3l8 THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



also died prematurely. Two daughters, who devoted themselves entirely to 

 administering to him, were his one consolation in his old age; with their 

 aid he was able to carry on his work unremittingly to the end, although he 

 was blind during the last years of his life. He died in 18x9, and a year later 

 the last part of the work that had occupied him up to the last was published. 

 Just as the strangeness of Lamarck's fate is unique in the annals of biol- 

 ogy — a discharged lieutenant without any scientific grounding, who from 

 being a Bohemian literary hack works himself up to lasting fame as a scien- 

 tist and who at the age of fifty becomes professor in a subject that he had never 

 studied before — so his posthumous reputation has likewise been unique. 

 By his contemporaries he w^as mainly looked upon as a systematist, and, as 

 we shall find later on, he certainly did accomplish valuable and sound work 

 as one. But besides that he published a number of works on evolutionary his- 

 tory based upon speculation; these attracted little attention, however, either 

 in his own day or in the immediately succeeding period. They were neglected 

 by the natural-philosophical school for reasons that will be explained later, 

 and were regarded by the subsequent representatives of exact research as 

 fantastic speculations. It was not until after the launching of the modern 

 theory of the origin of species that Lamarck came into his own. Haeckel in 

 particular, who searched everywhere for precursors of that theory, the 

 promulgation of which he made his mission in life, referred to Lamarck as 

 a pioneer of modern natural research, and there followed in his footsteps 

 a whole group of scientists who saw in Lamarck's theories the basis for a 

 correct view of evolution in nature. During the last few decades this so-called 

 neo-Lamarckian school has, it is true, fallen off considerably in both num- 

 bers and influence, but Lamarck himself is still counted one of the pioneers 

 of modern biology. 



Lamarck' s multifarious ivorks 

 The cause of these varying opinions lies essentially in the very character of 

 Lamarck's scientific productions. As will be seen from the above account of 

 his life, he was a self-taught man, without any systematic scientific training, 

 with the result that his production to a large extent bears the mark of dilet- 

 tantism — many-sided interests, vagueness of both thought and expression, 

 daringly brilliant ideas side by side with foolish fancies. His earlier works 

 especially — up to about the close of the century — are extremely multi- 

 farious as to contents, as well as of unequal value. Besides a number of partly 

 still valuable botanical writings, he wrote numerous works on meteorology 

 and geology, as well as a collection of essays with the striking title of 

 Memoires de physique et d' his f aire nafurelle, etablis sur des bases de raisonnement 

 independantes de toute theorie. Towards the close of his life, however, he con- 

 centrated entirely upon zoology and in that field produced his best works. His 

 enthusiastic admirers have as a rule passed over his earlier speculations in 



