Among the many eminent French naturalists, whose loss to science we
have so often had occasion to lament during the few past years, the
above individual occupied a conspicuous place. He was long known
in Paris by his public prelections, and his numerous writings have
procured for him a high degree of reputation throughout Europe. In
this country he is best known by his admirable works on invertebrate
animals, which may be said to have formed a new era in the history of
that extensive department of the animal kingdom. But his studies had
a very extensive range; many of the most interesting inquiries which
for ages have fixed the attention of mankind, were the subjects of
his meditation, and on most of them he formed a number of definite
ideas which he promulgated under the form of theories. Although these
speculations are of a highly fanciful description, and some of them
greatly to be deprecated on account of their hurtful tendency, yet
they merit attention as the productions of a mind remarkable for
originality and penetration, as well as for extensive and varied
knowledge.
* * * * *
JEAN BAPTISTE PIERRE ANTOINE DE MONET, generally called the Chevalier
de Lamarck, was descended from an ancient family of some distinction,
possessed of considerable property in the province of Bearn. He was
born at Bezantin, a small village in Picardy, on the 1st August, 1744.
His fathers pecuniary resources having become considerably impaired,
among other things by the maintenance of a numerous family, Jean
Baptiste being his eleventh child, he found it necessary to educate his
sons for some useful profession. Several of them entered the army, and
the subject of the present notice was destined for the church, which
at that period offered many lucrative and influential appointments to
the members of noble families. To qualify him for this office, he was
sent to study under the Jesuits at Amiens, with whom he remained for
a considerable time. From the first, however, he appears to have had
some aversion to the profession selected for him by his father, and
this was increased to positive dislike by the mode of life which he was
obliged to lead at college. His active and excursive mind submitted
with impatience to the punctilious restraints of college discipline,
and the mechanical routine of studies prescribed indiscriminately to
all, without reference to natural bias or acquired predilection. Most
of his companions were actively engaged in the field or in other public
services, for France was now occupied with the eventful struggle
which commenced in 1756. His eldest brother had fallen in the siege of
Bergen-op-Zoom; others of them were still in the army; and all his most
cherished associations were connected with the profession of arms. With
so much to inspire an aversion to seclusion and comparative inactivity,
nothing could have induced him to remain at college but the authority
of his father, who still enforced compliance with his wishes. That
salutary restraint, however, having been removed by death, in 1760,
no time was lost by young Lamarck in following his own inclinations.
With nothing but a letter of recommendation from a lady residing in
the neighbourhood of his father, addressed to the colonel of a French
regiment, he set out for the army, which was then in Germany. Lamarck’s
somewhat diminutive stature and boyish appearance, which made him look
younger than he really was, were ill fitted to make amends for the want
of influential patronage. His reception was by no means flattering,
but nothing could daunt the zeal of the young volunteer. He joined a
company of grenadiers, and determined to trust to fortune and his own
exertions for obtaining that rank which individuals of his birth and
education commonly acquire by other means.
Zeal like this seldom fails sooner or later in attaining its object,
and in the present instance it was speedily rewarded. Lamarck had
joined the army on the day preceding the battle of Fissingshausen, in
which a vigorous but unsuccessful attack was made by the combined
troops of the marshal de Broglie and the prince of Soubise, on the army
commanded by Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. Cuvier relates[1], that
in the vicissitudes of the contest, the company to which M. Lamarck
was attached happened to be thrown into such a position as completely
exposed it to the fire of the enemy’s artillery, and that, owing to
the confusion which took place in the French army, it was entirely
forgotten and left in that perilous situation. All the officers were
soon killed, as well as the greater number of privates, when an old
grenadier, perceiving that there were no longer any of the French
within sight, proposed to the young volunteer, who by the death of the
officers had unexpectedly acquired the temporary command, that the
little troop should be withdrawn. This, however, he resolutely refused
to do until he received regular orders to that effect, which at last
were dispatched, when the troop were discovered to be missing, and
reached him with the utmost difficulty, owing to the rapid advance
of the enemy. This instance of intrepidity and vigorous adherence
to orders gave so much satisfaction to the commander-in-chief, that
he instantly issued an order for Lamarck’s promotion. Some time
afterwards, he was nominated to a lieutenancy, and his warmest
anticipations of success, in a profession which he had made so many
sacrifices to embrace, promised in time to be realized. But these
prospects were speedily overclouded by an accident which completely
put a stop to his military career, and gave a different complexion to
the whole tenor of his life and habits. Some one of his companions, in
sport, had lifted him by the head, and thereby strained so severely the
glands of his neck, that he was for some time placed in the greatest
danger. After many remedies had been tried to no purpose, a cure was
at last effected by the celebrated M. Tenon, by means of a complicated
operation. But his health had by this time become so much impaired,
that after residing for a length of time in Paris in the hope of its
amendment, he found it necessary to abandon all intention of rejoining
the army.
