{ 



DE LAMARCK. 17I 



all his successors^and will be referred to, as long as 

 science lasts. He had a most singular capacity for 

 distinguishing animals into kinds or species, and 

 a more important one of observing the alliances or 

 common characters of different species. All his de- 

 scriptive work was of a standard and solid nature. 

 (His great work appeared from 18 15 to i822nand 

 it was founded on that just mentioned ; some of 

 it was edited by his daughter, and M. Latreille 

 wrote the parts on insects, and much of those of 

 the mollusca was due to M. Valenciennes. Five 

 volumes were by Lamarck himself 

 . It is a very unusual occurrence for a man to 

 take up a new subject after he is fifty years of 

 age, and to become a master in it. But Lamarck 

 did this. It is true that his previous training as 

 a botanist had prepared him, and it is also true 

 that his years of solitude and poverty had given 

 him a singularly placid and meditative mind, 

 and this was strengthened by his natural courage. 

 Had Lamarck been a descriptive zoologist only, he 

 would have been great ; but the very method which 

 made him great originated in some remarkable 

 speculations which had hardly been expressed, 

 seriously, by any man before. Not only did he 

 place the animal kingdom with the lowest first, 

 but he considered the will, instinct, and apparent 

 reason of animals, and classified them accordingly 

 with those which are apathetic, sensible, and intel- 

 ligent. The idea of lowness of organization or of 

 structure and lowness of nervous power amongst 



