A412 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 
ance from disuse, in regard to the appearance of 
new organs he made hypotheses so venturesome 
that they led to the momentary forgetfulness of his 
other forceful conceptions.’’ * 
The popular idea of Lamarckism, and which from 
the first has been prejudicial to his views, is that an 
animal may acquire an organ by simply wishing for 
or desiring it, or, as his French «critics put ait, Un 
animal finit toujours par posséder un organe quand il 
le'veut.:” Such, “says, Perrier)“ isenot the idea 
of Lamarck, who simply attributes the transforma- 
tions of species to the stimulating action of external 
conditions, construing it under the expression of 
wants (desoivs), and explaining by that word what 
we now call adaptations. Thus the long neck of the 
giraffe results from the fact that the animal inhabits 
a country where the foliage is situated at the tops of 
high trees; the long legs of the wading birds have 
originated from the fact that these birds are obliged 
to seek their food in the water without wetting 
themselves, ete... (See ps 350.) 
‘Many cases,’’ says Perrier, “‘ may be added to- 
day to those which Lamarck has cited to support 
his first law [ pp. 303, 346]; the only point which is open 
to discussion is the extent of the changes which an 
organ may undergo, through the use it is put to by 
the animal. Itis a simple question of measurement. 
The possibility of the creation of an organ in conse- 
* Revue Encyclopedigue, 1897, p. 325. Yet we have an example of 
the aired of a new organ in the case of the duckbill, in which 
the horny plates take the place of the teeth which Poulton has dis- 
covered in the embryo. Other cases are the adductor muscles of 
shelled crustacea. (See p. 418.) 
+ La Philosophie Zoologigue avant Darwin. Paris, 1884, p. 76. 
