FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE 235 



regarded Evolution as the final necessary effect 

 of surrounding conditions on life. Thus, in his 

 teleology, he adopted the modern standpoint. In- 

 stead of suggesting that animals had been cre- 

 ated for a certain mode of life, he supposed that 

 their mode of life had itself created them: wings 

 were not given to birds to enable them to fly, but 

 they had developed wings in attempting to fly. 



In his discussion of the ascending gradations 

 of life, beginning with the simplest and ending 

 with the most complex organisms of both the ani- 

 mal and vegetable kingdoms, he is thus freely 

 translated :^ 



In considering the natural order of animals, the 

 very positive gradation which exists in the increasing 

 complexity of their organization, and in the number 

 as well as in the perfection of their faculties, is very 

 far removed from being a new truth, because the 

 Greeks themselves fully perceived it; but they were 

 unable to expose the principles and the proofs, be- 

 cause they lacked the knowledge necessary to estab- 

 lish it. . . . 



In consideration of this gradation of life, there are 

 onlv two conclusions which face us as to its origin : 



Tlic conclusion adopted up to today: nature (or 

 its Author) in creating animals has foreseen all pos- 

 sible sorts of circumstances in which they would be 

 destined to live, and has given to each species a con- 



'^Philosophie Zoologiqne, 1873, vol. 1, chap. VIII, p. 271; vol. 1, 

 chap. VII, p. 263. Compare Hugh Elliot's translation, 1914, pp. 

 130, 126. 



