Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution | Page 3

LAMARCK'S SHARE IN THE REORGANIZATION OF THE
JARDIN DES PLANTES AND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
23
IV. PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOÖLOGY AT THE
MUSEUM 32
V. LAST DAYS AND DEATH 51
VI. POSITION IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE; OPINIONS OF HIS

CONTEMPORARIES AND SOME LATER BIOLOGISTS 64
VII. LAMARCK'S WORK IN METEOROLOGY AND PHYSICAL
SCIENCE 79
VIII. LAMARCK'S WORK IN GEOLOGY 89
IX. LAMARCK THE FOUNDER OF INVERTEBRATE
PALÆONTOLOGY 124
X. LAMARCK'S OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY AND
BIOLOGY 156
XI. LAMARCK AS A BOTANIST 173
XII. LAMARCK THE ZOÖLOGIST 180
XIII. THE EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON AND OF
GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE 198
XIV. THE VIEWS OF ERASMUS DARWIN 216
XV. WHEN DID LAMARCK CHANGE HIS VIEWS REGARDING
THE 226 MUTABILITY OF SPECIES?
XVI. THE STEPS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LAMARCK'S
VIEWS ON 232 EVOLUTION BEFORE THE PUBLICATION OF
HIS "PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE"
XVII. THE "PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE" 279
XVIII. LAMARCK'S THEORY AS TO THE EVOLUTION OF MAN
357
XIX. LAMARCK'S THOUGHTS ON MORALS, AND ON THE
RELATION 372 BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION
XX. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN LAMARCKISM AND
DARWINISM; 382 NEOLAMARCKISM

BIBLIOGRAPHY 425

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ATTEMPT AT A RECONSTRUCTION OF THE PROFILE OF
LAMARCK BY DR. GACHET (Photogravure) Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK, FRONT VIEW } } 4 BIRTHPLACE
OF LAMARCK " " }
ACT OF BIRTH 6
AUTOGRAPH OF LAMARCK, JANUARY 25, 1802 10
LAMARCK AT THE AGE OF 35 YEARS 20
BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK. REAR VIEW FROM THE WEST } }
42 MAISON DE BUFFON, IN WHICH LAMARCK LIVED IN
PARIS, } 1793-1829 }
PORTRAIT OF LAMARCK, WHEN OLD AND BLIND, IN THE
COSTUME OF A MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE. ENGRAVED IN
1824 54
PORTRAIT OF LAMARCK 180
MAISON DE BUFFON, IN WHICH LAMARCK LIVED, 1793-1829
198
É. GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE 212

LAMARCK, THE FOUNDER OF EVOLUTION. HIS LIFE AND
WORK

CHAPTER I
BIRTH, FAMILY, YOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER
The life of Lamarck is the old, old story of a man of genius who 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 Française will never be forgotten by his
countrymen, who called him the French Linné; and he who wrote the
Animaux sans Vertèbres at once took the highest rank as the leading
zoölogist 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 zoölogical 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