REVIEWS 557 



and his school, it was almost generally admitted that such characters were not 

 inherited. Recently certain biologists in this country and on the Continent have 

 again been urging that a number of observations tend to show that the changes 

 wrought in a living being by the action of the environment persist even when the 

 causes producing them have been removed. Throughout all this long controversy 

 the name that has been quoted most frequently is undoubtedly that of Lamarck ; 

 and it is opportune that at this time, when it appears as if the question is to be 

 reopened, a translation of his famous Zoologie Philosopliique should appear. 



The present volume is a translation, as literal as possible, of this work, 

 preceded by a very serviceable introduction by the translator. As far as can 

 be judged, it follows very closely the original, save for a few rearrangements 

 that in no way affect the sense. The task is no light one, for it must be 

 remembered that the original was published more than a century ago, when the 

 concepts current in science differed widely from those prevalent to-day. This 

 difficulty has been admirably surmounted, so that the reader can now have ready 

 access to the subject-matter without the barrier of an obsolete terminology in 

 a foreign tongue. One or two slips have crept in: e.g. "warm" instead of cold 

 on p. 81, "a enquiry" on p. 371, and on p. 237 " Rhedi," although occurring in 

 the original, might have been put Redi in the translation ; but these are not 

 of sufficient importance to detract from the value of the work. Of the three 

 parts — zoology, physiology, and psychology — into which the book is divided, the 

 second is the least interesting. It is naturally an explanation of animal functions 

 in the terms of physics and chemistry, but as the outlook of these sciences has 

 changed so fundamentally it is often difficult to appreciate the arguments made 

 use of. The most interesting section is the zoology, for here the main theories 

 are expounded. 



To the ordinary reader of biology Lamarck is closely associated with the 

 somewhat fantastic explanations that the giraffe has got its long neck because 

 it wished to reach up to the trees, and that the storks, etc., have long legs as 

 they desire to walk in the water and at the same time object to wetting their 

 bodies. Although these theories, reminiscent of the "Just-so Stories," were 

 undoubtedly put forward by Lamarck, it is, as the translator points out, grossly 

 unfair to iudge him by these alone and not take into account the other parts of 

 his work. They do not even form the main thesis of his theory. He insisted 

 that the whole animal kingdom, " from monas to man," was to be regarded as 

 a complete series, the gaps in which are due to our ignorance of intermediate 

 forms and not to its incompleteness. The series was a linear one, with all the 

 large groups on the main line and the smaller groups constituting branches. 

 Moreover the difference between species were not due to arbitrary acts of creation, 

 but are the result of orderly changes during a continuous development from lowest 

 to highest. In fact he put forward a complete theory of evolution, and this fifty 

 years before the publication of The Origin of Species. This in itself entitles him 

 to a prominent place in the history of biology. 



Having established the fact of evolution, he proceeds to discuss the causes 

 of it, and of these he finds two. The more important is the innate tendency 

 in all living things to evolve in the direction of greater complexity of organisation. 

 The second is what we now term use-inheritance, and as this originated with 

 him it is naturally the one to which he devotes a great deal of his attention. 

 This was the weak point in the structure, and on it the fire of criticism was 

 directed so strongly that people lost sight of the remainder. It was a poor 

 explanation of the facts available, and the most that can ever be said in its 