In these circumstances it became necessary for him to think of some new
occupation, and he seems not to have been long in forming a resolution
to study medicine. His pecuniary circumstances, however, were so very
limited, consisting of a pension of only 400 francs, that he was
obliged in the mean time to employ himself as a clerk in the office
of a banker in order to obtain the means of daily subsistence. The
intervals he spent in study; and such were the buoyancy and activity
of his mind, that even when his prospects were most discouraging,
he never seems to have lost the expectation of rising to usefulness
and distinction. He reverted with eagerness to the physical studies
which he had commenced at college, and soon showed a preference for
certain departments of natural history. He delighted to engage in
controversial discussions on these subjects with his companions, and
to indulge in speculations respecting the most abstruse points in
physics and the phenomena of the natural world. It is not improbable
that it was about this time, when the wide and varied fields of science
were just beginning to open to his view, that he conceived some of
those crude and fanciful notions which characterise so many of his
theoretical views. It is less a matter of surprise that such ideas
should suggest themselves, at the outset of his career, to one of his
ardent temperament and lively imagination, than that he should have
persisted in maintaining them when his knowledge was more extended and
his judgment matured, although in the opinion of almost every other
person their fallacy appeared demonstrable.
Botany and meteorology were the branches on which he first bestowed
the greatest degree of attention. Even before he left the army, he
had become attached to the former; and during his stay at Monaco, had
examined the singular vegetation of that rocky country. During his
illness, he was lodged, for the sake of economy, in an apartment at
the top of a high house, from which the clouds formed almost the only
spectacle; and to relieve the tedium of his long solitude, he was
accustomed to watch their varying forms and aspects, and carefully to
observe all the other atmospheric phenomena, indulging his fancy in
forming conjectures about their nature and origin. This circumstance,
he himself states, first inspired him with a desire to study
meteorology; and we can perceive in these solitary meditations, one of
the causes which tended to give their fanciful complexion to many of
his subsequent speculations.
After continuing his physical studies with much ardour for several
years, he at length appeared in the character of an author. His
“French Flora, or a brief Description of all the Plants which grow
naturally in France,” was published in 1778. The immediate occasion of
this work was a desire to furnish his fellow-students with a system
of arrangement which should lead with greater ease and certainty to
the determination of plants than any then in use. For this purpose
he adopted a modification of the binary or dichotomous method, the
principle of which consists in arranging natural objects by their
positive and negative characters, dividing and subdividing always
by two, and allowing a choice only between two opposite characters.
Although this plan is, of course, highly artificial, and ill calculated
to throw light on the affinities and analogies of objects, yet it
is much recommended by its extreme simplicity, which adapts it to
the comprehension of those who have but little acquaintance with the
technical and descriptive language of natural history. If judiciously
applied, it affords an easy index to particular genera and species, and
renders the subject at once accessible without any preparatory labour.
Indeed, the principle on which it rests must to a certain extent be
implied in every artificial system of arrangement.
This work soon acquired a considerable degree of popularity, not
only by its intrinsic value, but from the seasonable time of its
appearance. The study of botany, which had hitherto been confined
almost exclusively to the members of the medical profession, was
now becoming a popular and even fashionable pursuit; a distinction
which it owed chiefly to the writings and example of J. J. Rousseau.
Every work, therefore, calculated to facilitate the study, was likely
to meet with a favourable reception among those who would probably
have been repelled by dry technical details and rigorous scientific
precision. Its publication had an important influence on Lamarck’s
fortune and prospects. It secured for him the friendship and patronage
of M. de Buffon, who was then in the height of his popularity, and
possessed of much influence, not only from his rank, character, and
celebrity, but also from his authority with the government. Even its
want of a very philosophical and precise system was probably one of
the circumstances that recommended it to Buffon’s attention, as it was
thereby assimilated to his own writings, from which every thing of that
nature was expressly excluded. Through his influence, an edition of the
work was printed at the royal press, and its author introduced to the
favourable notice of many of the leading savans of the day. He had soon
an opportunity of turning his popularity to some profitable account,
for a place happening to become vacant in the botanical department of
the Academy of Sciences, Lamarck was presented with the appointment, in
preference to others of older standing and much higher pretensions. He
thus acquired a certain status among men of science, which encouraged
him to prosecute the studies which he had so successfully begun, and at
the same time afforded him the means of doing so in a more efficient
manner.
Another important advantage was derived by Lamarck from the friendship
of M. de Buffon. When the son of the latter had completed his studies,
and was about to make a tour through various parts of Europe, Lamarck
was invited to accompany him as tutor; and in order that he might
enjoy greater privileges by appearing in a kind of official character,
Buffon procured for him a commission as botanist to the king, for
the purpose of visiting foreign gardens and cabinets, and opening a
correspondence between them and similar establishments in Paris. In
this double capacity he travelled through various countries in the year
1781 and 1782; visited Gleditsch at Berlin, Jacquin at Vienna, Murray
at Gottingen, and many other celebrated naturalists; greatly extending
his acquaintance, not only with botany, but with many other branches of
natural history.
The extent and accuracy of his botanical knowledge was evinced by
the important works in which he engaged shortly after his return,
which have conferred on him a high reputation in this department.
