacie hetero- phille. Mimosa heterophylla. p. 291, pi. 15. Journ. d'Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 288-292. Sur les Systemes et les Methodes de Botanique et sur I'Analyse. Journ. d'Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 300-307. Sur une nouvelle espece de Grassette. Pinguicula campanulata. p. 336, pi. 18, fig. I. Journ. d'Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 334-338. Sur I'etude des rapports naturels. Journ. d'Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 361-371. Sur les relations dans leur port ou leur aspect, que les plantes de certaines contrees ont entre elles, et sur une nouvelle espAce d'Hy- drophylle. Hydrophyllum Magellanicum. p. 373, pi. 19. Journ. d'Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 371-376. Notice sur quelques plantes rares ou nouvelles, observees dans I'Amerique Septentrionale par M. A. Michaux ; adressee i la Societe d'Histoire naturelle de Paris par l'auteur ; et redigee avec des obser- BIBLIOGRAPHY 429 vations. Canna flava — Pinguicula lutea — Ilex Americana — Ilex aasti- valis — Ipomaea rabra — Musssenda frondosa — Kalmia hirsuta — Andro- meda mariana — A. formosissima. Journ. d'Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 409-419. Sur une nouvelle esp^ce de Loranthe. Loranthus cucuUaris. p. 444, pi. 23. Journ. d'Hi.st. nat. I, 1792. pp. 444-448. Sur le nouveau genre Polycarpea. Polycarpsea Teneriffte. p. 5, pi. 25. Journ. d'Hist. nat. II, 1792. pp. 3-8. Sur I'augmentation continuelle de nos connaissances k I'egard des especes et sur une nouvelle -esp^ce de Sauge. Salvia scabiossefolia. p. 44, pi. 27. Journ. d'Hist. nat. II, 1792. pp. 41-47. Sur une nouvelle esp^ce de Pectis. Pectis pinnata. p. 150, pi. 31. Journ. d'Hist. nat. II, 1792. pp. 148-154. Sur le nouveau genre Sanvitalia. Sanvitalia procumbens. p. 178, pi. 35. Journ. d'Hist. nat. II, 1792. pp. 176-179. Sur I'augmentation remarquable des especes dans beaucoup de genres qui n'en offraient depuis longtemps qu'une, et particuli^rement sur une nouvelle espece d'Helenium. Helenium caniculatum. p. 213, pi. 35. Journ. d'Hist. nat. II, 1792. pp. 210-215. Observations sur les coquilles, et sur quelques-uns des genres qu'on n. etablis dans I'ordre des Vers testaces. Purpurea, Fusus, Murex, Terebra, etc. Journ. d'Hist. nat. II, 1792. pp. 269-280. Sur I'Administration foresti^re, et sur les qualites individuelles des bois indigenes, ou qui sont acclimates 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 especes d'Helices. Journ. d'Hist. nat. II, 1792. pp. 347-353- Prodrome d'une nouvelle classification des coquilles, comprenant une redaction appropriee des caract^res generiques et I'etablissement d'un grand nombre de genres nouveaux. — In Mem. Soc. Hist, nat., Paris, I, 1792. p. 63. Sur les ouvrages generaux en Histoire naturelle ; et particuli^re- ment sur I'edition du Systema Nature de Linneus, que M. Gmelin vient de publier. Act. Soc. Hist, nat., Paris, I. Ire Part., 1792. pp. 81-85. 1794 Recherches sur les Causes des principaux Faits physiques, et parti- culierement sur celles de la Combustion, de I'Elevation de I'eau dans 430 BIBLIOGRAPHY I'etat de vapeurs ; de la Chaleur produite par le frottement des corps solides entre eux ; de la Chaleur qui se rend sensible dans les decom- positions subites, dans les effervescences et dans le corps de beaucoup d'animaux pendant la duree de leur vie ; de la Causticite, de la Saveur et de rOdeur de certains composes ; de la Couleur des corps ; de I'Ori- gine des composes et de tons les mineraux ; enfin, de I'Entretien de la vie des etres organiques, de leur accroissement, de leur etat de vigueur, de leur deperissement et de leur mort. Avec una planche. Tomes i, 2. Paris, seconde annee de la republique [1794]. 8vo. Memoire sur les molecules essentials ties composes. Soc. philom. Rapp., 1792-98. pp. 56-57. Voyage de Pallas dans plusieurs provinces de I'empire de Russie et dans I'Asie septentrionale, traduit de I'allemand par Gauthier de la Peyronnerie. Nouvelle edition revue et enrichie de notes par Lamarck, Langl^s et Billecoq. Paris, an II (1794). 8 vol, in-8vo, avec un atlas de 108 pi. folio. 1796 Voyage au Japon, par le cap de Bonne-Esperance, les lies de la Sonde, etc., par Thunberg, traduit, redige (sur la version anglaise), etc., par Langles, et revu, quant h V histoire naturelle, par Lamarck. Paris, 1796. 2 vol. in-4to (8vo, 4 vol.), av. fig. Refutation de la theorie pneumatique et de la nouvelle theorie des chimistes modernes, etc. Paris, 1796. I vol. 8vo. 1797 Memoires de physique et d'histoire naturelle, etablis sur des bases de raisonnement independantes de toute theorie ; avec I'explication de nouvelles considerations sur la cause generale des dissolutions, sur la mati^re du feu ; sur la couleur des corps ; sur la formation des compo- ses; sur I'origine des mineraux; et sur I'organisation des corps vi vants. Lus \ la premiere classe de I'lnstitut national, dans ses seances ordi- naires. Paris, an V (1797). i vol. 8vo. pp. 410. De I'influence de la lune sur I'atmosphere terrestre, etc. Bull. Soc. philom. I., 1797; pp. 116-118. Gilbert Annal. VI, i8oo ; pp. 204-223 ; et Nicholson's Journal, III, 1800 ; pp. 438-489. Memoires de Physique et d'Histoire naturelle. Paris, 1797. 