112 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



cumstance that it was not understood by most men, and for 

 fifty years was not spoken of at all. Cuvier, Lamarck's 

 greatest opponent, in his " Report on the Progress of Natural 

 Sciences/' in which the most unimportant anatomical inves- 

 tigations are enumerated, does not devote a single word to 

 this work, which forins an epoch in science. Goethe, also, who 

 took such a lively interest in the French nature-philosophy 

 and in " the thoughts of kinelred minds beyond the Rhine,'* 

 nowhere mentions Lamarck, and does not seem to have 

 known the " Philosophic Zoologique " at all. The great repu- 

 tation which Lamarck gained as a naturalist he does not owe 

 to his highly important general work, but to numerous special 

 treatises on the lower animals, particularly on Molluscs, 

 as well as to an excellent " Natural History of Invertebrate 

 Animals," which appeared, in seven volumes, between the 

 years 1815-1822. The first volume of this celebrated work 

 contains in the general introduction a detailed exposition of 

 his theory of filiation. I can, perhaps, give no better 

 idea of the extraordinary importance of the " Philosophie 

 Zoologique" than by quoting vevhatmi some of the most 

 important passages therefrom : — 



" The systematic divisions of classes, orders, families, 

 genera, and species, as well as their designations, are the 

 arbitrary and artificial productions of man. The kinds or 

 species of organisms are of unequal age, developed one after 

 the other, and show only a relative and temporary persist- 

 ence ; species arise out of varieties. The differences in the 

 conditions of life have a modifying influence on the organ- 

 ization, the general form, and the parts of animals, and so 

 has the use or disuse of organs. In the first beginning only 

 the very simplest and lowest animals and plants came into 



