40 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 
thing was to be created. On one group he was a 
little prepared, but it was by accident ; a self-sacrifice 
to friendship was the cause. For it was both to 
please his friend Bruguiére as well as to penetrate 
more deeply into the affections of this very reserved 
naturalist, and also to converse with him in the 
only language which he wished to hear, which was 
restricted to conversations on shells, that M. de 
Lamarck had made some conchological studies. Oh, 
how, in 1793, did he regret that his friend had gone to 
Persia! He had wished, he had planned, that he 
should take the professorship which it was proposed 
to create. He would at least supply his place; it 
was in answer to the yearnings of his soul, and this 
affectionate impulse became a fundamental element 
in the nature of one of the greatest of zodlogical 
geniuses of our epoch.” 
Once settled in his new line of work, Lamarck, the 
incipient zodlogist, at a period in life when many 
students of less flexible and energetic natures become 
either hide-bound and conservative, averse to taking 
up a different course of study, or actually cease all 
work and rust out—after a half century of his life 
had passed, this rare spirit, burning with enthusiasm, 
charged like some old-time knight or explorer into a 
new realm and into “ fresh fields and pastures new.” 
His spirit, still young and fresh after nearly thirty 
years of mental toil, so unrequited in material things, 
felt a new stimulus as he began to investigate the 
lower animals, so promising a field for discovery. 
He said himself : 
“That which is the more singular is that the most 
important phenomena to be considered have been 
offered to our meditations only since the time when 