8vo. Biogr. un., Suppl. LXX. p. 22. 1798 De I'influence de la lune sur I'atmosphere terrestre. Journ. de Phys. XLVI, 1798 I pp. 428-435. Gilbert Annal. VI, 1800; pp. 204-223. BIBLIOGRAPHY 431 Tilloch, Philos. Mag. I, 1798 ; pp. 305-306. Paris, See. philom. (Bull.) II, 1797; pp. ii6-ii8. Nicholson's Journ. Ill, 1800. pp. 488-489. Sensibility of Plants. (Translated from the Memoires de Physique.) Tilloch, Philos. Mag. I, 1798. pp. 305-306. Mollusques testaces du tableau encyclopedique et methodique des trois regnes de la nature. Paris, an VI (1798). i vol. in-4to de 299 pi., formant suite a I'Histoire des Vers de Bruguiere (1792), continuee par Deshayes (1830), de I'Encyclopedie methodique. 1799 Memoire sur la mati^re du feu, considere comma instrument chi- mique dans les analyses. 1°, De Taction du feu employe comme ins- trument chimique par la voie seche ; p. 134. 2°, De Taction du feu employe comme instrument chimique par la voie humide ; p. 355. Journ. de Phys. XLVIII, 1799. pp. 345-361. Memoire sur la mati^re du son. (Lu k TInstitut national, le 16 bruraaire an VIII, et le 26 du meme mois.) Journ. de Phys. XLIX, 1799. pp. 397-412. Sur les genres de la S^che, du Calmar et du Poulpe, vulgairement nomme's polypes de mer. (Lu i TInstitut national le 21 floreal an VI.) Soc. Hist, nat., Paris (Mem.), 1799. pp. 1-25, pi. i, 2. Bibl. Paris, Soc. philom. (Bull.) I, Part. 2, 1799. pp. 129-131 (Extrait). Prodrp-me d'une nouvelle Classification des coquilles, comprenant una redaction appropriee des caracteres generiques, et Tetablissement d'un grand nombre de genres nouveaux. (Lu a TInstitut national le 21 frimaire an VII.) Soc. Hist, nat., Paris (Mem.), 1789. pp. 63- gl. Tableau systematique des Genres — 126 g. ' Sur les fossiles et Tinfluence du mouvement des eaux, consideres comme indices du. deplacement continual du bassin des mers, et de son transport sur differents points de la surface du globe. (Lu a TInstitut national la 21 pluviose an VII [1799]. Hydrogeologie, p. 172. Annuaire meteorologique pour Tan VIII da la Republique franfaise, etc. (Annonce.) Paris, Soc. philom. (Bull.) Ill, 1799. p. 56. 1800 Annuaire meteorologique pour Tan VIII da la Republique. Paris, 1800. I vol. i6mo ; 116 pp. Bibl., Gilbert Annal. VI, 1800. pp. 216-217. 432 BIBLIOGRAPHY Memoire sur le mode de rediger et de noter les observations meteo- rologiques, afin d'en obtenir des resultats utiles, et sur les considerations que Ton doit avoir en vue pour cet objet. Journ. de Phys. LI, 1800. pp. 419-426. Annuaire meteorologique, contenant I'expose des probabilites ac- quises par une longue suite d'observations sur I'etat du ciel et sur les variations de I'atmosph^re, etc. Paris, 1800-1810, II volumes, dont les 2 premiers in-l8mo, les autres in-8vo. 1801 Systime des Animaux sans Vert^bres ou Tableau general des classes, des ordres et des genres de ces animaux. Presentant leurs caracteres essentiels et leur distribution d'apr^s leurs rapports naturels, et de leur organisation ; et suivant I'arrangement etabli dans les galeries du Mu- seum d'Histoire naturelle parmi les depouilles conservees. Precede du discours d'Ouverture du Cours de Zoologie donne dans le Museum d'Histoire naturelle I'an VIII de la Republique, le 21 floreal. Paris (Deterville), an IX (1801), VIII. pp. 452. Bibl., Paris, Soc. philom. (Bull.) Ill, 1802-4. PP- 7-8. Recherches sur la pe'riodicite presumee des principales variations de I'atmosphere, et sur les moyens de s'assurer de son existence et de sa determination. (Lues i I'lnstitut national de France, le 26 ventose an IX.) Journ. de Phys. LII, 1801. pp. 296-316. Refutation des resultats obtenus par le C. Cotte, dans ses recherches sur I'influence des constitutions lunaires, et imprimes dans le Journal de Physique, mois de fructidor an IX. p. 221. Journ. de Phys. LIII, 1801. pp. 277-281. Sur la distinction des tempetes d'avec les orages, les ouragans, etc, Et sur le caract^re du vent desastreux du 18 brumaire an IX (9 no- vembre 1800). (Lu a I'lnstitut national le 11 frimaire an IX.) Journ. de Phys. LII, floreal, 1801. pp. 377-38G. 1802 Sur les variations de I'etat du ciel dans les latitudes moyennes entre I'equateur et le pole, et sur les principales causes qui y donnent lieu. Journ. de Phys. LVI, 1802. pp. 1 14-138. Recherches sur I'Organisation des Corps vivants et particulierement sur son origine, sur la cause de ses developpements et des progres de sa composition, et sur celles qui, tendant continuellement i la detruire, dans chaque individu, amenent necessairement sa mort. (Precede du BIBLIOGRAPHY 433 Discours d'Ouverture du Cours de Zoologie au Mus. nat. d'Hist. nat., an X de la Republique.) Paris (Maillard) [1802]. i vol. 8vo. pp. 216. ^ Affinites chimiques, p. 73.