SRE CULATLONS ON EPHVSICAL SCIEN CL 85 
A very just and discriminating judge of Lamarck’s 
work, Professor Cleland, thus refers to his writings 
on physics and chemistry : 
“The most prominent defect in Lamarck must be 
admitted, quite apart from all consideration of the 
famous hypothesis which bears his name, to have 
been want of control in speculation. Doubtless the 
speculative tendency furnished a powerful incentive 
to work, but it outran the legitimate deductions from 
observation, and led him into the production of vol- 
umes of worthless chemistry without experimental 
basis, as well as into spending much time in fruitless 
meteorological predictions.” (Auzcye. Brit., Art. La- 
MARCK.) 
How a modern physicist regards Lamarck’s views 
on physics may be seen by the following statement 
kindly written for this book by Professor Carl Barus 
of Brown University, Providence: 
“ Lamarck’s physical and chemical speculations, 
made throughout on the basis of the alchemistic 
philosophy of the time, will have little further inter- 
est to-day than as evidence showing the broadly 
philosophic tendencies of Lamarck’s mind. Made 
without experiment and without mathematics, the 
contents of the three volumes will hardly repay 
perusal, except by the historian interested in certain 
aspects of pre-Lavoisierian science. The temerity 
with which physical phenomena are referred to oc- 
cult static molecules, permeated by subtle fluids, the 
whole mechanism left without dynamic quality, since 
the mass of the molecule is to be non-essential, is 
markedly in contrast with the discredit into which 
such hypotheses have now fallen. It is true that an 
explanation of natural phenomena in terms “le feu 
éthéré, le few calorique, et le feu fixé”’ might be in- 
