Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution

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It appears that he was led, in the first place, to conchological studies
through his warm friendship for a fellow naturalist, and this is one of
many proofs of his affectionate, generous nature. The touching story is
told by Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire.[36]

"It was impossible to assign him a professorship of botany. M. de
Lamarck, then forty-nine years old, accepted this change in his
scientific studies to take charge of that which everybody had
neglected; because it was, indeed, a heavy load, this branch of
natural history, where, with so varied relations, everything was to
be created. On one group he was a little prepared, but it was by
accident; a self-sacrifice to friendship was the cause. For it was
both to please his friend Bruguiere as well as to penetrate more
deeply into the affections of this very reserved naturalist, and
also to converse with him in the only language which he wished to
hear, which was restricted to conversations on shells, that M. de
Lamarck had made some conchological studies. Oh, how, in 1793, did
he regret that his friend had gone to Persia! He had wished, he had
planned, that he should take the professorship which it was proposed
to create. He would at least supply his place; it was in answer to
the yearnings of his soul, and this affectionate impulse became a
fundamental element in the nature of one of the greatest of
zooelogical geniuses of our epoch."

Once settled in his new line of work, Lamarck, the incipient zooelogist,
at a period in life when many students of less flexible and energetic
natures become either hide-bound and conservative, averse to taking up a
different course of study, or actually cease all work and rust
out--after a half century of his life had passed, this rare spirit,
burning with enthusiasm, charged like some old-time knight or explorer
into a new realm and into "fresh fields and pastures new." His spirit,
still young and fresh after nearly thirty years of mental toil, so
unrequited in material things, felt a new stimulus as he began to
investigate the lower animals, so promising a field for discovery.

He said himself:

"That which is the more singular is that the most important
phenomena to be considered have been offered to our meditations only
since the time when attention has been paid to the animals least
perfect, and when researches on the different complications of the
organization of these animals have become the principal foundation
of their study. It is not less singular to realize that it was
almost always from the examination of the smallest objects which
nature presents to us, and that of considerations which seem to us
the most minute, that we have obtained the most important knowledge
to enable us to arrive at the discovery of her laws, and to
determine her course."

After a year of preparation he opened his course at the Museum in the
spring of 1794. In his introductory lecture, given in 1803, after ten
years of work on the lower animals, he addressed his class in these
words:

"Indeed it is among those animals which are the most multiplied and
numerous in nature, and the most ready to regenerate themselves,
that we should seek the most instructive facts bearing on the course
of nature, and on the means she has employed in the creation of her
innumerable productions. In this case we perceive that, relatively
to the animal kingdom, we should chiefly devote our attention to the
invertebrate animals, because their enormous multiplicity in nature,
the singular diversity of their systems of organization and of their
means of multiplication, their increasing simplification, and the
extreme fugacity of those which compose the lowest orders of these
animals, show us, much better than the higher animals, the true
course of nature, and the means which she has used and which she
still unceasingly employs to give existence to all the living bodies
of which we have knowledge."

During this decade (1793-1803) and the one succeeding, Lamarck's mind
grew and expanded. Before 1801, however much he may have brooded over
the matter, we have no utterances in print on the transformation theory.
His studies on the lower animals, and his general knowledge of the
vertebrates derived from the work of his contemporaries and his
observations in the Museum and menagerie, gave him a broad grasp of the
entire animal kingdom, such as no one before him had. As the result, his
comprehensive mind, with its powers of rapid generalization, enabled him
to appreciate the series from monad (his _ebauche_) to man, the range of
forms from the simple to the complex. Even though not a comparative
anatomist like Cuvier, he made use of the latter's discoveries, and
could understand and appreciate the gradually increasing complexity of
forms; and, unlike Cuvier, realize that they were blood relations, and
not separate, piece-meal creations. Animal life, so immeasurably higher
than vegetable forms, with its highly complex physiological functions
and varied means of reproduction, and the relations of its forms to each
other and to the world around, affords facts for evolution which were
novel to Lamarck, the descriptive botanist.