— Aneantissement de la colonne ver- tebrale, p. 21.— Du coeur, p. 26. — De I'organe de la vue, p. 32.— Annelides, p. 24.— Arachnides, p. 27. — La Biologie, p. 186. — Creation de la faculte de se reproduire, p. 114. — Crustaces, p.25. — Degradation de I'organisation d'une extremite a I'autre de la chatne des animaux, p. 7.— i^chelle animale, p. 39.— Les ele- ments, p. 12.— Les especes, pp. 141-149. — Exercice d'un organe, PP- 53. 56, 65, 125.— Les faculte's, pp. 50, 56, 84, 125.— Fecon- dation, p. 95. — Fluide nerveux, pp. 114, 157, 166, 169.— Forma- tion directe des premiers traits de I'organisation, pp. 68, 92, 94, 98. — Generations spontanees, pp. 46, 100, 115. — Habitudes des animaux, pp. 50, 125, 129. — Homme, p; 124. — Imitation, p. 130. — Influence du fluide nerveux sur les muscles, p. 169. — Insectes, p. 28. — Irritabilite, pp. 109, 179, 186. — Mammaux, p. 15. — Mo- lecules integrants des composes, 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. III. — Organes de la pensee, p. 127. — Organisation, pp. g, 98, 104, 134. — Pensee, p. 166. — Poissons, p. 20. — Polypes, p. 35. — Quadrumanes,. pp. 131, 135, 136. — Radiaires, p. 32. — Raison, p. 125. — Reptiles, p. 18. — Sentiment, p. 177. — Troglodyte, p. 126. — Tableau du rigne animal, p. 37. — Vie, p. 71. Memoire sur la Tubicinelle. (Lu i I'Assemblee des Professeurs du Museum d'Histoire naturelle.) Ann. Mus. Hist, nat., Paris, I, 1802. pp. 4, pi. 464. Bull. Soc. philom. Ill, Paris, 1801-1804. pp. 170- 171. (Extrait.) Memoires sur les Cabinets d'Histoire naturelle et particuli^rement sur celui du Jardin des Plantes ; contenant I'exposition du regime et de I'ordre qui conviennent a cet etablissement, pour qu'il soit vraiment utile. Ext. des Ann. du Mus. (1802). Paris. in-4to. 15 p. Des diverses sortes de Cabinets oil Ton rassemble des objets d'Histoire naturelle. p. 2. Vrais principes que Ton doit suivre dans I'institution d'un Cabi- net d'Histoire naturelle. p. 3. Sur le Cabinet d'Histoire naturelle du Jardin des Plantes. p. 5. Hydrogeologie, ou recherches de I'influence generale des eaux sur 434 BIBLIOGRAPHY la surface du globe terrestre ; sur les causes de I'existence du bassin des mers ; de son deplacement et de son transport successif sur les differents points de la surface de ce globe ; enfin, sur les changements que les corps vivants exercent sur la nature et I'etat de cette surface. Paris, an X [1802]. 8vo. pp. 268. 1802-6 Memoires sur les fossiles des environs de Paris, comprenant la de- termination des especes qui appartiennent aux animaux marins sans vertebres, et dont la plupart sont figures dans la Collection des Velins du Museum. ler Me'moire. MoUusques testaces dont on trouve les depouilles fossiles dans les environs de Paris. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) I, 1802. pp. 299-312 ; 383- 391; 474-479- Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) II, 1803. pp. 57-64 ; 163-169 ; 217-227; 315-321; 385-391- Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) Ill, 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 ; 91-98 ; 179-180; 237-245; 349-356. Paris, Mus. Plist. nat. (Ann.) VI, 1805. pp. 117-126 ; 214- 221; 222-228; 337-345. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) VII, 1806. pp. 53-62 ; 136-140; 231-242 ; 419-430. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) VIII, 1806. pp. 156-166 ; 347- 355 ; 461-469. Tirage k part. Paris. In-4to. 1806. pp. 284. ler memoire. Genres Chiton, Patella, Fissurella. pp. 308-312. 2e " " Emarginula, Calyptn-ea, Conus, Cypra^a, Terebellum et Oliva. pp. 383-391. 3e memoire. Genres Ancilla, Voluta. pp. 474-479. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) I, 1S02. 4e memoire. Genres Mitra, Marginella, Cancellaria, Purpura, pp. 57-64. 5e memoire. Genres Buccinum, Terebra, Harpa, Cassis, pp. 163-169. BIBLIOGRAPHY 435 6e memoire. Genres Strombus, Rostellaria, Murex. pp. 217- 227. 7e memoire. Genre Fusus. pp. 315-321. 8e " Genres Fusus, Pyrula. pp. 385-39I. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) II, 1803. ge memoire. Genre Pleurotoma. pp. 163—170. loe memoire. Genres Pleurotoma, Cerithium. pp. 266-274. lie et I2e memoires. Genre Cerithium. pp. 343-352 ; 436-441. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) Ill, 1804. I3e memoire. Genres Trochus, Solarium, pp. 46-55. I4e " " Turbo, Delphinula, Cyclostoma. pp. 105-115. I5e memoire. Genres Scalaria, Turritella, Bulla, pp. 212-222. i6e " " Bulimus, Phasianella, Lymnsea. pp. 289-298. I7e memoire. Genres Melania, Auricula, pp. 429-436. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) IV, 1804. l8e memoire. Genres Volvaria, AmpuUaria, Planorbis. pp. 28-36. I9e memoire. Genres Helicina, Nerita, Natica. pp. gl— 98. 2oe " " Nautilus, Discorbis, Rotalia, Lenticu- lina. pp. 179-188. 2ie memoire. Genres Nuraraulites, Lituola, Spirolina. pp. 237-245. 22ememoire. Genres MiIiola,Renulina,Gyrogona. pp. 349-357- Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) V, 1804. 236 memoire. Genres Pinna, Mytilus, Modiola, Nucula. pp. 117-126. 