1 64 THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 



to the milieu into which it was born. It was the environment 

 that stifled the offspring of Lamarck. 



In 18(58, Ernest Haeckel speaks of the genius of Lamarck 

 in these words: "The chief of the natural philosophers of 

 France is Jean Lamarck, who takes his place beside Goethe 

 and Darwin in the history of evolution. To him belongs the 

 imperishable glory of being the first to formulate the theory 

 of descent, and of founding the philosophy of nature on the 

 solid basis of biology,'" and adds, "There is no country in 

 Europe where Darwin's doctrine has had so little influence as in 

 France" Haeckel has but done tardy justice in his discovery 

 of and testimony to the genius of Lamarck. 



The spirit of opposition does not seem to have much 

 changed in Fiance since Lamarck's time. In 1907 the 

 Academie des Sciences de Paris excluded from its Comptes 

 Rendus the report of my researches on diffusion and osmosis. 

 because it raised the question of spontaneous generation. 



The majority of scientists seem to consider that the question 

 of spontaneous generation was definitely settled once for all 

 when Pasteur's experiments showed that a sterilized liquid, 

 kept in a closed tube, remained sterile. 



Without the idea of spontaneous generation and a physical 

 theory of life, the doctrine of evolution is a mutilated 

 hypothesis without unity or cohesion. On this point Lamarck 

 speaks most clearly : "Although it is customary when one 

 speaks of the members of the animal or vegetable kingdom to 

 call them products of nature, it appears that no definite con- 

 ception is attached to the expression. Our preconceived 

 notions hinder us from recognising the fact that Nature herself 

 possesses all Hie faculties and all the means of producing living 

 beings in any variety. She is able to vary, very slowly but 

 without cessation, all the different races and all the different 

 forms of life, and to maintain the general order which we see 

 in all her works." 



The doctrine of Lamarck is frequently misinterpreted. 

 We often hear it expressed as '•Function makes the organ," or 

 even " Function creates the organ." This is equivalent to 

 saving, " Life makes the living being," which is incomprehensible, 



