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LAMARCK
[Illustration: Attempt at a reconstruction of the Profile of Lamarck
from an unpublished etching by Dr. Cachet]
LAMARCK
THE FOUNDER OF EVOLUTION
_HIS LIFE AND WORK_
WITH TRANSLATIONS OF HIS
WRITINGS ON ORGANIC EVOLUTION
By
ALPHEUS S. PACKARD, M.D., LL.D.
Professor of Zoölogy and Geology in Brown University; author of "Guide
to the Study of Insects," "Text-book of Entomology," etc., etc.
"La postérité vous honorera!"
--_Mlle. Cornelie de Lamarck_
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
LONDON AND BOMBAY
1901
COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
_All rights reserved_
Press of J. J. Little & Co.
Astor Place, New York
PREFACE
Although it is now a century since Lamarck published the germs of his
theory, it is perhaps only within the past fifty years that the
scientific world and the general public have become familiar with the
name of Lamarck and of Lamarckism.
The rise and rehabilitation of the Lamarckian theory of organic
evolution, so that it has become a rival of Darwinism; the prevalence of
these views in the United States, Germany, England, and especially in
France, where its author is justly regarded as the real founder of
organic evolution, has invested his name with a new interest, and led to
a desire to learn some of the details of his life and work, and of his
theory as he unfolded it in 1800 and subsequent years, and finally
expounded it in 1809. 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 baffled by the general
ignorance about the man--his antecedents, 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 contemporaries.
Except the _éloges_ of Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Cuvier, 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, _l'Homme_, entitled _Lamarck. Par un Groupe
de Transformistes, ses Disciples_, Paris, 1887. This exceedingly rare
pamphlet was written by the late M. Gabriel de Mortillet, with the
assistance of Philippe Salmon and Dr. A. Mondière, who with others,
under the leadership of Paul Nicole, met in 1884 and formed a _Réunion
Lamarck_ and a _Dîner Lamarck_, to maintain and perpetuate the memory of
the great French transformist. 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 catacombs of Paris. Lamarck
left behind him no letters or manuscripts; nothing could be ascertained
regarding 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.
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 evolution 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 Lamarck's views, the vigor with
which he asserted their truth, and the heroic manner in which, against
adverse and contemptuous criticism, to his dying day he clung to them.
During a residence in Paris in the spring and summer of 1899, I spent 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
_Leçon d'Ouverture des Cours de l'Évolution des Êtres organisés_, 1888,
and in facilitating the work of collecting data. Introduced by him to
Professor Hamy, the learned anthropologist and archivist of the Muséum
d'Histoire Naturelle, I was given by him the freest access to the
archives in the Maison de Buffon, which, among other papers, contained
the MS. _Archives du Muséum_; _i.e._, the _Procès verbaux des Séances
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 Muséum d'Histoire
Naturelle, in the volume commemorating the centennial of the foundation
of the Museum, has been of essential service.
My warmest thanks are due to M. Adrien de Mortillet, formerly secretary
of the Society of Anthropology 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 Disciples_. 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 indebted 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 by Dr. J. Deniker, the
librarian of the Bibliothèque du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle.
I had begun in the museum library, which contains nearly if not every
one of Lamarck's publications, 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 Transformisme Actuel_, reprinted from the noble volume
commemorative of the centennial of the foundation of the Muséum
d'Histoire Naturelle, which has proved of much use.
Other sources from which biographical details have been taken are
Cuvier's _éloge_, and the notice of Lamarck, with a list of many of his
writings, in the _Revue biographique de la Société malacologique de
France_, 1886. This notice, which is illustrated by three portraits of
Lamarck, one of which has been reproduced, I was informed by M. Paul
Kleinsieck was prepared by the late J. R. Bourguignat, the eminent
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, preferred, 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 the evolution theory
may, at no distant date, be reprinted 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 putting them together has been very
great.
BROWN UNIVERSITY, PROVIDENCE, R. I.,
_October, 1901._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. BIRTH, FAMILY, YOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER 1
II. STUDENT LIFE AND BOTANICAL CAREER 15
III. LAMARCK'S SHARE IN THE REORGANIZATION OF THE
JARDIN DES PLANTES AND MUSEUM OF NATURAL
HISTORY 23
IV. PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOÖLOGY AT THE
MUSEUM 32
V. LAST DAYS AND DEATH 51
VI. POSITION IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE; OPINIONS
OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES AND SOME LATER
BIOLOGISTS 64
VII. LAMARCK'S WORK IN METEOROLOGY AND PHYSICAL
SCIENCE 79
VIII. LAMARCK'S WORK IN GEOLOGY 89
IX. LAMARCK THE FOUNDER OF INVERTEBRATE PALÆONTOLOGY 124
X. LAMARCK'S OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY AND
BIOLOGY 156
XI. LAMARCK AS A BOTANIST 173
XII. LAMARCK THE ZOÖLOGIST 180
XIII. THE EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON AND OF
GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE 198
XIV. THE VIEWS OF ERASMUS DARWIN 216
XV. WHEN DID LAMARCK CHANGE HIS VIEWS REGARDING THE 226
MUTABILITY OF SPECIES?