These consisted of voluminous contributions to the _Encyclopédie
Methodique_, forming a _Dictionary of Botany_, and an extensive series
of _Illustrations of Genera_. Of that portion of the Encyclopædia known
by the former name, Lamarck wrote the whole of the two first volumes,
and a part of the third, fourth, and fifth. The object of the work is
to give a detailed history of plants, accompanied with descriptions,
remarks on their synonymy, an account of their uses, and peculiarities
of their structure. The Illustrations profess to afford “an exposition
of the characters of all the plants established by botanists, arranged
according to the sexual system of Linnæus, with figures displaying
the characters of these genera, and a table of all the known species
referable thereto, the description of which is found in the Botanical
Dictionary of the Encyclopædia.” This laborious work contains no fewer
than two thousand genera, illustrated by half that number of quarto
plates, executed with great care, and generally representing one or
two of the typical species, with a view to afford a knowledge of their
general appearance and habit. The flower and parts of fructification
are carefully delineated, and the precision and accuracy of the
whole work, renders it one of the most valuable that can be named
for conveying a speedy knowledge of the extensive and interesting
subject of which it treats. The zeal with which Lamarck laboured to
produce works of such research and interest, is characteristic of
the temperament of his mind. He seems for a time to have allowed the
subject wholly to engross his thoughts; to have occupied himself with
nothing but plants, and to have associated almost exclusively with
botanists. He was a frequent visitor at the house of M. de Jussieu,
whose celebrity drew around him all who devoted themselves to this
branch of science. Whenever a new collection of plants arrived in
Paris, Lamarck was the first to inspect it; and when the celebrated
Sonnerat returned from India in 1781, he was so much pleased with
Lamarck’s enthusiasm, as contrasted with the comparative indifference
of most other naturalists, that he presented him with the magnificent
herbarium which he had made in the east. It is to zeal like this that
we are entitled to look for the achievement of the highest results in
science.
Notwithstanding the patronage of Buffon, and others having the
greatest influence with the government, it was long before Lamarck
succeeded in obtaining any permanent and lucrative appointment. His
chief dependence was on the casual and precarious engagements which he
formed with booksellers, according to whose direction he was obliged to
labour; a painful restraint to a man of genius, impatient to develope
his own conceptions in whatever way he judged best fitted to render
them effective. He was at length nominated by M. de la Billardiere,
a relation of his own, to a place which seems to have been created
expressly for him, by which the duty was assigned him of keeping the
herbaria in the king’s cabinet. Although the emolument arising from
this office was inconsiderable, and the tenure of it uncertain and
invidious, for the National Assembly were called upon to suppress it
as unnecessary, he continued to hold it for several years, till a
change occurred which opened new prospects and entailed new duties.
This happened in 1793, when the establishment known by the name of the
king’s garden and cabinet were remodelled and distinguished by the
title of _Museum of Natural History_. The professors of the suppressed
institution were appointed to superintend such departments taught in
the new, as most nearly corresponded to their previous occupations; and
as Lamarck was the last appointed, he was obliged to take charge of
that branch unappropriated by the others, which happened to be the two
extensive classes of the animal kingdom, named _Insecta_ and _Vermes_
by Linnæus.
A new direction was thus given to his studies, for zoology as a science
had hitherto occupied but little of his regard. Indeed, the only
knowledge of this subject which he possessed, directly available in his
new station, seems to have been limited to _Testaceous Mollusca_, which
attracted his attention at a pretty early period. But the occasion was
just such a one as was best calculated to excite the natural ardour
and energy of his character. He entered upon this new field of inquiry
with the utmost eagerness, and cultivated it with so much skill and
facility, that he was soon in a condition to instruct others, and
ultimately to produce works which will form a lasting monument to his
fame.
Before engaging in the study of practical zoology, Lamarck had
rendered himself conspicuous by the boldness and originality of his
speculations regarding a variety of physical phenomena. The general
laws of chemistry, the origin of the globe and its inhabitants, the
condition of the atmosphere and of living bodies, and most other great
questions fitted to attract an active fancy, had by turns been the
subjects of his contemplation; and on many of them he had elaborated
a theory which he conceived calculated to elucidate the most abstruse
phenomena they presented. To these views he attached the highest
importance, considering them destined to place almost every branch of
knowledge on a new and secure foundation. He therefore took advantage
of every opportunity to enforce and illustrate them, and they will be
found to pervade most of his published works, even such as afford no
obvious plea for their introduction. Although most of them are exploded
as fanciful and untenable, these theories display much ingenuity and
extensive knowledge, and a pretty full account of them is necessary to
show the character of Lamarck’s mind, and the wide range of his studies.
As early as 1780, he had presented his Theory of Chemistry to the
Academy of Sciences; but it was not published for several years
afterwards, when it appeared under the title of “Researches on the
Causes of the most important physical Facts, and particularly on those
of Combustion; of the raising of Water in the State of Vapour; of the
Heat produced by the Friction of solid Bodies against each other,” &c.
