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Editorial
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Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution

A >> Alpheus Spring Packard >> Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution




[108] See his remark: "_On a dit avec raison que tout ce qui a vie
provient d'un auf_" (_Memoires de Physique_, etc., 1797, p. 272). He
appears, however, to have made the simplest organisms exceptions to this
doctrine.

[109] _Elementa physiologiae corporis humani_, iv. Lausanne, 1762.

[110] _Theoria generationis_, 1774.

[111] _Memoires de Physique_, (1797), p. 250.

[112] _Memoires de Physique_, etc. (1797), p. 272.

[113] Huxley's "Evolution in Biology" (_Darwiniana_, p. 192), where be
quotes from Bonnet's statements, which "bear no small resemblance to
what is understood by evolution at the present day."

[114] Buffon did not accept Bonnet's theory of preexistent germs, but he
assumed the existence of "_germes accumules_" which reproduced parts or
organs, and for the production of organisms he imagined "_molecules
organiques_." Reaumur had previously (1712) conjectured that there were
"_germes caches et accumules_" to account for the regeneration of the
limbs of the crayfish. The ideas of Bonnet on germs are stated in his
_Memoires sur les Salamandres_ (1777-78-80) and in his _Considerations
sur les corps organises_ (1762.)

[115] _Memoires de Physique_, etc., pp. 318, 319, 324-359. Yet the idea
of a sort of continuity between the inorganic and the organic world is
expressed by Verworn.

[116] _General Physiology_ (English trans., 1899, p. 17). In France
vitalism was founded by Bordeu (1722-1766), developed further by Barthez
(1734-1806) and Chaussier (1746-1828), and formulated most distinctly by
Louis Dumas (1765-1813). Later vitalists gave it a thoroughly mystical
aspect, distinguishing several varieties, such as the _nisus formativus_
or formative effort, to explain the forms of organisms, accounting for
the fact that from the egg of a bird, a bird and no other species always
develops (_l. c._, p. 18).

[117] _Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivans_ (1802), p. 70.
The same view was expressed in _Memoires de physique_ (1797),
pp. 254-257, 386.

[118] Here might be quoted for comparison other famous definitions of
life:

"Life is the sum of the functions by which death is resisted."--Bichat.

"Life is the result of organization."--(?)

"Life is the principle of individuation."--Coleridge ex. Schelling.

"Life is the twofold internal movement of composition and decomposition,
at once general and continuous."--De Blainville, who wisely added that
there are "two fundamental and correlative conditions inseparable from
the living being--an organism and a medium."

"Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external
relations."--Herbert Spencer.




CHAPTER XI

LAMARCK AS A BOTANIST


During the century preceding the time of Lamarck, botany had not
flourished in France with the vigor shown in other countries. Lamarck
himself frankly stated in his address to the Committee of Public
Instruction of the National Convention that the study of plants had been
for a century neglected by Frenchmen, and that the great progress which
it had made during this time was almost entirely due to foreigners.

"I am free to say that since the distinguished Tournefort the French
have remained to some extent inactive in this direction; they have
produced almost nothing, unless we except some fragmentary mediocre
or unimportant works. On the other hand, Linne in Sweden, Dilwillen
in England, Haller in Switzerland, Jacquin in Austria, etc., have
immortalized themselves by their own works, vastly extending the
limit of our knowledge in this interesting part of natural history."

What led young Lamarck to take up botanical studies, his botanical
rambles about Paris, and his longer journeys in different parts of
France and in other countries, his six years of unremitting labor on his
_Flore Francaise_, and the immediate fame it brought him, culminating in
his election as a member of the French Academy, have been already
recounted.

Lamarck was thirty-four when his _Flore Francaise_ appeared. It was not
preceded, as in the case of most botanical works, by any preliminary
papers containing descriptions of new or unknown species, and the three
stout octavo volumes appeared together at the same date.

