350 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 
species does not suffer change in the circumstances 
essential to its mode of life.” 
The same views are repeated in the introduction 
to the Anzmaux sans Vertebres (1815), and again in 
1820, in his last work, and do not need to be translated, 
as they are repetitions of his previously published 
views in the Philosophie zoologique. 
Unfortunately, to illustrate his thoughts on instinct 
Lamarck does not give us any examples, nor did he 
apparently observe to any great extent the habits of 
animals. In these days one cannot follow him in draw- 
ing a line—as regards the possession of instincts— 
between the lowest organisms, or Protozoa, and the 
groups provided with a nervous system. 
Lamarck's meaning of the word “ besoins,” or wants 
or needs.—Lamarck’s use of the word wants or needs 
(esoins) has, we think, been greatly misunderstood 
and at times caricatured or pronounced as “ absurd.” 
The distinguished French naturalist, Quatrefages, 
although he was not himself an evolutionist, has pro- 
tested against the way Lamarck’s views have been 
caricatured. By nearly all authors he is represented 
as claiming that by simply “ willing” or “ desiring ” 
the individual bird or other animal radically and with 
more or less rapidity changed its shape or that of 
some particular organ or part of the body. This is, 
as we have seen, by no means what he states. In 
no instance does he speak of an animal as simply 
“desiring”? to modify an organ in any way. The 
doctrine of appetency attributed to Lamarck is with- 
out foundation. In all the examples given he inti- 
mates that owing to changes in environment, leading 
