XX INTRODUCTION 



or, as Michelet called it, " Vinconnu.^^ To the first chair, 

 Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was appointed, then a young man of 

 22. For the second chair, containing the unknown part of 

 the Animal Kingdom, there were no obviously suitable 

 candidates. Lamarck was a botanist of 25 years standing, 

 but the chair of botany had passed to Desfontaine, and 

 there now seemed nothing suitable remaining for him except 

 this chair of zoological remnants, to which accordingly he 

 was appointed at a salary of 2868 livres, 6 sous, 8 deniers. 

 The record of persons attached to the Museum d'Histoire 

 Naturelle in 1794 contains the title of his chair : " Lamarck 

 — fifty years old ; married for the second time ; wife 

 enceinte ; six children ; professor of zoology, insects, worms 

 and microscopic animals." ^ Nevertheless, Lamarck passed 

 the remainder of his life in straitened circumstances : he 

 married altogether four times, and had seven children. 



The collection of invertebrate animals already accumulated 

 at the Museum was immense, and Lamarck soon found that 

 his share of the Animal Kingdom included by far the greater 

 number of all existing species. His knowledge of zoology 

 was limited to the sphere of conchology, where he had 

 acquired some information, partly through intercourse with 

 his friend Bruguiere, and partly through a collection of 

 shells that he had formed for himself. From the date of 

 his appointment, however, he practically abandoned botany, 

 and threw himself fervently into the study of invertebrate 

 zoology. The results of his researches were published in 

 seven volumes in his great work Histoire Naturelle des 

 Animaux sans vertèbres, 1815-1822. Lamarck's other works 

 included a number of publications on meteorology, a subject 

 in which he had taken an interest from early days, when 

 from his garret window at the top of a high house in Paris, 

 he could see nothing but the clouds passing by, and lay 

 speculating on their varied shapes and movements. But, 

 like Goethe with his Farbenlehre, Lamarck failed on this 

 subject either to reach any important conclusion or to secure 



' Lamarck, by A. S. Packard, New York, 1901. 