24e memoire. Genres Pectunculus, Area, pp. 214-221. 25e " " CucuUiEa, Cardita, Cardium. pp. 337- 346. 26e me'moire. Genres Crassatella, Mactra, Erycina. pp. 407- 415. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) VI, 1805. 27e me'moire. Genres Erycina, Venericardia, Venus, pp. 53-62. 28e " " Venus, Cytherea, Donax. pp. 130-140. 2ge " " Tellina, Lucina. pp. 231-239. goe " " Cyclas, Solen, Fistulana. pp. 419-430. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) VII, 1806. 436 BIBLIOGRAPHY 3ie me'moire. Genre Ostrea. pp. 156-158. 326 " Genres Chama, Spondylus, Pecten. pp. 347- 356. 33e memoire. Genres Lima, Corbula. pp. 461-470. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) VIII, 1806. Sur la crenatule, nouveau genre de coquillage. PI. 2. Cr. avicu- laris. — Cr. mytiloides. — Cr. phasianoptera. Ann. Mus. Hist, nat., Paris, III, 1804. pp. 25-31, pi. 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 esp^ce de Trigonie, et sur une nouvelle espece d'Huitre, decouvertes dans le voyage du Capitaine Baudin. Trigonia suborbiculata ; p. 355, pi. 4, fig. i. Ostrea ovato-cuneiformis ; p. 358, pi. 4, fig. 2. Ann. Mus Hist, nat., Paris, IV, 1804. pp. 351-359. Memoire sur deux nouvelles esp^ces de Volutes des mers de la Nouvelle Hollande. Voluta undulata ; p. 157, pi. xii, fig. 1. Voluta nivosa ; p. 158, pi. xii, fig. 2, 3. Ann. Mus. Hist, nat., Paris, V, 1804. pp. 154-160. Sur la Galathee, nouveau genre de coquillage bivalve. Galathea radiata. p. 433, pi. 28. Ann. Mus. Hist, nat., Paris, V, 1804. pp. 430-434- 1805 Considerations sur quelques faits applicables a la theorie du globe, observes par M. Peron dans son voyage aux terres australes, et sur quelques questions geologiques qui naissent de la connaissance de ces faits. (Observations zoologiques propres a constater I'ancien sejour de la mer sur lesommet des montagnes des lies de Diemen, de la Nouvelle Hollande et de I'lle Timor.) Ann. Mus. Hist, nat., Paris, VI, 1805. pp. 26-52. Zusatz das Nordliclit 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, pi. 55, fig. 2. Ann. Mus. Hist, nat., Paris, VI, 1805. pp. 298-302. Sur I'Amphibulime. A. cucullata. p. 305, pi. 55, fig. i. Ann. Mus. Hist, nat., Paris, VI, 1805. pp. 303-306. Recherches asiatiques ou Memoires de la Societe etablie au Bengale BIBLIOGRAPHY 437 pour faire des recherches sur I'histoire et les antiquites, les arts, les sciences, etc., traduits de I'anglais par La Baume, revues et augmente's de notes, pour la partie orientale, par Langles ; pour la partie des sciences, par Lamarck, etc. Paris, 1805. 2 vol. 4to, av. pi. 1805-1809 Recueil de planches des coquilles fossiles des environs de Paris, avec leurs explications. On y a joint 2 planches de Lymnees fossiles et autres coquilles qui les accompagnent, des environs de Paris ; par M. Brard. Ensemble 30 pi. gr. en taille douce. Paris (Dufour & d'Ocagne), 1823. In-4to. Explic. des 4 premieres planches, 1-4. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) VI, 1805. pp. 122-228, pi. 43-46. Explic. des 8 pi. suivantes, 5-7. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) VII, 1806. pp. 442-444, pi. 13-15. Explic. des 3 pi. suivantes, 8-10. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) VIII, 1806. pp. 77-78, pi. 35-37- Explic. des 4 pi. suivantes, 11-14. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) VIII, 1806. pp. 383-388, pi. 59-62. Explic. des 4 pi. suivantes, 15-18. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) IX, 1807. pp. 236-240, pi. 17-20. Explic. des 2 pi. suivantes, 19, 20. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) IX, 1807. pp. 399-401, pi. 31-32. Explic. des 4 pi. suivantes, 21-24. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) XII, 1808. pp. 456-459, pi. 40-43. Explic. des 4 pi. suivantes, 25-28. Paris, Mus. Hist. nat. (Ann.) XIV, 1809. pp. 374-375. pl- 20-23. 1806 Synopsis plantarum in Flora Gallica descriptarum. (En coUab. avec A. P. Decandolle.) Paris (H. Agasse), 1806. I vol. 8vo. XXIV. 432 pp. Ordinum generumque anomalorum Clavis analytica. pp. i- xxiv. Discours d'Ouverture du Cours des Animaux sans Vertebres, pro- nonce dans le Museum d'Histoire naturelle en mai 1806. Paris, 1806. br., in-8vo. 1807 Sur la division des Mollusques acephales conchylif^res, et sur un nouveau genre de coquille appartenant 4 cette division (Etheria). Ann. Mus. X, 1807. pp. 389-408, 4 pl- 438 BIBLIOGRAPHY Etwas fiber die Meteorologie. Gilbert Annal. XVII, 1807. pp. 355-359- Sur la division des MoUusques acephales conchylif^res et sur un nouveau genre de coquille appartenant 4 cette division. (Genre Ethe- ria.) Ann. Mus. Hist, nat., Paris, X, 1807. pp. 389-398. Sur r£therie, nouveau genre de coquille bivalve de la famille des Camacees. Etheria elliptica ; p. 401, pi. 29 et 31, fig. 1. Etheria trigonule ; p. 403, pi. 30 et 31, fig. 2. Etheria semi-lunata ; p. 404, pi. 32, fig. I, 2. Etheria transversa ; p. 406, pi. 32, fig. 3, 4. Ann. Mus. Hist, nat., Paris, X, 1807. pp. 398-408. (Ce memoire se rat- tache au precedent.) 