256 LIFE AND HABIT. 



workings of whose minds we can only obscurely judge. 

 Also, there is more prospect of pecuniary profit attaching 

 to the careful study of machinery than can be generally 

 hoped for from the study of the lower animals ; and 

 though I admit that this consideration should not be 

 carried too far, a great deal of very unnecessary suffer- 

 ing will be spared to the lower animals ; for much that 

 passes for natural history is little better than prying 

 into other people's business, from no other motive than 

 curiosity. I would, therefore, strongly advise the 

 reader to use man, and the present races of man, and 

 the growing inventions and conceptions of man, as his 

 guide, if he would seek to form an independent judge- 

 ment on the development of organic life. For all 

 growth is only somebody making something. 



Lamarck's theories fell into disrepute, partly because 

 they were too startling to be capable of ready fusion 

 with existing ideas ; they were, in fact, too wide a cross 

 for fertility ; partly because they fell upon evil times, 

 during the reaction that followed the French Revolu- 

 tion; partly because, unless I am mistaken, he did not 

 sufficiently link on the experience of the race to that 

 of the individual, nor perceive the importance of the 

 principle that consciousness, memory, volition, intelli- 

 gence, &c., vanish, or become latent, on becoming 

 intense. He also appears to have mixed up matter 

 with his system, which was either plainly wrong, or so 

 incapable of proof as to enable people to laugh at him, 

 and pooh-pooh him ; but I believe it will come to be 

 perceived, that he has received somewhat scant justice 

 at the hands of his successors, and that his "crude 