The first volume opens with a report on the work made by MM. Duhamel and
Guettard. Then follows the _Discours Preliminaire_, comprising over a
hundred pages, while the main body of the work opens with the _Principes
Elementaires de Botanique_, occupying 223 pages. The work was a general
elementary botany and written in French. Before this time botanists had
departed from the artificial system of Linne, though it was convenient
for amateurs in naming their plants. Jussieu had proposed his system of
natural families, founded on a scientific basis, but naturally more
difficult for the use of beginners. To obviate the matter Lamarck
conceived and proposed the dichotomic method for the easy determination
of species. No new species were described, and the work, written in the
vernacular, was simply a guide to the indigenous plants of France,
beginning with the cryptogams and ending with the flowering plants. A
second edition appeared in 1780, and a third, edited and remodelled by
A. P. De Candolle, and forming six volumes, appeared in 1805-1815. This
was until within a comparatively few years the standard French botany.

Soon after the publication of his _Flore Francaise_ he projected two
other works which gave him a still higher position among botanists. His
_Dictionnaire de Botanique_ was published in 1783-1817, forming eight
volumes and five supplementary ones. The first two and part of the third
volume were written by Lamarck, the remainder by other botanists, who
completed it after Lamarck had abandoned botanical studies and taken up
his zooelogical work. His second great undertaking was _L'Illustration
des Genres_ (1791-1800), with a supplement by Poiret (1823).

Cuvier speaks thus of these works:

"_L'Illustration des Genres_ is a work especially fitted to enable
one to acquire readily an almost complete idea of this beautiful
science. The precision of the descriptions and of the definitions of
Linnaeus is maintained, as in the institutions of Tournefort, with
figures adapted to give body to these abstractions, and to appeal
both to the eye and to the mind, and not only are the flowers and
fruits represented, but often the entire plant. More than two
thousand genera are thus made available for study in a thousand
plates in quarto, and at the same time the abridged characters of a
vast number of species are given.

"The _Dictionnaire_ contains more details of the history with
careful descriptions, critical researches on their synonymy, and
many interesting observations on their uses or on special points of
their organizations. The matter is not all original in either of the
works, far from it, but the choice of figures is skilfully made, the
descriptions are drawn from the best authors, and there are a large
number which relate to species and also some genera previously
unknown."

Lamarck himself says that after the publication of his _Flore
Francaise_, his zeal for work increasing, and after travelling by order
of the government in different parts of Europe, he undertook on a vast
scale a general work on botany.

"This work comprised two distinct features. In the first (_Le
Dictionnaire_), which made a part of the new encyclopedia, the
citizen Lamarck treats of philosophical botany, also giving the
complete description of all the genera and species known. An immense
work from the labor it cost, and truly original in its execution....
The second treatise, entitled _Illustration des Genres_, presents in
the order of the sexual system the figures and the details of all
the genera known in botany, and with a concise exposition of the
generic characters and of the species known. This work, unique of
its kind, already contains six hundred plates executed by the best
artists, and will comprise nine hundred. Also for more than ten
years the citizen Lamarck has employed in Paris a great number of
artists. Moreover, he has kept running three separate presses for
different works, all relating to natural history."

Cuvier in his _Eloge_ also adds:

"It is astonishing that M. de Lamarck, who hitherto had been
studying botany as an amateur, was able so rapidly to qualify
himself to produce so extensive a work, in which the rarest plants
were described. It is because, from the moment he undertook it, with
all the enthusiasm of his nature, he collected them from the gardens
and examined them in all the available herbaria; passing the days at
the houses of the botanists he knew, but chiefly at the home of M.
de Jussieu, in that home where for more than a century a scientific
hospitality welcomed with equal kindness every one who was
interested in the delightful study of botany. When any one reached
Paris with plants he might be sure that the first one who should
visit him would be M. de Lamarck; this eager interest was the means
of his receiving one of the most valuable presents he could have
desired. The celebrated traveller Sonnerat, having returned in 1781
for the second time from the Indies, with very rich collections of
natural history, imagined that every one who cultivated this science
would flock to him; it was not at Pondichery or in the Moluccas that
he had conceived an idea of the vortex which too often in this
capital draws the savants as well as men of the world; no one came
but M. de Lamarck, and Sonnerat, in his chagrin, gave him the
magnificent collection of plants which he had brought. He profited
also by that of Commerson, and by those which had been accumulated
by M. de Jussieu, and which were generously opened to him."

