xxiv INTRODUCTION 



plunging into a scientific work of more than a century 

 ago. We are suddenly in an entirely new milieu ; for 

 in science, above all things, the rapidity of advance has 

 been immense. We find ourselves in the presence not merely 

 of one or two ideas that are new and therefore difficult to 

 us ; but we are surrounded on all sides by strange and 

 unfamiliar conceptions, embodied in a language that is 

 modelled on a scheme we have never heard of. And the 

 associations which we carry with us from our own age are 

 often misleading. The difficulty is comparable to that of 

 learning the elements of a new science or of a new language. 

 Here then are very substantial and solid reasons to account 

 for the undoubted fact that Lamarck, although extensively 

 referred to, is scarcely ever read at the present day. And 

 these reasons had to be carefully considered in deciding upon 

 the mode in which the work was to be presented to the 

 English-reading public. Yet I could not disguise from myself 

 the fact that the main interest of this translation is historical, 

 and that any tampering with the text, in the hope of making 

 it more intelligible, would gravely damage its value from 

 the historical standpoint. I therefore determined to carry 

 out what should be in the main an extremely literal trans- 

 lation, and to leave its natural asperities of thought and 

 style without softening. On the other hand, I determined 

 to write by way of introduction a brief précis of the whole 

 work, stating as far as possible the sum of Lamarck's doc- 

 trines in my own words for the use of persons accustomed 

 to the style of writing and to the mode of thought prevalent 

 in this twentieth century. 



I have said that the translation is extremely literal ; yet 

 it is not absolutely so, I have not hesitated, especially in 

 the earlier part of the work, to break up some of the longer 

 sentences, in accordance with modern taste. I have even 

 translated such a word as " generation " by " reproduc- 

 tion," in all cases where Lamarck meant by the former word 

 exactly what we mean by the latter. I am aware of course 

 that the connotations of these two words are not precisely 



