316 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



28. 



Lamarck 

 and von 

 Baer. 



many passages of the ' Hydrogeologie/ where he specu- 

 lated on matters of chemistry, geology, and meteorology 

 without the necessary foundation of facts, such as he 

 possessed in botany and zoology, he laid himself open 

 to the criticism and ridicule l of his more cautious 

 opponents. Thus it happened that the most original con- 

 tributions to science were forgotten or disregarded for 

 more than half a century, after which time Lamarckism 

 became a familiar term in speculative science, denoting 

 one of the great ideas with which the genetic view of 

 nature operates viz., the influence of environment, 

 adaptation, acquired habits, in the development of living 

 organisms. 



In the history of the genetic view of nature, the 

 position of Lamarck may be regarded as, in a certain 

 sense, complementary to that of von Baer. Both brought 

 the study of living forms back to that of their origins 

 Lamarck to the study of the lowest forms of animal 

 creation, the great variety and abundance of which he 

 was the first to attempt to put into some order; von 

 Baer to the study of the embryonic beginnings of the 

 higher organisms, on which important subject he was 

 one of the first to throw some light. Though widely 



1 See, inter alia, what Cuvier 

 wrote in his ' Eloge de Lamarck, ' 

 which was read posthumously in 

 the Academy by Silvestre, 26th 

 November 1832 (' Mem. de 1'Acad. 

 des Sciences,' vol. xiii. p. xx), 

 with omissions to tone down its 

 severity : " Quelque inteYet que ces 

 ouvrages excitassent par leurs par- 

 ties positives, personne ne crut 

 leur partie syste'matique assez 

 dangereuse pour meriter d'etre 

 attaque"e ; on la laissa dans la 



meme paix que la the'orie chim- 

 ique"; and further on he touches 

 on one of the weakest points of all 

 genetic speculations (p. xxii) : "Le 

 temps sans borne qui joue un si 

 grand role dans la religion des 

 mages, n'en joue pas un moins 

 grand dans toute cette physique 

 de M. de Lamarck, et c'6tait sur 

 lui qu'il se reposait pour calmer ses 

 propres doutes et pour re"pondre 

 a toutes les objections de ses 

 lecteurs." 