[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK. REAR VIEW, FROM THE WEST]

[Illustration: MAISON DE BUFFON, IN WHICH LAMARCK LIVED IN PARIS.
1793-1829]

In accordance with the rules of the Museum, which required that all the
professors should be lodged within the limits of the Jardin, the choice
of lodgings being given to the oldest professors, Lamarck, at the time
of his appointment, took up his abode in the house now known as the
Maison de Buffon, situated on the opposite side of the Jardin des
Plantes from the house afterwards inhabited by Cuvier, and in the angle
between the Galerie de Zoologie and the Museum library.[37] With little
doubt the windows of his study, where his earlier addresses, the
_Recherches sur l'Organisation des Corps Vivans_, and the _Philosophie
Zoologique_, were probably written, looked out upon what is now the
court on the westerly side of the house, that facing the Rue Geoffroy
St. Hilaire.

At the time of his entering on his duties as professor of zooelogy,
Lamarck was in his fiftieth year. He had married twice and was the
father of six children, and without fortune. He married for a third, and
afterwards for a fourth time, and in all, seven children were born to
him, as in the year (1794) the minute referring to his request for an
indemnity states: "Il est charge de sept enfans dont un est sur les
vaisseaux de la Republique." Another son was an artist, as shown by the
records of the Assembly of the Museum for September 23, 1814, when he
asked for a chamber in the lodgings of Thouin, for the use of his son,
"_peintre_."

Geoffroy St. Hilaire, in 1829, spoke of one of his sons, M. Auguste de
Lamarck, as a skilful and highly esteemed engineer of Ponts-et-Chaussees,
then advantageously situated.

But man cannot live by scientific researches and philosophic meditations
alone. The history of Lamarck's life is painful from beginning to end.
With his large family and slender salary he was never free from carking
cares and want. On the 30 fructidor, an II. of the Republic, the
National Convention voted the sum of 300,000 livres, with which an
indemnity was to be paid to citizens eminent in literature and art.
Lamarck had sacrificed much time and doubtless some money in the
preparation and publication of his works, and he felt that he had a just
claim to be placed on the list of those who had been useful to the
Republic, and at the same time could give proof of their good
citizenship, and of their right to receive such indemnity or
appropriation.

Accordingly, in 1795 he sent in a letter, which possesses much
autobiographical interest, to the Committee of Public Instruction, in
which he says:

"During the twenty-six years that he has lived in Paris the citizen
Lamarck has unceasingly devoted himself to the study of natural
history, and particularly botany. He has done it successfully, for
it is fifteen years since he published under the title of _Flore
Francaise_ the history and description of the plants of France, with
the mention of their properties and of their usefulness in the arts;
a work printed at the expense of the government, well received by
the public, and which now is much sought after and very rare." He
then describes his second great botanical undertaking, the
_Encyclopaedia and Illustration of Genera_, with nine hundred plates.
He states that for ten years past he has kept busy "a great number
of Parisian artists, three printing presses for different works,
besides delivering a course of lectures."

The petition was granted. At about this period a pension of twelve
hundred francs from the Academy of Sciences, and which had increased to
three thousand francs, had ceased eighteen months previously to be paid
to him. But at the time (an II.) Lamarck was "charge de sept enfans,"
and this appropriation was a most welcome addition to his small salary.

The next year (an III.) he again applied for a similar allowance from
the funds providing an indemnity for men of letters and artists "whose
talents are useful to the Republic." Again referring to the _Flore
Francaise_, and his desire to prepare a second edition of it, and his
other works and travels in the interest of botanical science, he says:

"If I had been less overburdened by needs of all kinds for some
years, and especially since the suppression of my pension from the
aforesaid Academy of Sciences, I should prepare the second edition
of this useful work; and this would be, without doubt, indeed, the
opportunity of making a new present to my country.

"Since my return to France I have worked on the completion of my
great botanical enterprises, and indeed for about ten years past my
works have obliged me to keep in constant activity a great number of
artists, such as draughtsmen, engravers, and printers. But these
important works that I have begun, and have in a well-advanced
state, have been in spite of all my efforts suspended and
practically abandoned for the last ten years. The loss of my pension
from the Academy of Sciences and the enormous increase in the price
of articles of subsistence have placed me, with my numerous family,
in a state of distress which leaves me neither the time nor the
freedom from care to cultivate science in a fruitful way."