1809 Philosophie zoologique, ou exposition des considerations relatives 4 I'histoire naturelle des animaux ; a la diversite de leur organisation et des facultes qu'ils en obtiennent ; aux causes physiques qui main- tiennent en eux la vie et donnent lieu aux mouvements qu'ils exe- cutent ; enfin, a celles qui produisent, les unes les sentiments, et les autres Tintelligence de ceux qui en sont doues. Paris (Dentu), 1809. 2 vol. in-8vo, XXV, 428. 475 pages. /(/ifOT, nouvelle Edition. Paris, J. B. Bailliere. 1830. (A reprint of the first edition.) 2me Edition. Revue et precedee d'une introduction biographique par Charles Martins. Paris, Savy. 1873. 2 vol. 8vo. LXXXIV, 412 ; 431 pages. Vol. I. Premiere Partie. — Consideration sur I'histoire naturelle des animaux, leurs caracteres, leurs rapports, leur organisation, leur distribution, leur classification et leurs esp^ces. Chap. I. Des parties de I'art dans les productions de la- nature. p. 17. Chap. II. Importance de la consideration des rapports, p. 39. Chap. III. De I'Espece parmi les corps vivants et de I'idee que nous devons attacher k ce mot. p. 53. Chap. IV. Generalites sur les animaux. p. 82. Chap. V. Sur I'etat actuel de la distribution et de la classifi- cation des animaux. p. 102. Chap. VI. Degradation et simplification de I'organisation d'une extre'mite i I'autre de la chatne animale, en procedant du plus compose vers le plus simple, p. 130. Chap. VII. De I'influence des circonstances sur les actions et BIBLIOGRAPHY 439 les habitudes des animaux, et de celle des actions et des habitudes de ces corps vivants, comma causes qui modifient leur organisa- tion et leurs parties, p. 218. Chap. VIII. De I'ordre naturel des animaux, et de la disposition qu'il faut donner i leur distribution generale pour la rendre con- forme k I'ordre meme de la nature, p. 269. Deuxi^me Partie. — Considerations sur les causes physiques de la vie, les conditions qu'elle exige pour exister, la force excitatrice de ses mouvements, les facultes qu'elle donne aux corps qui la possident et les resultats de son existence dans ces corps. Chap. I. Comparaison des corps inorganiques avec les corps vivants, suivie d'une parallele entre les animaux et les vegetans, p. 377- Chap. II. De la vie, de ce qui la constitue, et des conditions essentielles i son existence dans un corps, p. 400. Vol. II. 2me Partie. Chap. III. De la cause excitatrice des mouvements organiques. p. I. Chap. IV. De I'orgasme et de I'irritabilite. p. 20. Chap. V. Du tissu cellulaire, considere comme la gangue dans laquelle toute organisation a ete formee. p. 46. Chap. VI. Des generations directes ou spontanees. p. 61. Chap. VII. Des resultats immediats de la vie dans un corps, p. 91. Chap. VIII. Des facultes communes a tons les corps vivants. p. 113. Chap. IX. Des facultes particuli^res a certains corps vivants. p. 127. Troisi^me Partie. — Considerations 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 difierents animaux. p. l6g. Chap. I. Du systime nerveux, de sa formation et des diffe'rentes sortes de fonctions qu'il pent exciter, p. 180. Chap. II. Du fluide nerveux. p. 235. Chap. III. De la sensibilite et du mecanisme des sensations, p. 252. 440 BIBLIOGRAPHY Chap. IV. Du sentiment interieur, des emotions qu'il est sus- ceptible d'eprouver, 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 resultent de I'emploi de cette force ; p. 302. De la consommation et de I'epuisement du fluide nerveux dans la production des actions animales ; p. 314. De I'origine du penchant aux memes actions ; p. 318. De I'instinct des animaux ; p. 320. De I'industrie de certains animaux ; p. 327. Chap. VI. De la volonte. p. 330. Chap. VII. De I'entendement, de son origine, et de celle des idees. p. 346. Chap. VIII. Des principaux actes de I'entendement, ou de ceux du premier ordre dont tous les autres derivent ; p. 388. De I'imagination ; p. 411. De la raison et de sa comparaison avec I'instinct ; p. 441. (Ces notes ont ete relevees sur I'edition de 1809.) 1810-1811 Sur la determination des especes parrai les animaux sans vertebres, et particuli^rement parmi les moUusques testaces. (Tirage a part, Paris, 1817. 4to. 5 pis.) Ann. Mus. Hist, nat., Paris, XV, 1810. pp. 20-26. Descript. des Especes. — Cone (Conus). pp. 26-40 ; pp. 269- 292 ; pp. 422-442. Descript. des Especes. — Porcelaine (Cyprsea). pp. 443-454. Ann. Mus. Hist, nat., Paris, XVI, 1810. Descript. des Especes. — Porcelaine (Cypraea), suite, pp. 89- 108. Descript. des Especes. — Ovule (Ovula). pp. 109-H4. " " Tarriere (Terebellum). pp. 300-302. " " " Ancillaire CAncillaria). pp. 302-306. " " Olive (Oliva). pp. 306-328. Ann. Mus. Hist. nat. XVII, 1811. Descript. des Especes. — Volute (Voluta). pp. 54-80. " " " Mitre (Mitra). pp. 195-222. Description des Especes du Genre Conus. Ann. Museum, XV, 1810. pp. 29-40, 263-292, 422-442. BIBLIOGRAPHY 44I Description du genre Porcelaine (Cyprsea) et des Especes qui le composent. Ann. Mus. XV, 1810. pp. 443-454. Suite de la determination des Especes de Mollusques testaces. Con- tinuation du genre Porcelaine. Ann. Mus. XVI, 1811. pp. 89-114. 