FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE 237 



the case with Darwin in so marked a degree. In 

 geology he was an ardent advocate of the doc- 

 trine of uniformity, as against the cataclysmal 

 school. The main principles are laid down in his 

 Hydrogeologie (p. 67) , that all the revolutions of 

 the earth are extremely slow. "For Nature," he 

 says, "time is nothing and it is never a difficulty; 

 she always has it at her disposal, and it is for her 

 a power without bounds, with which she makes 

 the greatest things like the least. . . . For all the 

 evolution of the earth and of living beings, Na- 

 ture needs but three elements — space, time, and 

 matter." Lamarck, unhke Buffon, did not touch 

 cosmogony; but in his observations upon geology 

 he learnt the first of all lessons, that in specu- 

 lating upon the past we should not regard it as 

 a period of catastrophe, that the true method of 

 study is to observe the steady march of Nature 

 at the present time, for its present operations 

 suffice to explain all the facts which we observe 

 in all its past. This led Lamarck to the extreme 

 of denying all catastrophes in geology and all 

 leaps or sudden transitions in living Nature. 

 *'Nature," he repeats, "to perfect and to diver- 

 sify animals requires merely matter, space, and 

 time." 



After this review of Lamarck's self -education, 

 intellectual equipment, and the influences of his 

 collateral studies, we come to his theory of the 



