374 OUTLINES OF EVOLUTIONAEY BIOLOGY 



and published in the following year in the form of a preface to 

 the " Systeme des Animaux sans Vertebres." 1 



It seems impossible to doubt that Lamarck, like Erasmus 

 Darwin, was largely influenced in his views by the writings of 

 his great compatriot Buffon, with whom he was on terms of 

 personal friendship, and to whom he refers in his published 

 work. Whether or not he was acquainted with the works of 

 Erasmus Darwin will probably never be known, but it is evident 

 that both drew part at any rate of their inspiration from the 

 same source. Owing largely to his official position as Professor 

 of Invertebrate Zoology in the National Museum, Lamarck was 

 able to bring forward a very imposing array of facts in support 

 of his opinions, and though these opinions were but the natural 

 development of those enunciated by his predecessors, he was able 

 to place the theory of organic evolution on a much firmer and 

 broader basis than it had previously enjoyed. He also doubtless 

 derived great advantage from the fact that he was an experienced 

 botanist as well as a zoologist, having published many important 

 botanical works before he turned his attention more particularly 

 to the zoological aspect of biology. 



During the earlier part of his life Lamarck appears to have 

 accepted the still prevalent doctrine as to the immutability of 

 species, and it is perhaps significant that his conversion to 

 evolutionary views seems to have followed very rapidly upon the 

 extension of his investigations from the vegetable to the animal 

 kingdom. 



In the " Philosophie Zoologique " he maintains that the first 

 living things arose by a process of spontaneous generation, which 

 may still take place, and that from the starting points thus pro- 

 vided the entire animal and vegetable kingdoms as they now exist 

 have arisen as the result of orderly and progressive evolution. 



He devotes a large amount of space to the question of classifi- 

 cation and the conception of species, and arrives at the following 

 conclusions, which are, on the whole, in singularly close agreement 

 with those of modern biologists : 



" But these classifications, of which several have been so happily 

 imagined by naturalists, and the divisions and sub- divisions 



1 Vide Packard's "Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution, his Life and Work" 

 (Longmans, Green & Co., 1901). This most interesting work contains translations of 

 portions of Lamarck's writings, and has for the first time made the work of the great 

 French philosopher available to the general reader in England and America. I have, 

 however, thought it desirable to give fresh translations from the original French. 



