PSYCHE 
[Apiil 
species were descended from others, Cuvier that they were permanent. 
Lamarck was the master mind of the period of systematic zoology. His 
tabular view of the classes of the animal kingdom was to his mind a genealog- 
ical tree. His idea of the animal kingdom anticipated and was akin to that of 
our day. He may be said to have had a wonderfully good eye for genera. He 
founded the classes of Crustacea, Arachnida, Radiata (echinoderms as separate 
from polyps), placed the sponges ( as did Cuvier ) with the polyps and separated 
the ascidians from the mollusks. 
Lamarck long believed that species were constant in nature. Evidence 
goes to show that he changed his views at or soon after 1793, when he entered 
on his zoological work. His first published statements on evolution were in 
1801 in the preface of his Syst'cme des Animaux sans Vert'ebres, he being then 
about fiftv-seven years of age. He there maintains that Nature began with the 
most simply organized “then with the aid of much time and of favorable cir- 
cumstances she formed all the others.” Again “I could prove that it is not the 
form either of the body or of its parts which gives rise to habits, to the mode 
of life of animals, but, on the contrary, it is the habits, the mode of life, and all 
the influential circumstances which have, with time, made up the form of the 
body and of the parts of the animals. With the new forms new faculties have 
been acquired, and gradually nature has reached the state in which we actually 
see her.” 
One who has read the writings of the great naturalist, who may well be 
regarded as the founder of evolution, will readily realize that Lamark’s mind 
was essentially philosophic, comprehensive and synthetic. He looked upon 
every problem in a large way. 
“In Lamarck, at the opening of the past century, we behold the spectacle 
of a man devoting over fifty years of his life to scientific research in biology, 
and insisting on the doctrine of spontaneous generation; of the immense length 
of geological time, so opposed to the views held by the Church; the evolution 
of plants and animals from a single germ, and even the origin Of man from the 
apes, yet as earnestly claiming that nature has its Author who in the beginning 
established the order of things, giving the initial impulse to the laws of the 
universe.” 
In the last chapter of his book Professor Packard deals with the revival 
of Lamarckian views in the school of N'eolamarckians, dating from about t866 
and especially active in this country. Prominent in this school were Herbert 
Spencer, Hyatt, Cope and Packard. Hyatt and Packard, students of Agassiz’s, 
and life long friends, both of distinctly philosophical minds did much by their 
researches to further the adoption of Lamarckian views with which they were 
in warm sympathy. 
NOTE. — Mrs. Packard has a number of revrints of Dr. Packard’s recent paper on “The Origin of the 
Markings of Organisms, etc.,” (see Index to Periodical Literature) for the distribution of which he left no 
mailing list. Those who desire copies of the paper are invited to notify her, at 275 Angell St-. Providence. R- !. 