Lamarck's collection of shells, the accumulation of nearly thirty
years,[38] was purchased by the government at the price of five thousand
livres. This sum was used by him to balance the price of a national
estate for which he had contracted by virtue of the law of 28 ventose de
l'an IV.[39] This little estate, which was the old domain of Beauregard,
was a modest farm-house or country-house at Hericourt-Saint-Samson, in
the Department of Seine-et-Oise, not far to the northward of Beauvais,
and about fifty miles from Paris. It is probable that as a proprietor of
a landed property he passed the summer season, or a part of it, on this
estate.

This request was, we may believe, made from no unworthy or mercenary
motive, but because he thought that such an indemnity was his due. Some
years after (in 1809) the chair of zooelogy, newly formed by the Faculte
des Sciences in Paris, was offered to him. Desirable as the salary would
have been in his straitened circumstances, he modestly refused the
offer, because he felt unable at that time of life (he was, however, but
sixty-five years of age) to make the studies required worthily to occupy
the position.

One of Lamarck's projects, which he was never able to carry out, for it
was even then quite beyond the powers of any man single-handed to
undertake, was his _Systeme de la Nature_. We will let him describe it
in his own words, especially since the account is somewhat
autobiographical. It is the second memoir he addressed to the Committee
of Public Instruction of the National Convention, dated 4 vendemiaire,
l'an III. (1795):

"In my first memoir I have given you an account of the works which I
have published and of those which I have undertaken to contribute to
the progress of natural history; also of the travels and researches
which I have made.

"But for a long time I have had in view a very important
work--perhaps better adapted for education in France than those I
have already composed or undertaken--a work, in short, which the
National Convention should without doubt order, and of which no part
could be written so advantageously as in Paris, where are to be
found abundant means for carrying it to completion.

"This is a _Systeme de la Nature_, a work analogous to the _Systema
naturae_ of Linnaeus, but written in French, and presenting the
picture complete, concise, and methodical, of all the natural
productions observed up to this day. This important work (of
Linnaeus), which the young Frenchmen who intend to devote themselves
to the study of natural history always require, is the object of
speculations by foreign authors, and has already passed through
thirteen different editions. Moreover, their works, which, to our
shame, we have to use, because we have none written expressly for
us, are filled (especially the last edition edited by Gmelin) with
gross mistakes, omissions of double and triple occurrence, and
errors in synonymy, and present many generic characters which are
inexact or imperceptible and many series badly divided, or genera
too numerous in species, and difficulties insurmountable to
students.

"If the Committee of Public Instruction had the time to devote any
attention to the importance of my project, to the utility of
publishing such a work, and perhaps to the duty prescribed by the
national honor, I would say to it that, after having for a long time
reflected and meditated and determined upon the most feasible plan,
finally after having seen amassed and prepared the most essential
materials, I offer to put this beautiful project into execution. I
have not lost sight of the difficulties of this great enterprise. I
am, I believe, as well aware of them, and better, than any one else;
but I feel that I can overcome them without descending to a simple
and dishonorable compilation of what foreigners have written on the
subject. I have some strength left to sacrifice for the common
advantage; I have had some experience and practice in writing works
of this kind; my herbarium is one of the richest in existence; my
numerous collection of shells is almost the only one in France the
specimens of which are determined and named according to the method
adopted by modern naturalists--finally, I am in a position to profit
by all the aid which is to be found in the National Museum of
Natural History. With these means brought together, I can then hope
to prepare in a suitable manner this interesting work.

"I had at first thought that the work should be executed by a
society of naturalists; but after having given this idea much
thought, and having already the example of the new encyclopaedia, I
am convinced that in such a case the work would be very defective in
arrangement, without unity or plan, without any harmony of
principles, and that its composition might be interminable.

"Written with the greatest possible conciseness, this work could not
be comprised in less than eight volumes in 8vo, namely: One volume
for the quadrupeds and birds; one volume for the reptiles and
fishes; two volumes for the insects; one volume for the worms (the
molluscs, madrepores, lithophytes, and naked worms); two volumes for
the plants; one volume for the minerals: eight volumes in all.