XVI. THE STEPS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LAMARCK'S VIEWS ON 232
EVOLUTION BEFORE THE PUBLICATION OF HIS
"PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE"
XVII. THE "PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE" 279
XVIII. LAMARCK'S THEORY AS TO THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 357
XIX. LAMARCK'S THOUGHTS ON MORALS, AND ON THE RELATION 372
BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION
XX. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN LAMARCKISM AND DARWINISM; 382
NEOLAMARCKISM
BIBLIOGRAPHY 425
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ATTEMPT AT A RECONSTRUCTION OF THE PROFILE OF
LAMARCK BY DR. GACHET (Photogravure) _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK, FRONT VIEW }
} 4
BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK " " }
ACT OF BIRTH 6
AUTOGRAPH OF LAMARCK, JANUARY 25, 1802 10
LAMARCK AT THE AGE OF 35 YEARS 20
BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK. REAR VIEW FROM THE WEST }
} 42
MAISON DE BUFFON, IN WHICH LAMARCK LIVED IN PARIS, }
1793-1829 }
PORTRAIT OF LAMARCK, WHEN OLD AND BLIND, IN THE
COSTUME OF A MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE. ENGRAVED
IN 1824 54
PORTRAIT OF LAMARCK 180
MAISON DE BUFFON, IN WHICH LAMARCK LIVED, 1793-1829 198
É. GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE 212
LAMARCK, THE FOUNDER OF EVOLUTION. HIS LIFE AND WORK
CHAPTER I
BIRTH, FAMILY, YOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER
The life of Lamarck is the old, old story of a man of genius who 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 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 _éloge_ to keep alive his memory.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jean-Baptiste-Pierre-Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, was born
August 1, 1744, at Bazentin-le-Petit. This little village is situated in
Picardy, or what is now the Department of the Somme, in the
Arrondissement de Péronne, Canton d'Albert, a little more than four
miles from Albert, between this town and Bapaume, and near Longueval,
the nearest post-office to Bazentin. The village of Bazentin-le-Grand,
composed of a few more houses than its sister hamlet, 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
pleasantly 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 instructions 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 excellent village teacher,
M. Duval, that the house in which the great naturalist was born was
still standing, and but a few steps away, in the rear of the church and
of the _mairie_. With much kindness he left his duties in the
schoolroom, and accompanied us to the ancient structure.
[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK, FRONT VIEW]
[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK]
The modest _château_ stands a few rods to the westward of the 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 corners 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 narrow 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 shepherdess and her lover
are engaged in other occupations 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 uninhabited, and perhaps
uninhabitable--indeed almost a ruin--and is used as a storeroom for wood
and rubbish 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 between the old garden walls.
Here, amid these rural scenes, even now so beautiful and tranquil, the
subject of our sketch was born and lived through his infancy and early
boyhood.[1]
If his parents did not possess an ample fortune, they were blessed with
a numerous progeny, for Lamarck 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.[2] 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 Baptême de la Commune de Bazentin,
pour l'Année 1744._
L'an mil sept cent quarante-quatre, le premier août est né en
légitime mariage et le lendemain a été baptisé par moy curé
soussigné Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine, fils de Messire Jacques
Philippe de Monet, chevalier de Lamarck, seigneur des Bazentin grand
et petit et de haute et puissante Dame Marie Françoise de Fontaine
demeurant en leur château de Bazentin le petit, son parrain a été
Messire Jean Baptiste de Fossé, prêtre-chanoine de l'église
collégiale de St. Farcy de Péronne, y demeurant, sa marraine Dame
Antoinette Françoise de Bucy, nièce de Messire Louis Joseph
Michelet, chevalier, ancien commissaire de l'artillerie de France
demeurante au château de Guillemont, qui ont signé avec mon dit
sieur de Bazentin et nous.
Ont signé: De Fossé, De Bucy Michelet, Bazentin. Cozette, curé.
[Illustration: ACT OF BIRTH]
Of Lamarck's parentage and ancestry there are fortunately some traces.
In the _Registre aux Actes de Baptême pour l'Année 1702_, 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 permission to the _curé_ by Henry,
Bishop of Amiens, having been signed February 3, 1702. Lamarck's
grandparents 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,[3] notwithstanding his
northern and almost Germanic name of Chevalier de Lamarck, originated in
the southwest of France. Though born at Bazentin, in old Picardy, it is
not less true that he descended on the paternal side from an ancient
house of Béarn, whose patrimony was very modest. This house was that of
Monet.
