Sic heVedh) deer >.< 
LAMARCK’S OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY 
AND BIOLOGY 
LAMARCK died before the rise of the sciences of 
morphology, embryology, and cytology. As to pale- 
ontology, which he aided in founding, he had but 
the slightest idea of the geological succession of life- 
forms, and not an inkling of the biogenetic law or 
recapitulation theory. Little did he know or foresee 
that the main and strongest support of his own the- 
ory was to be this same science of the extinct forms 
of life. Yet it is a matter of interest to know what 
were his views or opinions on the nature of life; 
whether he made any suggestions bearing on the doc- 
trine of the unity of nature; whether he was a vital- 
ist or not; and whether he was a follower of Haller 
and of Bonnet,* as was Cuvier, or pronounced i 
favor of epigenesis. 
* Charles Bonnet (1720-1793), a Swiss naturalist, is famous for his 
work on Aphides and their parthenogenetic generation, on the mode 
of reproduction in the Polyzoa, and on the respiration of insects. 
After the age of thirty-four, when his eyesight became impaired, he 
began his premature speculations, which did not add to his reputation. 
Judging, however, by an extract from his writings by D’Archiac (/x- 
troduction a l’ Etude de la Paléontologie stratigr aphigue, ii., p. 49), he 
had sound ideas on the theory of descent, claiming that ‘la diversité et 
la multitude des conjunctions, peut-étre méme la diversité des climats 
et des nourritures, ont donné naissance 4 de nouvelles espéces ou a 
des individus intermédiaires”” (Huvres a’ Hist. nat. et de Philosophie, 
in-Svo, p. 230, 1779). 