&c. A condensed view of the opinions promulgated in that work, and some
others on the same subject, is thus given by Cuvier. According to our
author, “Matter is not homogeneous; it consists of simple principles,
essentially different among themselves. The connexion of these
principles in compounds varies in intensity; they mutually conceal
each other, more or less, according as each of them is more or less
predominant. The principle of no compound is ever in a natural state,
but always more or less modified: as, however, it is not agreeable
to reason that a substance should have a tendency to depart from its
natural condition, it must be concluded, that combinations are not
produced by Nature, but that, on the contrary, she tends unceasingly to
destroy the combinations which exist, and each principle of a compound
body tries to disengage itself according to the degree of its energy.
From this tendency, favoured by the presence of water, dissolutions
result: affinities have no influence; and all experiments by which
it is attempted to be proved that water decomposes, and consists of
many kinds of air, are mere illusions, and that it is fire which
produces them. The element of fire[2] is subject, like the others, to
modification when combined. In its natural state, everywhere diffused
and penetrating every substance, it is absolutely imperceptible: only,
when it is put in vibration, it becomes the essence of sound; for air
is not the vehicle of sound as natural philosophers believe[3]. But
fire is fixed in a great number of bodies, where it accumulates, and
becomes, in its highest degree of condensation, _carbonic fire_, the
basis of all combustible substances, and the cause of all colours.
When less condensed, and more liable to escape, it is _acidific_ fire
(_feu acidifique_), the cause of causticity when in great abundance,
and of tastes and smells when less so. At the moment when it disengages
itself, and in its transitory state of expansive motion, it is _caloric
fire_. It is in this form that it dilates, warms, liquifies, and
volatilizes bodies by surrounding their molecules; that it burns them
by destroying their aggregation; and that it calcines or acidifies
them by again becoming fixed in them. In the greatest force of its
expansion, it possesses the power of emitting light, which is of a
white, red, or violet-blue colour, according to the force with which
it acts; and it is, therefore, the origin of the prismatic colours, as
also of the tints seen in the flame of candles. Light, in its turn, has
likewise the power of acting upon fire, and it is thus that the sun
continually produces new sources of heat. Besides, all the compound
substances observed on the globe are owing to the organic powers of
beings endowed with life, of which, consequently it may be said, that
they are not conformable to nature, and are even opposed to it, because
they unceasingly reproduce what nature continually tends to destroy.
Vegetables form direct combinations of the elements; animals produce
more complicated compounds by combining those formed by vegetables;
but there is in every living body a power which tends to destroy it;
all therefore die, each in his appointed season, and all mineral
substances, and all organic bodies whatsoever, are nothing but the
remains of bodies which once had life, and from which the more volatile
principles have been successfully disengaged. The products of the most
complex animals are calcareous substances, those of vegetables are
argils or earths. Both of these pass into a siliceous state, by freeing
themselves more and more from their less fixed principles, and at last
are reduced to rock-crystal, which is earth in its greatest purity.
Salts, pyrites, metals, differ from other minerals, only because
certain circumstances have had the effect of accumulating in them, in
different proportions, a greater quantity of carbonic or acidific fire.”
Lamarck’s opinion regarding the origin of living beings, and the manner
in which they acquired the various organs and forms which they now
possess, are well known. They were first given to the public in 1802,
in a work entitled “Researches on the Organization of living Bodies, on
the Cause of its Developements, and the Progress of its Composition,
and on that Principle, which, by continually tending to destroy it
in every Individual necessarily brings on Death.” He conceives that
the egg, for example, contains nothing prepared for life before being
fecundated, and that the embryo of the chick becomes susceptible of
vital motion only by the action of the seminal vapour; but if we admit
that there exists in the universe a fluid analogous to this vapour,
and capable of acting upon matter placed in favourable circumstances,
as in the case of embryos, we will then be able to form an idea of
spontaneous generations. The more simple bodies, such as a monad or
a polypus, are easily formed; and this being the case, it is easy to
conceive how, in the lapse of time, animals of more complex structure
should be produced, for it must be admitted as a fundamental law, that
the production of a new organ in an animal body results from any new
want or desire which it may experience. The first effort of a being
just beginning to develope itself, must be to procure the means of
subsistence, and hence in time there came to be produced a stomach or
alimentary cavity. Other wants, occasioned by circumstances, will lead
to other efforts, which in their turn will produce new organs. One of
the gasteropode molluscæ, for example, may be conceived to have felt
the necessity, as it moved along, of exploring by touch the bodies in
its path and to have made efforts to do so with some of the anterior
points of its head, which would continually direct to that point masses
of the nervous fluid, as well as other liquids: from these reiterated
affluences to the point in question, there would follow a gradual
expansion of the nerves which terminate there; and as the nutritious
and other juices likewise flow to the same point, it must necessarily
happen that two or four tentacula would insensibly be produced. This
is no doubt what happens in regard to all the gasteropode tribes,
whose wants occasion the habit of feeling bodies by touching them with
the parts of their head; and when such wants are not felt, the head
remains destitute of tentacula, as may be seen in other instances,
&c.[4] In like manner it is the desire and the attempt to swim, that
had, in time, the effect of extending the skin that unites the toes of
many aquatic birds, and thus the web-foot of the gull and duck were at
last produced. The necessity of wading in search of food, accompanied
with the desire to keep their bodies from coming in contact with the
water, has lengthened to these present dimensions, the legs of the
grallæ or wading-birds; while the desire of flying has converted the
arms of all birds into wings, and their hairs and scales into feathers.