Another genealogist, Baron C. de Cauna,[4] tells us that there is no
doubt that the family of Monet in Bigorre[5] was divided. One of its
representatives formed a branch in Picardy in the reign of Louis XIV.
or later.
Lamarck's grandfather, Philippe de Monet, "seigneur de Bazentin et
autres lieux," was also "chevalier de l'ordre royal et militaire de
Saint-Louis, commandant pour le roi en la ville et château de Dinan,
pensionnaire de sa majesté."
The descendants of Philippe de Lamarck were, adds de Cauna, thus thrown
into two branches, or at least two offshoots or stems (_brisures_), near
Péronne. But the actual posterity of the Monet of Picardy was reduced to
a single family, claiming back, with good reason, to a southern origin.
One of its scions in the maternal line was a brilliant officer of the
military marine and also son-in-law of a very distinguished naval
officer.
The family of Monet was represented among the French nobility of 1789 by
Messires de Monet de Caixon and de Monet de Saint-Martin. By marriage
their grandson was connected with an honorable family of Montant, near
Saint-Sever-Cap.
Another authority, the Abbé J. Dulac, has thrown additional light on the
genealogy of the de Lamarck family, which, it may be seen, was for at
least three centuries a military one.[6] The family of Monet, Seigneur
de Saint-Martin et de Sombran, was maintained 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 château of Lourdes, who had as
a son (II) Étienne de Monet, esquire, who, by contract dated August 15,
1543, married Marguerite de Sacaze. He was the father of (III) Pierre
de Monet, esquire, "Seigneur d'Ast, en Béarn, guidon des gendarmes de la
compagnie du roi de Navarre." From him descended (IV) Étienne de Monet,
esquire, second of the name, "Seigneur d'Ast et Lamarque, de Julos." He
was a captain by rank, and bought the estate of Saint-Martin in 1592. He
married, in 1612, Jeanne de Lamarque, daughter of William de Lamarck,
"Seigneur de Lamarque et de Bretaigne." They had three children, the
third of whom was Philippe, "chevalier de Saint-Louis, commandant du
château de Dinan, Seigneur de Bazentin, en Picardy," who, as we have
already seen, was the father of the naturalist Lamarck, who lived from
1744 to 1829. The abbé relates that Philippe, the father of the
naturalist, was born at Saint-Martin, in the midst of Bigorre, "_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."[7]
The name was at first variously spelled de Lamarque, de la Marck, or
de Lamarck. He himself signed his name, when acting as secretary of the
Assembly of Professors-administrative of the Museum of Natural History
during the years of the First Republic, as plain Lamarck.
The inquiry arises how, being the eleventh child, he acquired the title
of chevalier, which would naturally have become extinct with the death
of the oldest son. The Abbé Dulac suggests that the ten older of the
children had died, or that by some family arrangement 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 influence his mother had
in shaping his character, his home environment, as the youngest of
eleven children, the nature of his education in infancy and boyhood,
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
situations for several of the others in the army. Jean Lamarck did not
manifest any taste for the clerical 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.[8]
His father dying in 1760, nothing could induce the incipient abbé, then
seventeen years of age, to longer wear his bands. Immediately on
returning home he bought himself a wretched horse, for want of means to
buy a better one, and, accompanied by a poor lad of his village, he
rode across the country to join the French army, then campaigning in
Germany.
[Illustration: AUTOGRAPH OF LAMARCK, JANUARY 25, 1802
je prie le Citoyen qui assemble dans le Magazin de l'imprimerie du
Citoyen Agasse de remettre à Madame chevalier Cent exemplaires de mon
hydrogeologie, pour les Brocher.
Paris le 5 pluviose an dix
Lamarck]
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.[9]
"We can imagine [says Cuvier] the feelings of this officer on thus
finding himself hampered with a boy whose puny appearance made him
seem still younger than he was. However, he sent him to his
quarters, and then busied himself with his duties. The period indeed
was a critical one. It was the 16th of July, 1761. The Marshal
de Broglie had just united his army with that of the Prince
de Soubise, and the next day was to attack the allied army commanded
by the Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. At the break of day M.
de Lastic rode along the front of his corps, and the first man that
met his gaze was the new recruit, who, without saying anything to
him, had placed himself in the front rank of a company of
grenadiers, and nothing could induce him to quit his post.
"It is a matter of history that this battle, which bears the name of
the little village of Fissingshausen, between Ham and Lippstadt, in
Westphalia, was lost by the French, and that the two generals,
mutually accusing each other of this defeat, immediately separated,
and abandoned the campaign.
