456 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1892. 



Lamarck's laws of metamorphosis or the transmutation of forms, 

 I have rendered as follows from the same source : — 



I. " Life, with its peculiar forces, tends to continually augment 

 the volume of all bodies which possess it, and to extend the dimen- 

 sions of their parts, up to the end of the term of life." 



II. " The production of a new organ in an animal body results 

 from a new need which has arisen unexpectedly, and which con- 

 tinues to make itself felt, and which causes new movements to be 

 made to which this need gave origin and maintainance." 



III. " The development of the organs and their strength of 

 action are constantly in proportion to the extent or degree to which 

 they are used." 



IV. "The fourth law asserts the hereditary transmission of char- 

 acters acquired under the operation of laws II and III." 



The first law tacitly recognizes growth in volume, with its con- 

 comitant development of energy, as a factor in evolution, while the 

 second recognizes the fact of j^hysiological or adaptive response. 

 The third supplements the second in a most logical way. 



The third law recognizes the quantitative nature of adaptive 

 response in organisms, and has a very wide range of application. 

 It tacitly recognizes what physiologists must now regard as self- 

 evident, namely, that adaptation, so far as that process involves the 

 expenditure of energy, must go on in conformity with the principle 

 of the conservation of energy, a principle which had not been 

 develojjed as a scientific conception in Lamarck's time. 



The "first and second principles," cited above, have some remark- 

 able recent parallels. Lamarck here recognizes the laws of motion, 

 but their connection with the development of energy necessarily 

 escaped him. It is, nevertheless, instructive to cite here Prof. 

 Barker's definition of energy, as given in his recent treatise; 

 "Physics." After some preliminary discussion, Prof. Barker says : — 

 " Energy may be provisionally defined, therefore, as a condition of 

 matter in virtue of which any definite portion of it may be made 

 to effect changes in other definite portions." Now these changes 

 referred to by Prof Barker have to take place through the develop- 

 ment of motion, according to mechanical laws. In Lamarck's 

 " third principle," the logical step is taken which leads from the 

 "not living" to the " living " forms of the exhibition of energy. 

 This appreciation, by Lamarck, of the identity of the underlying 

 causes of the physical phenomena of change, and consequently of 



