Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution | Page 3

GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY AND BIOLOGY 156
XI. LAMARCK AS A BOTANIST 173
XII. LAMARCK THE ZO?LOGIST 180
XIII. THE EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON AND OF GEOFFROY ST.?HILAIRE 198
XIV. THE VIEWS OF ERASMUS DARWIN 216
XV. WHEN DID LAMARCK CHANGE HIS VIEWS REGARDING THE 226 MUTABILITY OF SPECIES?
XVI. THE STEPS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LAMARCK'S VIEWS ON 232 EVOLUTION BEFORE THE PUBLICATION OF HIS "PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE"
XVII. THE "PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE" 279
XVIII. LAMARCK'S THEORY AS TO THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 357
XIX. LAMARCK'S THOUGHTS ON MORALS, AND ON THE RELATION 372 BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION
XX. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN LAMARCKISM AND DARWINISM; 382 NEOLAMARCKISM
BIBLIOGRAPHY 425

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ATTEMPT AT A RECONSTRUCTION OF THE PROFILE OF LAMARCK BY DR.?GACHET (Photogravure) Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK, FRONT VIEW } } 4 BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK " " }
ACT OF BIRTH 6
AUTOGRAPH OF LAMARCK, JANUARY?25, 1802 10
LAMARCK AT THE AGE OF 35 YEARS 20
BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK. REAR VIEW FROM THE WEST } } 42 MAISON DE?BUFFON, IN WHICH LAMARCK LIVED IN PARIS, } 1793-1829 }
PORTRAIT OF LAMARCK, WHEN OLD AND BLIND, IN THE COSTUME OF A MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE. ENGRAVED IN 1824 54
PORTRAIT OF LAMARCK 180
MAISON DE?BUFFON, IN WHICH LAMARCK LIVED, 1793-1829 198
��. 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 acceptance.
The author of the Flore Fran?aise will never be forgotten by his countrymen, who called him the French Linn��; and he who wrote the Animaux sans Vert��bres at once took the highest rank as the leading zo?logist 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 and boldness in speculation, and soundness in reasoning 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 zo?logical philosopher no one of his time approached Lamarck. The period, however, in which he lived was not ripe for the hearty and general adoption of the theory of descent. As in the organic world we behold here and there prophetic types, anticipating, in their generalized synthetic nature, the incoming, ages after, of more specialized types, so Lamarck anticipated by more than half a century the principles underlying the present evolutionary theories.
So numerous are now the adherents, in some form, of Lamarck's views, that at the present time evolutionists are divided into Darwinians and Lamarckians or Neolamarckians. The factors of organic evolution as stated by Lamarck, it is now claimed by many, really comprise the primary or foundation principles or initiative causes of the origin of life-forms. Hence not only do many of the leading biologists of his native country, but some of those of Germany, of the United States, and of England, justly regard him as the founder of the theory of organic evolution.
Besides this, Lamarck lived in a transition period. He prepared the way for the scientific renascence in France. Moreover, his simple, unselfish character was a 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 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 comprises 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 impression 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?1,