These works were evidently planned and carried out on a broad and
comprehensive scale, with originality of treatment, and they were most
useful and widely used. Lamarck's original special botanical papers were
numerous. They were mostly descriptive of new species and genera, but
some were much broader in scope and were published over a period of ten
years, from 1784 to 1794, and appeared in the _Journal d'Histoire
naturelle_, which he founded, and in the _Memoires_ of the Academy of
Sciences.

He discussed the shape or aspect of the plants characteristic of certain
countries, while his last botanical effort was on the sensibility of
plants (1798).

Although not in the front rank of botanists, compared with Linne,
Jussieu, De Candolle, and others, yet during the twenty-six years of his
botanical career it may safely be said that Lamarck gave an immense
impetus to botany in France, and fully earned the title of "the French
Linne."

Lamarck not only described a number of genera and species of plants, but
he attempted a general classification, as Cleland states:

"In 1785 (_Hist. de l'Acad._) he evinced his appreciation of the
necessity of natural orders in botany by an attempt at the
classification of plants, interesting though crude, and falling
immeasurably short of the system which grew in the hands of his
intimate friend Jussieu."--_Encyc. Brit._, Art. LAMARCK.

A genus of tropical plants of the group _Solanaceae_ was named _Markea_
by Richard, in honor of Lamarck, but changed by Persoon and Poiret to
_Lamarckea_. The name _Lamarckia_ of Moench and Koeler was proposed for
a genus of grasses; it is now _Chrysurus_.

Lamarck's success as a botanist led to more or less intimate relations
with Buffon. But it appears that the good-will of this great naturalist
and courtier for the rising botanist was not wholly disinterested.
Lamarck owed the humble and poorly paid position of keeper of the
herbarium to Buffon. Bourguin adds, however:

"_Mais il les dut moins a ses merites qu'aux petits passions de la
science officielle._ The illustrious Buffon, who was at the same
time a very great lord at court, was jealous of Linne. He could not
endure having any one compare his brilliant and eloquent
word-pictures of animals with the cold and methodical descriptions
of the celebrated Swedish naturalist. So he attempted to combat him
in another field--botany. For this reason he encouraged and pushed
Lamarck into notice, who, as the popularizer of the system of
classification into natural families, seemed to him to oppose the
development of the arrangement of Linne."

Lamarck's style was never a highly finished one, and his incipient
essays seemed faulty to Buffon, who took so much pains to write all his
works in elegant and pure French. So he begged the Abbe Hauey to review
the literary form of Lamarck's works.

Here it might be said that Lamarck's is the philosophic style; often
animated, clear, and pure, it at times, however, becomes prolix and
tedious, owing to occasional repetition.

But after all it can easily be understood that the discipline of his
botanical studies, the friendship manifested for him by Buffon, then so
influential and popular, the relations Lamarck had with Jussieu, Hauey,
and the zooelogists of the Jardin du Roi, were all important factors in
Lamarck's success in life, a success not without terrible drawbacks, and
to the full fruition of which he did not in his own life attain.




CHAPTER XII

LAMARCK THE ZOOeLOGIST


Although there has been and still may be a difference of opinion as to
the value and permanency of Lamarck's theoretical views, there has never
been any lack of appreciation of his labors as a systematic zooelogist.
He was undoubtedly the greatest zooelogist of his time. Lamarck is the
one dominant personage who in the domain of zooelogy filled the interval
between Linne and Cuvier, and in acuteness and sound judgment he at
times surpassed Cuvier. His was the master mind of the period of
systematic zooelogy, which began with Linne--the period which, in the
history of zooelogy, preceded that of comparative anatomy and morphology.

After Aristotle, no epoch-making zooelogist arose until Linne was born.
In England Linne was preceded by Ray, but binomial nomenclature and the
first genuine attempt at the classification of animals dates back to the
_Systema Naturae_ of Linne, the tenth edition of which appeared in 1758.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF LAMARCK]