1812 Extrait du cours de zoologie du Museum d'Histoire naturelle sur les Animaux sans Vert^bres, presentant la distribution et classification de ces animaux, les caractires des principales divisions et une simple liste des genres, 4 I'usage de ceux qui suivent ce cours. Paris, oc- tobre 1812. 8vo. pp. 127. 1813 Sur les polypiers empates. Ann. Mus. Hist, nat., Paris, XX, 1813. Pinceau (Penicillus). pp. 294, 297-299. Flabellaire (Flabellaria). pp. 298-303. Synoique (Synoicum). pp. 303-304. Sponge (Spongia). pp. 305-312 ; 370-386 ; 432-458. Ann. Mus. Hist, nat., Paris, I, 1815. Tethie (Tethya). pp. 69-71. Alcyon (Alcyonium). pp. 72-80 ; 162-168 ; 331-333. Geodie (Geodia). pp. 333-334. Botrylle (Botryllus). pp. 335-338. Polycycle (Polycyclus). pp. 338-340. 1813-IS Sur les polypiers corticif^res. Mem. Mus. Hist, nat, Paris, I, 1813. p. 401. Corail (Coraillium). pp. 407-410. Melite (Melitsea). pp. 410-413. Isis. pp. 413-416. Cymosaire (Cymosaria). pp. 467-468. Antipate (Antipathes). pp. 469-476. Mem. Mus. Hist, nat., Paris, II, 1815. Gorgone (Gorgonia). pp. 76-84 ; 157-164. Coralline (Corallina). pp. 227-240. Rapport fait a I'lnstitut (en collaboration avec Cuvier) sur les obser- vations sur les Lombrics, ou les Vers de terre, etc., par Montegre. Paris, 1815. Br., in-8vo, I pi. 442 BIBLIOGRAPH Y 1815-22 Histoire naturelle des Animaux sans Vertibres, presentant les carac- tires generaux et particuliers de ces animaux, leur distribution, leurs classes, leurs families, leurs genres, et la citation des principales Esp^ces qui s'y rapportent ; precedee d'une introduction offrant la determination des caract^res essentiels de 1' Animal, sa distinction du Vegetal et des autres corps naturels ; enfin, Texposition des principes fondamentaux de la zoologie. Paris, mars 1815 i aout 1822. 7 vol. Bvo. 2e edit., Paris, 1835-45. 11 vol. in-8vo. 1818 Suite de la determination des Esp^ces de MoUusques testaces. Genres Volute et Mitre. Ann. Mus. XVII, 1818. pp. 54-80 et 195-222. Description des genres Tarri^re (Terebellum), Ancillaria et Oliva. Ann. Mus. XVII, 1818. pp. 300-328. 1820 Systeme analytique des connaissances de rhomme restreintes a celles qui proviennent directement ou indirectement de I'observation. Paris (Belin), 1820. In-8vo. pp. 362. Premiere Partie. — Des Objets que I'liomme pent considerer hors de lui, et que I'observation pent lui faire connattre. p. 13. Chap. I. De la Matiere. p. 5. Chap. II. De la Nature ; p. 20. Definition de la nature, et expose des parties dont se compose I'ordre des choses qui la cons- titue ; p. 50. Objets metaphysiques dont I'ensemble constitue la nature; p. 51. De la necessite d'etudier la nature, c'est-i-dire I'ordre des choses qui la constitue, les lois qui regissent ses actes, et surtout, parmi ces lois, celles qui sont relatives a notre etre physique ; p. 60. Exposition des sources ou I'homme a puise les connaissances qu'il poss^de et dans lesquelles il pourra en recueillir quantite d'autres ; sources dont I'ensemble constitue pour lui le champ des realites ; p. 85. Des Objets evidemment produits ; p. 97. Chap. I. Des Corps inorganiques. p. 100. Chap. II. Des Corps vivants ; p. 114. Des Vegetaux ; p. 125. Des Animaux ; p. 134. BIBLIOGRAPHY 443 Deuxi^me Partie. — De I'Homme et de certains systJmes orga- niques observes en lui, lesquels concourrent i I'execution de ses actions ; p. 149. Generalites sur le sentiment ; p. 161. Analyse des phenom^nes 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 generale. Sect. II. — Du sentiment interieur et de ses principaux produits. p. 191. Chap. I. Des penchants naturels. p. 206. Chap. II. De I'instinct. p. 228. Sect. III. — De I'intelligence, des objets qu'elle emploie, et des phenomines auxquels elle donne lieu. p. 255. Chap. I. Des idees. 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 y a joint deux planches de Lymnees fossiles et autres coquilles qui les accompagnent, des environs de Paris ; par M. Brard. Paris, 1823. i vol. in-4to de 30 pi. 1828 Histoire naturelle des Vegetaux par Lamarck et Mirbel. Paris, Deterville (Roret). In-i8mo. 15 vol., avec 120 pi. Cet ouvrage fait partie de Buffon : Cours complet d'Histoire naturelle (Edit, de Castel). 80 vol. in-i8mo. Paris, 1799-1802. Deterville (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 alia 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 publie par I'lnstitut. 4to. Paris, 1829.) Cuvier, George. — Eloge de M. de Lamarck, par M. le Baron Cuvier. Lu h. I'Academie des Sciences, le 26 novembre 1832. [No imprint.] Paris. (Trans, in Edinburgh New Philosophical Journ. No. 39.) Bourguin, L. B.- — Les grands naturalistes fran9ais au commence- ment du xixe si^cle (Annales de la Societe linneenne du Departement de Maine-et-Loire. 6me Annee. Angers, 1863. 8vo. pp. 185-221). Introduction, pp. 185—193. Lacaze-Duthiers, H. de. — De Lamarck. (Cours de zoologie au Museum 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 precurseurs franjais. Etude sur le transformisme. Paris, 1870. 