"It is impossible to prepare in France a work of this nature without
having special aid from the nation, because the expense of printing
(on account of the enormous quantity of citations and figures which
it would contain) would be such that any arrangement with the
printer or the manager of the edition could not remunerate the
author for writing such an immense work.

"If the nation should wish to print the work at its own expense, and
then give to the author the profits of the sale of this edition,
the author would be very much pleased, and would doubtless not
expect any further aid. But it would cost the nation a great deal,
and I believe that this useful project could be carried through with
greater economy.

"Indeed, if the nation will give me twenty thousand francs, in a
single payment, I will take the whole responsibility, and I agree,
if I live, that before the expiration of seven years the _Systeme de
la Nature_ in French, with the complemental addition, the
corrections, and the convenient explanations, shall be at the
disposition of all those who love or study natural history."

FOOTNOTES:

[32] Most men of science of the Revolution, like Monge and others, were
advanced republicans, and the Chevalier Lamarck, though of noble birth,
was perhaps not without sympathy with the ideas which led to the
establishment of the republic. It is possible that in his walks and
intercourse with Rousseau he may have been inspired with the new notions
of liberty and equality first promulgated by that philosopher.

His studies and meditations were probably not interrupted by the events
of the Terror. Stevens, in his history of the French Revolution, tells
us that Paris was never gayer than in the summer of 1793, and that
during the Reign of Terror the restaurants, _cafes_, and theatres were
always full. There were never more theatres open at the same period than
then, though no single great play or opera was produced. Meanwhile the
great painter David at this time built up a school of art and made that
city a centre for art students. Indeed the Revolution was "a grand time
for enthusiastic young men," while people in general lived their
ordinary lives. There is little doubt, then, that the savants, except
the few who were occupied by their duties as members of the _Convention
Nationale_, worked away quietly at their specialties, each in his own
study or laboratory or lecture-room.

[33] Bern. Germ. Etienne, Comte de Lacepede, born in 1756, died in 1825,
was elected professor of the zooelogy of "quadrupedes ovipares, reptiles,
et poissons," January 12, 1795 (Records of the Museum). He was the
author of works on amphibia, reptiles, and mammals, forming
continuations of Buffon's _Histoire Naturelle_. He also published
_Histoire Naturelle des Poissons_ (1798-1803), _Histoire des Cetaces_
(1804), and _Histoire Naturelle de l'Homme_ (1827), _Les Ages de la
Nature et Histoire de l'Espece Humaine_, tome 2, 1830.

[34] Perrier, _l. c._, p. 14.

[35] _Fragments Biographiques_, p. 214.

[36] _Fragments Biographiques_, p. 213.

[37] A few years ago, when we formed the plan of writing his life, we
wrote to friends in Paris for information as to the exact house in which
Lamarck lived, and received the answer that it was unknown; another
proof of the neglect and forgetfulness that had followed Lamarck so many
years after his death, and which was even manifested before he died.
Afterwards Professor Giard kindly wrote that by reference to the _proces
verbaux_ of the Assembly, it had been found by Professor Hamy that he
had lived in the house of Buffon.

The house is situated at the corner of Rue de Buffon and Rue Geoffroy
St. Hilaire. The courtyard facing Rue Geoffroy St. Hilaire bears the
number 2 Rue de Buffon, and is in the angle between the Galerie de
Zoologie and the Bibliotheque. The edifice is a large four-storied one.
Lamarck occupied the second _etage_, what we should call the third
story; it was first occupied by Buffon. His bedroom, where he died, was
on the _premier etage_. It was tenanted by De Quatrefages in his time,
and is at present occupied by Professor G. T. Hamy; Professor L.
Vaillant living in the first _etage_, or second story, and Dr. J.
Deniker, the _bibliothecaire_ and learned anthropologist, in the third.
The second _etage_ was, about fifty years ago (1840-50), renovated for
the use of Fremy the chemist, so that the exact room occupied by Lamarck
as a study cannot be identified.