Changes of this nature may appear to us contrary to what falls under
our observation, which leads us to suppose that the specific forms
of animals are constant; but this error is entirely owing to the
difficulty we experience in embracing a considerable portion of time
within the scope of our observations. It is from this cause that we
cannot be ourselves witnesses of these changes, and neither history nor
written observations extend to sufficiently remote a date to convince
us of our mistake. If we observe that the forms of the parts of animals
are always perfect when viewed in relation to their use, as is really
the case, it is not to be inferred that it is the form of the parts
which has led them to be employed in a certain way, as zoologists
assert, but that it is, on the contrary, the need of action which has
produced the peculiar parts, and it is the employment of these parts
which has developed them, and established a proper relation between
them and their functions. To affirm that the form of the parts induced
their functions, would be to leave Nature without power, incapable of
producing any act, or any change in bodies; and the different parts of
animals, as well as the animals themselves, as all created at first,
would from that moment present as many forms as are required by the
diversity of circumstances in which animals live; and it would be
necessary that these circumstances should never vary, and that such
should likewise be the case with the parts of each animal. Nothing,
however, of this kind takes place, and nothing can be more opposite
to the means which observation shows us that Nature employs to call
into existence her manifold productions. It must hence appear, that
what are called species do not exist in nature; that the constancy of
races to which that name has been given, can only be temporary and not
absolute, although they would no doubt continue the same as long as the
circumstances which effect them undergo no change, and they are not
forced to alter their habitudes. It is susceptible of demonstration,
that if species had an absolute constancy, there would be no varieties,
but naturalists cannot help acknowledging that such exist[5].
Whatever changes circumstances may have produced in individuals,
are all preserved by generation, and transmitted to new individuals
emanating from those which have undergone these changes. Unless this
were the case, Nature could never have introduced the diversity among
animals which we now witness, nor a progression in the composition of
their organs and faculties[6].
Such is Lamarck’s theory of life, and manner of accounting for the
innumerable variety of forms in which living nature now appears. If
his principles were once admitted, they would not only produce the
effects he ascribes to them, but it would be a matter of surprise that
natural productions are not infinitely more diversified than they
really are, for nothing more is necessary than time and circumstances
for any one animal form to be transformed into any other,--for a monad
or a polypus to become indifferently a frog, an eagle, an elephant,
or a man. But the two suppositions on which they rest, viz. that it
is the seminal vapour which organizes the embryo, and that efforts
and desires engender organs, are both so entirely arbitrary, and the
latter so obviously fallacious, that very few have ever thought it
worth while to attempt a formal refutation of them. It is difficult,
indeed, to conceive how Lamarck could advance a theory so utterly
opposed to observation and probability, and at the same time succeed so
effectually in convincing himself of its truth. He must have perceived
many of the inadmissible and absurd conclusions to which it led; yet he
persists in maintaining it by a kind of sophistry which could impose
on none but himself. He admits the value of observation and experience
in the discovery of truth; but finding that they bore no testimony to
the wonderful transformations he was desirous to prove, he gets rid of
their evidence altogether, by alleging that they do not extend over a
sufficiently lengthened period to take cognizance of these changes. The
argument, therefore, on this point, virtually amounts to this, that
observation gives no notice of these operations, but that instead of
thence inferring that they do not take place, the proper conclusion
is, that they are actually going on, and have been in progress since
the creation! How indispensable unlimited time is to give an air of
plausibility to Lamarck’s theory, is strikingly evinced by the fact,
of which he was perfectly aware, that we have the means of comparing
animals that lived upwards of two or three thousand years ago, with
the same species as they exist at present, and the conformity between
them is found to be complete. Numerous quadrupeds, birds, reptiles,
and insects, have been found embalmed in the Egyptian cemeteries, with
all the parts in such a state of preservation as to be perfectly
recognizable. “It would seem,” says the professors of the museum
at Paris, in their report on these valuable remains[7], “as if the
superstition of the ancient Egyptians had been inspired by Nature,
in order to transmit to future times a monument of her history. By
embalming with so much care the brutes which were the objects of their
foolish adoration, that extraordinary and capricious people have left
us, in their sacred grottoes, almost complete cabinets of zoology. The
climate has conspired with the art of embalming to preserve bodies
from corruption, and we can now satisfy ourselves, by our own eyes,
what was the condition of many species three thousand years ago. It
is difficult to restrain the transports of our imagination, when we
behold thus preserved, with their minutest bones, the smallest portions
of their skin, and in every respect most perfectly recognizable, many
animals, which at Thebes or Memphis, two or three thousand years ago,
had their own priests and altars.” In regard to these curious relicts,
Lamarck was forced to admit that they were identical with their living
descendants in the same country, and accounted for it by saying that
this happened because the climate and other physical conditions of
the latter had long continued unaltered. But he makes no attempt to
account for the fact which is so fatal to his theory, that these
remains entirely correspond to individuals of the same species in many
different quarters of the globe, where the physical conditions are so
dissimilar that they ought to have produced important changes[8].
