32-4 THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



freeze to death every winter and spontaneously generate again every spring. 

 According to his idea, the most primitive living creatures consist of a mass of 

 gelatinous substance, which absorbs nourishment through pores on its sur- 

 face. Out of these nature gradually evolves a special organ for the admission 

 of food; first there arises as a result of the movements of the animal a small 

 depression in which the food can easily collect; through the pressure ex- 

 ercised by the food, this slight hollow expands into a sack-like cavity, which 

 similarly becomes in process of time still further extended; thus arose the 

 polypus's digestive canal. The next important life-property which nature 

 developed was reproduction; this consists in reality of a growth over and 

 above the normal dimensions; a division must therefore take place, and 

 actually does so in the lowest animals, the Infusoria, which never die of old 

 age, but divide themselves in two when they have attained a certain size. 

 Through the division's not being uniform, gemmation arises, which is the 

 manner of propagation characteristic of the polypi; when this is repeated, one 

 particular area becomes specialized for the purpose, and thus originated the 

 internal gemmation by means of which the Radiata propagate. Through 

 further evolution in this direction there arose the eggs, being incomplete 

 buds which, in order that they may develop further, require to be influenced 

 by the male sexual product. 



The evolution of man 

 Here Lamarck interrupts his exposition of the origin of the most vital organs 

 and proceeds direct to a consideration of the evolution of man. Like Camper, 

 he emphasizes the differences between the anatomical structure of man and 

 of the higher apes, but all the same he maintains, in conformity with his 

 view that all properties are evolved by exercise, that both the physical and 

 the intellectual superiority of man has been achieved through his having in 

 the course of ages exercised his faculties to an ever-increasing perfection, 

 while, on the other hand, the higher apes can also be trained to attain a high 

 standard of intelligence and a finer character. But there is still a vast difference 

 between Lamarck's ideas of human development and La Mettrie's and his 

 contemporaries' enthusiasm over the intellectual similarity between primi- 

 tive man and the higher animals, Lamarck maintaining that it has been given 

 to but few men in the whole course of the ages to achieve real intelligence, 

 whereas the majority have remained in a state of bestial ignorance; they 

 have prayed to beasts and perpetrated acts of the wildest folly; even where 

 a nation has attained the highest culture, this has been due to the work of a 

 few highly gifted persons, while the majority of their countrymen have in- 

 dulged in the maddest aberrations. Lamarck is without doubt thinking here 

 of the Reign of Terror during the Revolution, which he had witnessed at close 

 quarters. It was probably these memories of human degradation that deprived 

 him of his taste for inquiry into the characteristics of primitive man and the 