The contemporaries of Lamarck in biological science, in the eighteenth
century, were Camper (1722-89), Spallanzani (1729-99), Wolff (1733-94),
Hunter (1728-93), Bichat (1771-1802), and Vicq d'Azyr (1748-94). These
were all anatomists and physiologists, the last-named being the first
to propose and use the term "comparative anatomy," while Bichat was the
founder of histology and pathological anatomy. There was in fact no
prominent systematic zooelogist in the interval between Linne and
Lamarck. In France there were only two zooelogists of prominence when
Lamarck assumed his duties at the Museum. These were Bruguiere the
conchologist and Olivier the entomologist. In Germany Hermann was the
leading systematic zooelogist. We would not forget the labors of the
great German anatomist and physiologist Blumenbach, who was also the
founder of anthropology; nor the German anatomists Tiedemann, Bojanus,
and Carus; nor the embryologist Doellinger. But Lamarck's method and
point of view were of a new order--he was much more than a mere
systematist. His work in systematic zooelogy, unlike that of Linne, and
especially of Cuvier, was that of a far higher grade. Lamarck, besides
his rigid, analytical, thorough, and comprehensive work on the
invertebrates, whereby he evolved order and system out of the chaotic
mass of forms comprised in the Insects and Vermes of Linne, was animated
with conceptions and theories to which his forerunners and
contemporaries, Geoffroy St. Hilaire excepted, were entire strangers.
His tabular view of the classes of the animal kingdom was to his mind a
genealogical tree; his idea of the animal kingdom anticipated and was
akin to that of our day. He compares the animal series to a tree with
its numerous branches, rather than to a single chain of being. This
series, as he expressly states, began with the monad and ended with
man; it began with the simple and ended with the complex, or, as we
should now say, it proceeded from the generalized or undifferentiated to
the specialized and differentiated. He perceived that many forms had
been subjected to what he calls degeneration, or, as we say,
modification, and that the progress from the simple to the complex was
by no means direct. Moreover, fossil animals were, according to his
views, practically extinct species, and stood in the light of being the
ancestors of the members of our existing fauna. In fact, his views,
notwithstanding shortcomings and errors in classification naturally due
to the limited knowledge of anatomy and development of his time, have
been at the end of a century entirely confirmed--a striking testimony to
his profound insight, sound judgment, and philosophic breadth.

The reforms that he brought about in the classification of the
invertebrate animals were direct and positive improvements, were adopted
by Cuvier in his _Regne animal_, and have never been set aside. We owe
to him the foundation and definition of the classes of Infusoria,
Annelida, Arachnida, and Crustacea, the two latter groups being
separated from the insects. He also showed the distinctness of
echinoderms from polyps, thus anticipating Leuckart, who established the
phylum of Coelenterata nearly half a century later. His special work
was the classification of the great group of Mollusca, which he regarded
as a class. When in our boyhood days we attempted to arrange our shells,
we were taught to use the Lamarckian system, that of Linne having been
discarded many years previous. The great reforms in the classification
of shells are evidenced by the numerous manuals of conchology based on
the works of Lamarck.

We used to hear much of the Lamarckian genera of shells, and Lamarck was
the first to perceive the necessity of breaking up into smaller
categories the few genera of Linne, which now are regarded as families.
He may be said to have had a wonderfully good eye for genera. All his
generic divisions were at once accepted, since they were based on valid
characters.

Though not a comparative anatomist, he at once perceived the value of a
knowledge of the internal structure of animals, and made effective use
of the discoveries of Cuvier and of his predecessors--in fact, basing
his system of classification on the organs of respiration, circulation,
and the nervous system.

He intimated that specific characters vary most, and that the peripheral
parts of the body, as the shell, outer protective structures, the limbs,
mouth-parts, antennae, etc., are first affected by the causes which
produce variation, while he distinctly states that it requires a longer
time for variations to take place in the internal organs. On the latter
he relied in defining his classes.

One is curious to know how Lamarck viewed the question of species. This
is discussed at length by him in his general essays, which are
reproduced farther on in this biography, but his definition of what a
species is far surpasses in breadth and terseness, and better satisfies
the views now prevailing, than that of any other author.

His definition of a species is as follows:

"Every collection of similar individuals, perpetuated by generation
in the same condition, so long as the circumstances of their
situation do not change enough to produce variations in their
habits, character, and form."

