FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE 249 



vertebrates at any point with the invertebrates! 

 He therefore places them by themselves, with- 

 out attempting to filiate them. The third table, 

 therefore, represents Lamarck's latest views. 



His true conception of phylogeny or animal 

 ascent and descent grew out of his appreciation 

 of the fact that many forms of life had become 

 extinct : 



Those who have carefully examined large collec- 

 tions of species, are aware how they shade into each 

 other, and that when we find species which are ap- 

 parently isolated, it is only because we have not yet 

 obtained the intermediate forms. I do not wish to 

 say that existing animals form a simple and evenly 

 graded series, but that they form a branching series, 

 irregularly gradated, the gaps having been filled by 

 lost forms. It follows that the species which terminate 

 each branch of the series are related, upon one side 

 at least, with others which shade into them.^ 



As early as 1802 he held that affinities indicate 

 community of parentage and that it is necessary 

 to prove that the series which constitutes the ani- 

 mal scale resides essentially in the distribution of 

 the principal masses which compose it and not in 

 that of the species or even of the genera. As we 



'^Philosophie Zoologique, vol. I, chap. 3. This very significant 

 passage indicates that Lamarck had a perfectly clear conception 

 of the principle of Evolution in its modern sense. This alone en- 

 titles him to the attribution by Packard (1901) of "founder of 

 evolution." It is to be valued quite apart from his special theory 

 of the causes of Evolution which we now know as 'Lamarckism.' 