It will likewise be observed as an important defect in Lamarck’s
argument, that he can cite no positive fact to exemplify the
substitution of some _entirely new_ sense, faculty, or organ, in the
room of some other suppressed as useless. “All the instances adduced,”
says Mr. Lyell, “go only to prove that the dimensions and strength
of members, and the perfection of certain attributes may, in a long
succession of generations, be lessened and enfeebled by disuse; or,
on the contrary, be matured and augmented by active exertion, just as
we know that the power of scent is feeble in the greyhound, while its
swiftness of pace and its acuteness of sight are remarkable; that the
harrier and staghound, on the contrary, are comparatively slow in their
movements, but excel in their sense of smelling. We point out to the
reader this important chasm in the chain of the evidence, because he
might otherwise imagine that we had merely omitted the illustrations
for the sake of brevity; but the plain truth is, that there were
no examples to be found, and when Lamarck talks of ‘the efforts of
internal sentiment,’ ‘the influence of subtile fluids,’ and the ‘acts
of organization,’ as causes whereby animals and plants may acquire
_new organs_, he gives us names for things, and with a disregard of
the strict rules of induction, resorts to fictions, as ideal as the
‘plastic virtue,’ and other phantoms of the middle ages.
“It is evident, that if some well authenticated facts could have
been adduced to establish one complete step in the process of
transformation, such as the appearance in individuals descending from
a common stock, of a sense or organ entirely new, and a complete
disappearance of some other enjoyed by their progenitors, that time
alone might then be supposed sufficient to bring about any amount of
metamorphosis. The gratuitous assumption, therefore, of a point so
vital to the theory of transmutation, was unpardonable on the part of
its advocate[9].”
The transmutability of species is a point which has been maintained by
many naturalists besides Lamarck, and the reasons they have adduced in
support of their opinions are so various, that the full consideration
of them would be inconsistent with our present purpose. It may be
assumed as capable of most satisfactory proof, that the mutations which
species undergo in accommodating themselves to a change of external
circumstances, have a definite limit, and are regulated by constant
laws; and that the capability of so varying, forms part of the specific
character. Indefinite divergence from the original type is guarded
against, in the case of intermixture of distinct species, by the
sterility of the mule offspring; circumstances which show that species
were designed to retain the individuality of character with which they
were endowed at the time of their creation, and that they have a real
existence in nature[10].
The intellectual faculties of animals, Lamarck regards as entirely the
result of organization. Even in the case of the most perfect of them,
the human species, there is no distinct recognition of a spiritual
substance derived from heaven; and all intellectual phenomena whatever,
are ascribed to some physical cause. Nature, he conceives, offers
nothing cognizable by us but _body_; the movements, changes, and
properties of _bodies_, form the only field open to our observation,
and the only source of real knowledge and useful truths[11]. The place
of the soul seems to be usurped by a certain _interior sentiment_, to
which he continually refers, as exercising a most powerful influence
over all the faculties, and giving rise to all the passions and
affections[12]. Thus the noblest faculties of the mind, “the capability
and godlike reason,” by which we are distinguished from other animals,
----and this spirit,
This all-pervading, this all-conscious soul,
This particle of energy divine,
Which travels nature, flies from star to star,
And visits gods, and emulates their powers;
are made to emanate from a certain relation of parts and organs,--a
particular conformation of material substances, just as a desired
result is obtained by arranging in a certain order the parts of a piece
of mechanism.
“But who can believe that such a faculty, so divine, so godlike
and spiritual, can be the mere result of organization? That any
juxta-position of _material_ molecules, of whatsoever nature, from
whatever source derived, in whatever order and forms arranged,
and wherever placed, could generate thought, and reflection, and
reasoning powers, could acquire and store up ideas and notions, as
well concerning metaphysical as physical essences, may as safely be
pronounced impossible, as that matter and spirit should be homogeneous.
Though the intellectual part acts by the brain and nerves, yet the
brain and nerves, however ample, however developed, are not the
intellect, nor an intellectual substance, but only its instrument,
fitted for the passage of the prime messenger of the soul, its nervous
fluid or power to every motive organ. It is a substance calculated to
convey instantaneously that subtile agent, by which spirit can act
upon body, wherever the soul bids it to go and enables it to act. When
death separates the intellectual and the spiritual from the material
part, the introduction of a fluid, homogeneous with the nervous, or
related to it by a galvanic battery, can put the nerves in action, lift
the eyelids, move the limbs; but though the action of the intellectual
part may thus be imitated, in newly deceased persons, still there are
no signs of returning intelligence, there is no life, no voluntary
action, not a trace of the spiritual agent that has been summoned from
its dwelling. Whence it follows, that though the organization is that
by which the intellectual and governing power manifests its presence
and habitation, still it is evidently something distinct from and
independent of it[13].”
With opinions having such a decided tendency to materialism, it is not
surprising that Lamarck seldom makes allusion to a Deity, and when he
does so, he nearly confines himself to the bare acknowledgment of his
existence. In his earlier works, there is no mention made of a Supreme
Being whatever; and even when his existence is admitted, He is divested
of the attributes which belong to him. The glory of forming the works
of creation, in which His beneficence and power are so signally
manifested, is ascribed to _nature_, or a _certain order of things_.