8vo. pp. 378. Martins, Charles. — Un naturaliste philosophe. Lamarck, sa vie et ses (Euvres. Extrait de la Revue des Deux Mondes. Livraison du ler mars 1873. Paris. Haeckel, Ernst. — Die Naturanschauung von Darwin, Goethe und Lamarck. Vortrag in der ersten offentlichen Sitzung der filnf und fiinfzigsten Versammlung Deutscher Naturforscher und Aerzte zu Eisenach am 18 September 1882. Jena, 1882. 8vo. pp. 64. Perrier, Edmond. — La philosophic zoologique avant Darwin. Paris, 1884. pp. 292. Perrier, Edmond. — Lamarck et le transformisme actuel. (Extrait du volume commemoratif du Centenaire de la fondation du Museum 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- ciete 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. I. 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 445 transformistes, ses disciples. (Reprinted from L'Homme, IV. Paris, 1887. 8vo. pp.31.) With portrait and figures. Mortillet, Gabriel de. — Reunion Lamarck. (La Societe, I'l^cole et le Laboratoire d' Anthropologic de Paris, a I'Exposition universelle de Paris.) Paris, 1889. pp. 72-84. Mortillet, Adrien de. — Recherches sur Lamarck (including acte de naissance, acte de dec^s, and letter from M. Mondi^re 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. — Le9on d'ouverture du cours de revolution des etres organises. (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 franyais Lamarck. (Bull. Soc. d'Anthopologie de Paris. Tome XII, Ille Serie.) pp. 336-374. Lamarck. — Les maltres de la science : Lamarck. Paris, 1892. G. Masson, Editeur. i2mo. pp. 98. Hamy, E. T. — Les derniers jours du Jardin du Roi et la fondation du Museum d'Histoire naturelle. pp. 40. (Extrait du volume com- memoratif du Centenaire de la fondation du Museum d'Histoire natu- relle.) Paris, 10 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, Frederic. — Lamarck, son oeuvre et son esprit. Revue encyclopedique. Annee 1897. pp. 969-973. Paris, Librairie La- rousse. Hermanville, F. J. F. — Notice biographique sur Lamarck. Sa vie et ses ceuvres. Beauvais, 1898. 8vo. pp.45- Portrait, after Thorel- Perrin. Packard, A. S. — Lamarck, and Neo-Lamarckism. (The Open Court, Feb., 1897.) Chicago, 1897. pp. 70-81. Packard, A. S. — Lamarck's Views on the Evolution of Man, on Morals, and on the Relation of Science to Religion. The Monist, Chicago, Oct., 1900. Chapters XVIII and XIX of the present work. INDEX Adaptation, 322, 367, 392, 412. Probates, 338. Ai, 320. Amphibia, 342. Ant-eater, 307, 313. Antlers, origin of, 316. Ant-lion, 337. Appetence, doctrine of, 219, 234, 236, 350, 412. Aspalax, 307. Atrophy, 274, 290, 303, 306, 307, 309, 311, 315, 343. Audouin, J. v., 63. Barus, C, estimate of Lamarck's work in physics, 85. Batrachia, 342. Battle, law of, 219, 224. Beaver, 312. Besoins, 245, 270, 274, 281, 295, 302, 324, 334, 346, 3501 352. 412- Bird, humming, 313. Birds, domestic, atrophy in, 274 ; origin of, 342; origin of swimming, 234, 311 ; perching, 234, 312; shore, 234, 312. Blainville, H. D. de, 62, 64, 135. Blumenbach, 138. Bolton, H. C, 86. Bonnet, C, ideas on evolution, 156; germs, 163. Bosc, L. A. G., 52. Bourguin, L. B., 30, 31, Bradypus tridactylus, 320. Brain, 337, 360 ; human, 358. Bniguifere, J. G., 38, 113. Buffalo, 315. BufEon, G. L. L„ 19, 92, 198 ; factors of evo- lution, 205, 356 ; views on descent, zoi. Bulla, 348. Callosities, origin of, 203. Camelo-pardalis, 316, 351. Carnivora, 317 ; origin of, 343. Catastrophism, 105, 117, 126, 146, 153; anti-, 105, 114, 153. Cave life, 390, 392. Cetacea, 343, 409 ; rudimentary teeth of, 307- Chain of being, 167, z8i, 191, 208, 235, 241, 242. Changes in environment, 302 ; local, 301 ; slow, 30T. 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 of, 246, 320, Crustacea, origin of, 341. 448 INDEX. Cunningham, J. T., 409. Cuvier, George, 66, 140 ; eulogy on La- marck, 65 ; first paper, 185. Dall, W. Hm estimate of Lamarck's work, ig6. 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, 217, 407. Darwin, Erasmus, factors of evolution, 217, 223, 356 ; life of, 216. Daubenton, 19, 26, 29, 136. Deer, 316. Degeneration, as used by BufEon, 204, 209 ; by GeofEroy, 213 ; by Lamarck, 182, 274, 290. Delbceuf'slaw, 406. Desiring, 236, 351, 412. Digits, modifications of, 234, 311, 317, 321, 338, 344 ; reduction of, 315. Direct action of environment, 324, 409, 410, 414, 416. Disuse, 274, 290, 296, 303, 306, 307, 311, 31S, 343, 392, 412. Dixon, C., 405. Dogs, tailless, 220; domestication in, 299 ; races of, 299, 304. Domestic animals, 274, 304, Domestication, effects of, 298, 323. D'Orbigny, A., 386. Duck, 298, 312, 318. Duckbill, 412. Earth, great age of, 119 ; revolutions of, log, 147, 150 ; theory of, 149. Earth's interior, 105. Effort, 218, 234, 257, 295, 339, 348, 351, 353, 354i 3701 4"i 420. Egypt, mummied species of, 271, 286. Eigenman, C. H., 393. Eiraer, G. H. T., 408. Elephant, 315. Emotion, 353. Encasement theory, 162, 218, 222. Environment, 214, 410, 417, 421. Epigenesis, 156. Erosion, loi. Evil, 377. Evolution, dynamiCf 417 ; Lamarck's views on, 322. Exercise, 211, 256. Existence, struggle for, 207, 237, 287. Extinct species, 126, 129, 130. Eyeless animals, 307, 309. Eyes, 308 ; of flounder, 313. Faujas de St. Fond, 23, 140. Feelings, internal, 324, 325, 330, 347. Fishes, flat, 313 ; form due to medium, 291 ; origin of, 341. Fittest, origin of, 383. Flamingo, 250. Flounder, 313. Flying mammals, origin of, 338. Fossilization, 120. Fossils, 109, 110, 112, I2S, 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 ; pregx- 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, 69. Hamy, E. T., 19, 22, 25. Hearing, 308. INDEX. 