10 Cuvier'^s Biographical Memoir ofM, de Lamarck, 



atmosphere, on those of living bodies, and on the origin of the 

 globe and its revolutions. Psychology, and the higher branches 

 of metaphysics, were not beyond the range of his contemplations ; 

 and on all these subjects he had formed a number of definite 

 ideas, original in respect to himself, because conceived by the 

 unaided power of his own mind, but which he believed to be 

 equally new to others, and not less certain in themselves, than 

 calculated to place every branch of knowledge on a new founda- 

 tion. In this respect, he resembled so many others who spend 

 their lives in sohtude, who never entertain a doubt of the accuracy 

 of their opinions, because they never happen to be contradicted. 

 These views he began to lay before the public as soon as he had 

 obtained a fixed occupation ; and for twenty years he continued 

 to reproduce them in every variety of form, introducing them 

 even into such of his works as appear most foreign to them. 

 It is the more necessary that we should point them out, as with- 

 out them some of his best writings would be unintelligible. Even 

 the character of the man himself could not otherwise be under- 

 stood ; for so intimately did he identify himself with his sys- 

 tems, and such was his desire that they should be propagated, 

 that all other objects seemed to him subordinate, and even his 

 greatest and most useful works appeared in his own eyes mere- 

 ly as the slight accessories of his lofty speculations. 



Thus, while Lavoisier was creating in his laboratory a new 

 chemistry, founded on a beautiful and methodical series of ex- 

 periments, M. de Lamarck, without attempting experiment, and 

 destitute of the means of doing so, imagined that he had dis- 

 covered another, which he did not hesitate to set in opposition to 

 the former, although nearly the whole of Europe had received 

 it with the warmest approbation. 



As early as 1780, he had ventured to present this theory in 

 manuscript to the Academy of Sciences ; but it was not till 1795^ 

 that he pubUshed it, under the title of Recherches sur les Causes 

 des Principaux Faits Physiques.* It reappeared in an improved 



* Researches on the causes of the most important physical facts, and parti- 

 cularly 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; of the 

 heat which becomes sensible in sudden decompositions, in effervescences, and 

 in the bodies of many living animals ; of causticity, and of the taste and smell 



