270 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 
the most obstinate philosophy to recognize that here 
the will of the supreme author of all things has been 
necessary, and has alone sufficed to cause the exist- 
ence of so many admirable things ? 
“Without doubt one would be rash, or rather 
wholly unreasonable, to pretend to assign limits to 
the power of the first author of all things : and by 
that alone no one can dare to say that this infinite 
power has not been able to will that which nature 
herself shows us she has willed. 
“This being so, if I discover that nature herself 
brings about or causes all the wonders just cited; 
that she creates the organization, the life, even feel- 
ing; that she multiplies and diversifies, within limits 
which are not known to us, the organs and faculties of 
organic bodies the existence of which she sustains or 
propagates; that she has created in animals by the 
single way of seed, which establishes and directs the 
habits, the source of all actions, from the most simple 
up to those which constitute erstzzct, industry, finally 
reason, should I not recognize in this power of na- 
ture—that is to say, of existing things—the execu- 
tion of the will of its sublime author, who has been 
able to will that it should have this power? Shall I 
any the less wonder at the omnipotence of the power 
of the first cause of all things, if it has pleased itself 
that things should be thus, than if by so many (sepa- 
rate) acts of his omnipotent will he should be occu- 
pied and occupy himself still continually with details 
of all the special creations, all the variations, and all 
the developments and perfections, all the destructions 
and all the renewals—in a word, with all the changes 
which are in general produced in things which 
exist ? 
“ But ‘TL intend to prove in my “Biologie” ‘that 
nature possesses in her faculties all that is necessary 
to have to be able herself to produce that which we 
admire in her works; and regarding this subject I 
