272 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 
the considerations which I have expressed on this 
subject ; and which especially proves that the ani- 
mals of which it treats have existed during the whole 
period of nature. It only proves that they have ex- 
isted for two or three thousand years; and every one 
who is accustomed to reflect, and at the same time to 
observe that which nature shows us of the monuments 
of its antiquity, readily appreciates the value of a 
duration of two or three thousand years in compari- 
son with it. 
‘“Hence,.as I have elsewhere said, it is sure that 
this appearance of the stability of things in nature 
will always be mistaken by the average "of mankind 
for the reality ; because in general people only judge 
of everything relatively to themselves. 
‘“For the man who observes, and who in this re- 
spect only judges from the changes which he himself 
perceives, the intervals of these changes are stationary 
conditions (¢tats) which should appear to be limitless, 
because of the brevity of life of the individuals of his 
species. Thus, as the records of his observations 
and the notes of facts which he has consigned to his 
registers only extend and mount up to several thou- 
sands of years (three to five thousand years), which is an 
infinitely small period of time relatively to those which 
have sufficed to bring about the great changes which 
the surface of the globe has undergone, everything 
seems stable to him in the planet which he inhabits, 
and he is inclined to reject the monuments heaped 
up around him or buried in the earth which he treads 
under his feet, and which surrounds him on all sides.* 
“It seems to me [as mistaken as] to expect some 
small creatures which only live a year, which inhabit 
* See the Annales du Muséum a’ Hist, nat., 1V* cahier, 1., 1802, 
pp. 302, 303: AZémotres sur les Fossiles des Environs de Paris, etc. 
He repeats in his Discours what he wrote in 1802 in the Annales. 
