LAMARCK 



Lamarck immediately falls into a difficulty which 

 seems to me inherent in any explanation of causes. He 

 begins by assuming a Creator, or Sublime Author, as 

 the architect and then transfers the construction of 

 the world to natural law or to nature. All the organ- 

 ized bodies of the earth are true productions of na- 

 ture which fashions immediately only the simplest 

 organisms or the rudiments of organization by spon- 

 taneous generation. These rudiments possess the prop- 

 erty of growth and of variation of form and functions 

 so that they respond to environmental conditions. It 

 may therefore be asserted that nature has by imper- 

 ceptible changes fashioned the different species of 

 animals known to us by the aid of much time and an 

 infinite variation of environment.* Now, what is this 

 natural law, or nature, which men of science are so 

 fond of invoking^ Is it blind chance, the mere state- 

 ment of what has occurred after the occurrence, or is 

 nature the personification of a true cause which foreor- 

 dains actions^ If it be the latter, how does it differ 

 from a divine intelligence'? Plato tried to solve the 

 difficulty by supposing God created an idea or plan 

 of the universe and then left to lesser gods the fash- 

 ioning of the actual, or material world. Is the nature 

 of the men of science to be identified with the lesser 

 gods of Plato, the contractors who carry into fulfil- 

 ment the ideas of the architect"? We are again en- 

 countering the same fundamental difficulty which 



^Ibid., vol. I, p. 81 [p. 40]. 