This power to which the Deity has delegated his prerogatives, and which
he has appointed his vicegerent, Lamarck defines as “An order of things
composed of objects independent of matter, which are determined by
the observation of bodies, and the whole amount of which constitutes
a power, unalterable in its essence, governed in all its acts, and
constantly acting upon all the parts of the physical universe[14].”
This blind power, which acts necessarily, has not, indeed, called
matter into existence, but it has formed all bodies of which matter
is essentially the base; and as it exercises no power except on the
latter, which it modifies and changes in every possible manner,
producing all its various aggregates and combinations, we may be
assured that it is it which has made all bodies such as we now behold
them, and that it is Nature which confers on some their properties,
and on others the faculties which they exercise[15]. All this power
Lamarck distinctly admits has been delegated to Nature by the Deity,
and among other errors which he conceives to have attached to the ideas
which have been entertained regarding Nature, he refutes the notion
that Nature is the Deity himself. “Strange occurrence! that the watch
should have been confounded with its maker, the work with its author.
Assuredly this idea is illogical and unfit to be maintained. The power
which has created Nature, has, without doubt, no limits, cannot be
restricted in its will or made subject to others, and is independent of
all law. It alone can change Nature and her laws, and even annihilate
them; and although we have no positive knowledge of this great object,
the idea which we thus form of the Almighty Power, is at least the most
suitable for man to entertain of the Divinity, when he can raise his
thoughts to the contemplation of him. If Nature were an intelligence,
it could exercise volition, and change its laws, or rather there
could be no law. Finally, if _Nature_ were God, its will would be
independent, its acts unconstrained; but this is not the case; it is,
on the contrary, continually subject to constant laws, over which it
has no power: it hence follows, that although its means are infinitely
diversified and inexhaustible, it acts always in the same manner in the
same circumstances, without the power of acting otherwise[16].”
While thus admitting the existence of the Deity, any direct
interference in the affairs of the universe is wholly denied to him.
His sovereignty is reduced to a mere nominal supremacy, as he is
supposed to take no care or thought for the worlds which he authorized
or permitted to be created, and can have no sympathy for the creatures
which inhabit them. As with La Place, and so many other philosophers
of the French school, every thing is ascribed to _secondary causes_,
which are made to usurp the place and attributes of the Divinity.
Lamarck’s deity, therefore, is the exact counterpart of the god of
Epicurus, whose being is allowed seemingly more for the purpose of
giving consistency to a theory, or a compliance with generally received
opinions, than from any urgent conviction of his reality; and we may
justly apply to him what was said of the Grecian philosopher; _Re
tollit, oratione relinquit Deum_.
It has been already mentioned, that Lamarck’s attention was early
directed to meteorology, and it seems long to have continued to
form one of his most favourite studies. So comparatively limited
is our positive knowledge of atmospheric phenomena, that a careful
investigation of them afforded the prospect of new and important
discoveries; while the endless variety of appearances which they
present, and the complicated influences which operate in producing
them, offered a wide and interesting field for the exercise of that
speculative kind of inquiry which Lamarck loved to indulge. 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 exercise 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; it ought to blow towards
the pole that is nearest to it, and advancing in that direction only,
in order to reach every place, traversing dry countries or extensive
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 regarded
as affording probabilities much nearer the truth[17].
So convinced was Lamarck of the accuracy and value of his theory, that
he resolved on reducing it to practice, and thus at the same time
establish its truth, and attract the attention of the public towards
it. For this purpose he drew up a series of almanacks, which he had
the perseverance to publish for ten consecutive years, the nature
of which will be best understood from the title of that which first
appeared. “Annual Meteorology for the Year VIII of the Republic (1800,
A. D.), containing an Exposition of the Probabilities acquired by a
long Series of Observations on the State of the Weather, and Variations
of the Atmosphere, in different Seasons of the Year; an Indication of
the Times when it may be expected to be fine Weather, or Rain, Storms
and Tempests, Frosts, &c.: finally, an Enumeration, according to
Probabilities, of the Times favourable for Fêtes, Journeys, Voyages,
Harvest, and other Undertakings, in which it is of Importance not to
be interrupted by the Weather; with simple and concise Directions
regarding these new Measures.” His predictions, as might have been
expected, proved more frequently erroneous than otherwise, but this
circumstance was far from inducing him to discontinue his exertions.
Every year he had recourse to some new consideration,--such as the
phases, the apogee and perigee of the moon, and the relative position
of the sun, to account for his previous failure, and afford greater
certainty in his future prognostications. After every expedient had
been tried without success, he was at last obliged to renounce the
labour as fruitless, satisfied that, however important it would be to
foresee the state of the weather, it depends on causes far too remote
and complex to be made the subject of calculation.