"During the movement of the battle, de Lamarck's company was
stationed in a position exposed to the direct fire of the enemy's
artillery. In the confusion of the retreat he was forgotten. Already
all the officers and non-commissioned officers had been killed;
there remained only fourteen men, when the oldest grenadier, seeing
that there were no more of the French troops in sight, proposed to
the young volunteer, become so promptly commander, to withdraw his
little troop. 'But we are assigned to this post,' said the boy, 'and
we should not withdraw from it until we are relieved.' And he made
them remain there until the colonel, seeing that the squad did not
rally, sent him an orderly, who crept by all sorts of covered ways
to reach him. This bold stand having been reported to the marshal,
he promoted him on the field to the rank of an officer, although his
order had prescribed that he should be very chary of these kinds of
promotions."
His physical courage shown at this age was paralleled by his moral
courage in later years. The staying power he showed in immovably
adhering to his views on evolution through many years, and under the
direct 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 Lamarck
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 lieutenancy; but so glorious a
beginning of his military career was most unexpectedly checked. A sudden
accident forced him to leave the service and entirely change his course
of life. His regiment had been, during peace, sent into garrison, first
at Toulon and then at Monaco. While there a comrade in play lifted him
by the head; this gave rise to an inflammation 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 surgeons met with no
better success, and danger had become very imminent, when our
_confrère_, the late M. Tenon, with his usual sagacity, recognized
the trouble, and put an end to it by a complicated operation, of
which M. de Lamarck preserved deep scars. This treatment lasted for
a year, and, during this time, the extreme scantiness of his
resources confined him to a solitary life, when he had the leisure
to devote himself to meditations."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In the little chapel next the church lies buried, we were told by
M. Duval, a Protestant of the family of de Guillebon, the purchaser
(_acquéreur_) of the _château_. Whether the estate is now in the hands
of his heirs we did not ascertain.
[2] As stated by G. de Mortillet, the date of his birth is variously
given. Michaud's _Dictionnaire Biographique_ gives the date April 1;
other authors, April 11; others, the correct one, August 1, 1744.
(_Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Transformistes, ses Disciples._ _L'Homme_,
iv. p. 289, 1887.)
[3] "Sur la maison de Viella--les Mortiers-brévise et les Montalembert
en Gascogne--et sur le naturaliste Lamarck." Par Hippolyte Masson.
(_Revue de Gascogne_, xvii., pp. 141-143, 1876.)
[4] _Ibid._, p. 194.
[5] A small town in southwestern France, near Lourdes and Pau; it is
about eight miles north of Tarbes, in Gascony.
[6] _Revue de Gascogne_, pp. 264-269, 1876.
[7] The abbé attempts to answer the question as to what place gave
origin to the name of Lamarck, and says:
"The author of the history of Béarn considered the cradle of the race to
have been the freehold of Marca, parish of Gou (Basses-Pyrénées). A
branch of the family established in le Magnoac changed its name of Marca
to that of La Marque." It was M. d'Ossat who gave rise to this change by
addressing his letters to M. de Marca (at the time when he was preceptor
of his nephew), sometimes under the name of M. Marca, sometimes
_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 Béarn, the
Lamarque of the naturalist, an orthographic name in principle, proceeds
from Bigorre, actually chosen (_désignée_) by _Lamarcq, Pontacq, or
Lamarque près Béarn_. That the _Lamarque_ of the botanist of the royal
cabinet distinguished himself from all the _Lamarques_ of Béarn or of
Bigorre, which it bears (_qu'il gise_) to this day in the
Hautes-Pyrénées, Canton d'Ossun, we have many proofs: Aast at some
distance, Bourcat and Couet all near l'Abbaye Laïque, etc. The village
so determined is called in turn _Marca_, _La Marque_, _Lamarque_; names
predestined to several destinations; judge then to the mercy of a
botanist, _Lamarck_, _La Marck_, _Delamarque_, _De Lamarck_, who shall
determine their number? As to the last, I only explain 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. Consequently a hundred times more learned
and a hundred times more worthy of a professorship in the Museum, where
Monet would seem (_entrevait_) much less than Lamarque."
It may be added that Béarn was an ancient province of southern France
nearly corresponding to the present Department of Basses-Pyrénées. Its
capital was Pau.
[8] We have been unable to ascertain the date when young Lamarck entered
the seminary. On making inquiries in June, 1899, at the Jesuits'
Seminary in Amiens, one of the faculty, after consultation with the
Father Superior, kindly gave us in writing the following information 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, because 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?"
[9] We are following the _Éloge_ of Cuvier almost verbatim, also
reproduced in the biographical notice in the _Revue biographique de la
Société Malacologique de France_, said to have been prepared by J. R.
Bourguignat.