449 Henslow, G., 414. Heredity, 250,276^303, 306, 319, 336; of acquired characters, sig, 224, 246, 276, 303) 319- Hertwig, R., 282. Hoofs, origin of, 315. Hooke, Robert, 132. Horns, origin of, 316, 354, 393, 409. Horse, 274, 304, 315. Hutton, James, 99. Huxley, T. H., 423, 424 ; estimate of La- marck's scientific position, 74, 90. Hyatt, A., 386, 419. Hybrid ity, 223. Hybrids, 284. Hydrog^ologie, 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, J. A., 413. Jordan, K., 410. Juncus bufonius, 252. Kangaroo, 318. Lacaze-Duthiers, H. de, reminiscences of Lamarck, 75. Lakanal, J., 28. Lamarck, Cornelie de, 55. Lamarck, J. B. de, birth, 6 ; birthplace, 4; blindness, 51 ; botanical career, 15, 19, 173; burial place, 57; death, 51; estimates of his life-work, 69 ; factors of evolution, 233, 356 ; founder of pa_ laeontology, 124 ; house in Paris, 42 ; meteorology and physical science, 79 ; military career, n ; origin of man, 357 ; parentage, 7 : share in reorganiza- tion of Museum, 24 ; shells, collections 29 of, 46; on spontaneous generation, 158; style, 179; travels, 20; views on religion, 372 ; work in geology, 89 ; zoological 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, 3(^5) 310, 400, 414 ; definitions of, 168, 169, 280. Light, 410. Limbs, atrophy of, 290, 309 ; genesis of, 421 ; of seal, 338, 344 ; whale, 343. Lizard, 313. Local changes, 301. Lyell, Charles, estimate of Lamarck's theory, 71. Mammals, aquatic, 343 ; flying, 33S. Man, as a check on animal Ufe, 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 ; lamelllbranch, 418 ; Lamarck's work on, 189. Monet, de, 8. Monotremes, origin from birds, 342. Morals, 372. Mortillet, G. de, 30. Mountains formed by erosion, loi, 103. Muscles, adductor, 418. Museum of Natural History, Paris, 34. Mya arenaria, 353, 418. 450 INDEX. Myrmecophaga, 307. Myrmeleon, 337. Nails, 321. Natural selection, inadequacy of, 393, 307, 401, 407, 410, 413, 41S, 42I1 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, 334i 346, 350. 351. 352- Neodarwinism, 422. Neolamarckism, 2, 382, 396, 398, 422. Ophidia, atrophy of legs of, 290, 309, Organic sense, 325, 327, 336. Organs, changes in, 310 ; origin of, pre- cedes their use, 223 ; follows their use, 305, 346 ; atrophy of, 274, ago, 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. Paleontology, 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, 288. Preformation, 162, 218, 222. Propensities, 281, 293, 328, 335, 349, 351- Proteus, 308. Pteromys, 339. Ranunculus aquatilis, 251, 300. Religion and science, 372. Reptiles, 342. Revolutions of the earth, 109, 142. Rousseau, J. J., 17, 18. Roux, W., 421. Ruminants, 315. Ryder, J. A., 403. Science and religion, 372. Sciurus volans, 338. Scott, W. B., 403. Sea, former existence of, 109, no, 148. Seal, 338, 344. Segments, origin of, 421, Segregation, in man, 320, 369. Selection, mechanical, 4x0. Semper, C, 406. Series, animal, branching, 235, 264, 282. Serpents, origin of, 290, 309; eyes of, 3M- Sexual selection, 219, 224. Shell, bivalve, origin of, 418 ; crustacean, 418. Shells, deep-water, 112 ; fossil, 40, no, T25, 131 ; Lamarckian genera, 183. Simla satyrus, 367 ; troglodytes, 364. Sloth, 320. Snakes, atrophy of legs of, 290, 309 ; eyes of, 314 ; origin of, 290, 309 ; tongue of, 3i:3- Sole, 314. Species, BufEon's views on, 201, 211 ; definition of, 252, 255, 262, 267, 275 ; ex- tinct, 126 ; Geofiroy St. Hilaire, views on, 214; Lamarck's views on, 183; modification of, 131; origin of, 131, 283 ; stability of, 271, 277, 401 ; variation in, ^78. Speech, 370. Spencer, Herbert, 371, 382, 384, 415. Spermist, 21S. 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. 451 Symmetry, radial, 291. Swan, 313. Tail, of kang-aroo, 318. Teeth, 307 ; atrophy of, 307 ; in embryo birds, 307 ; in whales, 307. Temperature, 410. Tentacles of snail, 348, 354. Tertiary shells, no, 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, 3191 346. Use originates organs, 276, 311, 346. Variability, 407. Variation, climatic, 204, 218, 401 ; causes of, 2t8, 266, Varieties, 401. Varigny, H. de, 408. Vestigial organs, 307, 308. Vital force, 167. Vitalism, 168. Volucella, 338. Wagner, M., 404. Wallace, A. R., on origin of giraffe's neck, 351. Wants, 245, 270, 274, 281, 295, 302, 324, 334. 346, 350, 3511 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.