Speculations of an analogous character regarding the formation of
the globe and the changes which it has undergone, were laid before
the public, in 1802, in a work entitled “Hydrogeology, or Researches
on the Influence exerted by Water on the Surface of the terrestrial
Globe,” &c. &c. His opinions rest on the assumption that all composite
minerals are the remains of living beings. According to him, the
seas are continually hollowing out their bed in consequence of being
unceasingly agitated by the tides, produced by the action of the
moon; in proportion as the bed deepens in the crust of the earth,
it necessarily follows that their level lowers, and their surface
diminishes; and thus the dry land, formed by the _debris_ of living
creatures, is more and more disclosed. As the land emerges from the
sea, the water from the clouds forms currents upon its surface, by
which it is rent and excavated, and divided into valleys and mountains.
With the exception of volcanoes, our steepest and most elevated ridges
have formerly belonged to plains, even their substance once made a part
of the bodies of animals and plants; and it is in consequence of being
so long purified from foreign principles that they are reduced to a
siliceous nature. But running waters furrow them in all directions,
and carry their materials into the bed of the sea; and the latter,
from continual efforts to deepen its bottom, necessarily throws them
out on one side or other. Hence there results a general movement and a
constant transportation of the ocean, which has perhaps already made
several circuits of the globe. This shifting cannot occur without
displacing the centre of gravity in the globe; a circumstance which
would have the effect of displacing the axis itself, and changing the
temperature of the different climates.--In order to silence any doubts
that may arise in the minds of his readers from not observing these
changes going forward, Lamarck is careful to add, as in the case of the
supposed transformation of species, that an unlimited length of time
must be allowed for their accomplishment.
But the work on which Lamarck’s fame is principally founded, and
which has conferred a most important service on zoology, is his
_Histoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Vertébres_. From the time of its
appearance, this work has ever been regarded as one of the highest
authority, and has formed the principal regulator of most departments
of this extensive race of animals. The work extends to seven octavo
volumes, and is entitled “Natural History of invertebrate Animals,
presenting the general and particular Characters of these Animals,
their Distribution, Classes, Families, Genera, and the principal
Species referable thereto.” The first volume is entirely occupied with
an introduction, the object of which is to determine the essential
characters of an animal, its distinction from vegetables and other
natural bodies, and to explain the fundamental principles of zoology.
This introduction may be regarded as furnishing a synoptical view of
all the author’s peculiar opinions on the origin and developement of
living beings, which are illustrated more in detail in separate works.
The first five volumes are written entirely by Lamarck, but he was
assisted in the part relating to insects by M. Latreille. A portion of
the sixth volume and the whole of the seventh, were drawn up by his
daughter from his notes and papers, his want of sight preventing him
from undertaking that labour himself; and that part of the sixth, which
relates to the _mytilacés_, _malliacés_, _pectinides_, and _ostracés_,
is written by M. Valenciennes. The first part was published in 1815,
and the other parts appeared at intervals up to 1822, when the whole
was completed. Besides a luminous and comprehensive account of the
general history of the different groups and genera, the principal
species are cited and briefly characterized, with their synonymes,
reference to figures, and localities. The enumeration of species
sometimes includes all the known kinds, and is particularly copious
and instructive in relation to sponges and shell-bearing molluscæ.
The genera are established with much discrimination, and judiciously
characterized by obvious properties, such as form, proportion, nature
of the surface, and structure. The synonymy is unravelled with great
care, and the descriptions, though necessarily often very brief, are
in general highly satisfactory. These circumstances have rendered
this work the most valuable system that has ever appeared of the
invertebrate animals; and it has formed the guide to most authors who
have since written on the subject[18].
The phrase _invertebrate animals_ originated with Lamarck, and it
expresses, as Cuvier remarks, perhaps the only circumstances in their
organization which is common to them all. They were previously known
as _white-blooded animals_, a designation which was soon shown to be
improper, by the discovery that an entire class (the _annelides_)
possesses red blood. The system of Linnæus and Bruguière formed the
basis of his course when he first began to lecture on the subject; he
subsequently adopted a new classification, founded on their anatomy,
which had been published in 1795. This he afterwards modified in
various ways, as new discoveries were made, and as new relations
suggested themselves to him. In his system of invertebrata, forming an
octavo volume, published in 1810, he adopted the class of _crustacea_,
and created that of _arachnides_, a step which he judged necessary,
in consequence of some new information that had been communicated to
him on the heart and pulmonary sacs of spiders. In a previous work
he had admitted the _annelides_ to the rank of a separate class,
in consequence of Baron Cuvier’s observations on their circulating
organs and the colour of their blood, which resembles that of the
vertebrate races. Two other classes were created, in his “Philosophical
Zoology,” viz. the _infusoria_ and the _centipedes_; and in this work
also he first deviated from the ordinary practice of commencing the
arrangement with the most perfectly organized, the inverse order being
more in accordance with his theoretical views, which assumed a gradual
_progression_ in the composition of animal organs, proceeding from the
most simple to the most complex.
It was in a small volume, entitled “An Extract from the Zoological
Course in the Museum of Natural History, on the invertebrate Animals,”
&c. published in 1812, that he first presented his general distribution
of animals into three grand divisions, _apathetic_, _sentient_, and
_intelligent_. This plan he made the foundation of his great work,
and the method in which he applied it, as well as his ideas regarding
the constitution of the different classes, and their relation to each
other, will be understood from the subjoined table.
Invertebrate Animals.