This ancient house was originally called _La Croix de Fer_, and was
built about two centuries before the foundation of the Jardin du Roi. It
appears from an inspection of the notes on the titles and copies of the
original deeds, preserved in the Archives, and kindly shown me by
Professor G. T. Hamy, the Archivist of the Museum, that this house was
erected in 1468, the deed being dated _1xbre_, 1468. The house is
referred to as _maison ditte La Croix de Fer_ in deeds of 1684, 1755,
and 1768. It was sold by Charles Roger to M. le Compte de Buffon,
March 23, 1771. One of the old gardens overlooked by it was called _de
Jardin de la Croix_. It was originally the first structure erected on
the south side of the Jardin du Roi.

[38] In the "avertissement" to his _Systeme des Animaux sans Vertebres_
(1801), after stating that he had at his disposition the magnificent
collection of invertebrate animals of the museum, he refers to his
private collection as follows: "Et une autre assez riche que j'ai formee
moi-meme par pres de trente annees de recherches," p. vii. Afterwards he
formed another collection of shells named according to his system, and
containing a part of the types described in his _Histoire Naturelle des
Animaux sans Vertebres_ and in his minor articles. This collection the
government did not acquire, and it is now in the museum at Geneva. The
Paris museum, however, possesses a good many of the Lamarckian types,
which are on exhibition (Perrier, _l. c._, p. 20).

[39] _Lettre du Ministre des Finances (de Ramel) au Ministre de
l'Interieur_ (13 pr. an V.). See Perrier, _l. c._, p. 20.

CHAPTER V

LAST DAYS AND DEATH

Lamarck's life was saddened and embittered by the loss of four wives,
and the pangs of losing three of his children;[40] also by the rigid
economy he had to practise and the unending poverty of his whole
existence. A very heavy blow to him and to science was the loss, at an
advanced age, of his eyesight.

It was, apparently, not a sudden attack of blindness, for we have hints
that at times he had to call in Latreille and others to aid him in the
study of the insects. The continuous use of the magnifying lens and the
microscope, probably, was the cause of enfeebled eyesight, resulting in
complete loss of vision. Duval[41] states that he passed the last ten
years of his life in darkness; that his loss of sight gradually came on
until he became completely blind.

In the reports of the meetings of the Board of Professors there is but
one reference to his blindness. Previous to this we find that, at his
last appearance at these sessions--_i.e._, April 19, 1825--since his
condition did not permit him to give his course of lectures, he had
asked M. Latreille to fill his place; but such was the latter's health,
he proposed that M. Audouin, sub-librarian of the French Institute,
should lecture in his stead, on the invertebrate animals. This was
agreed to.

The next reference, and the only explicit one, is that in the records
for May 23, 1826, as follows: "Vu la cecite dont M. de Lamarck est
frappe, M. Bosc[42] continuera d'exercer sur les parties confiert a
M. Audouin la surveillance attribuee au Professeur."

But, according to Duval, long before this he had been unable to use his
eyes. In his _Systeme analytique des Connaissances positives de
l'Homme_, published in 1820, he refers to the sudden loss of his
eyesight.

Even in advanced life Lamarck seems not to have suffered from
ill-health, despite the fact that he apparently during the last thirty
years of his life lived in a very secluded way. Whether he went out into
the world, to the theatre, or even went away from Paris and the Museum
into the country in his later years, is a matter of doubt. It is said
that he was fond of novels, his daughters reading to him those of the
best French authors. After looking with some care through the records of
the sessions of the Assembly of Professors, we are struck with the
evidences of his devotion to routine museum work and to his courses of
lectures.

At that time the Museum sent out to the _Ecoles centrales_ of the
different departments of France named collections made up from the
duplicates, and in this sort of drudgery Lamarck took an active part. He
also took a prominent share in the business of the Museum, in the
exchange and in the purchase of specimens and collections in his
department, and even in the management of the menagerie. Thus he
reported on the dentition of the young lions (one dying from teething),
on the illness and recovery of one of the elephants, on the generations
of goats and kids in the park; also on a small-sized bull born of a
small cow covered by a Scottish bull, the young animal having, as he
states, all the characters of the original.

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