Lamarck's rare skill, thoroughness, and acuteness as an observer,
combined with great breadth of view, were also supplemented by the
advantages arising from residence in Paris, and his connection with the
Museum of Natural History. Paris was in the opening years of the
nineteenth century the chief centre of biological science. France having
convalesced from the intestinal disorders of the Revolution, and, as the
result of her foreign wars, adding to her territory and power, had begun
with the strength of a young giant to send out those splendid exploring
expeditions which gathered in collections in natural history from all
parts of the known or accessible world, and poured them, as it were,
into the laps of the professors of the Jardin des Plantes. The shelves
and cases of the galleries fairly groaned with the weight of the
zooelogical riches which crowded them. From the year 1800 to 1832 the
French government showed the greatest activity in sending out exploring
expeditions to Egypt, Africa, and the tropics.[119]

The zooelogists who explored Egypt were Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Savigny.
Those who visited the East, the South Seas, the East Indian archipelago,
and other regions were Bruguiere, Olivier, Bory de St. Vincent, Peron,
Lesueur, Quoy, Gaimard, Le Vaillant, Edoux, and Souleyet. The natural
result was the enormous collections of the Jardin des Plantes, and
consequently enlarged views regarding the number and distribution of
species, and their relation to their environment.

In Paris, about the time of Lamarck's death, flourished also Savigny,
who published his immortal works on the morphology of arthropods and of
ascidians; and Straus-Durckheim, whose splendidly illustrated volumes on
the anatomy of the cockchafer and of the cat will never cease to be of
value; and E. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, whose elaborate and classical works
on vertebrate morphology, embryology, and comparative anatomy added so
much to the prestige of French science.

We may be sure that Lamarck did his own work without help from others,
and gave full credit to those who, like Defrance or Bruguiere, aided or
immediately preceded him. He probably was lacking in executive force, or
in the art which Cuvier knew so well to practise, of enlisting young men
to do the drudgery or render material aid, and then, in some cases,
neglecting to give them proper credit.

The first memoir or paper published on a zooelogical subject by Lamarck
was a modest one on shells, which appeared in 1792 in the _Journal
d'Histoire naturelle_, the editors of which were Lamarck, Bruguiere,
Olivier, Hauey, and Pelletier. This paper was a review of an excellent
memoir by Bruguiere, who preceded Lamarck in the work of dismemberment
of the Linnaean genera. His next paper was on four new species of Helix.
To this _Journal_, of which only two volumes were published, Cuvier
contributed his first paper--namely, on some new species of "Cloportes"
(Oniscus, a genus of terrestrial crustacea or "pill-bugs"); this was
followed by his second memoir on the anatomy of the limpet, his next
article being descriptions of two species of flies from his collection
of insects.[120] Seven years later Lamarck gave some account of the
genera of cuttlefishes. His first general memoir was a prodromus of a
new classification of shells (1799).

Meanwhile Lamarck's knowledge of shells and corals was utilized by
Cuvier in his _Tableau elementaire_, published in 1798, who acknowledges
in the preface that in the exposition of the genera of shells he has
been powerfully seconded, while he indicated to him (Cuvier) a part of
the subgenera of corals and alcyonarians, and adds, "I have received
great aid from the examination of his collection." Also he acknowledges
that he had been greatly aided (_puissamment seconde_) by Lamarck, who
had even indicated the most of the subdivisions established in his
_Tableau elementaire_ for the insects (Blainville, _l. c._, p. 129), and
he also accepted his genera of cuttlefishes.

After this Lamarck judiciously refrained from publishing descriptions of
new species, and other fragmentary labors, and for some ten years from
the date of publication of his first zooelogical article reserved his
strength and elaborated his first general zooelogical work, a thick
octavo volume of 452 pages, entitled _Systeme des Animaux sans
Vertebres_, which appeared in 1801.

Linne had divided all the animals below the vertebrates into two classes
only, the Insecta and Vermes, the insects comprising the present classes
of insects, Myriapoda, Arachnida, and Crustacea; the Vermes embracing
all the other invertebrate animals, from the molluscs to the monads.

Lamarck perceived the need of reform, of bringing order out of the
chaotic mass of animal forms, and he says (p. 33) that he has been
continually occupied since his attachment to the museum with this
reform.

He relies for his characters, the fundamental ones, on the organs of
respiration, circulation, and on the form of the nervous system. The
reasons he gives for his classification are sound and philosophical, and
presented with the ease and aplomb of a master of taxonomy.

He divided the invertebrates, which Cuvier had called animals with white
blood, into the seven following classes.

We place in a parallel column the classification of Cuvier in 1798.


_Classification of Lamarck._ _Classification of Cuvier._

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