XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 295 



taken a new departure from the works of Treviranus 

 and Lamarck the first of its advocates who were 

 equipped for their task with the needful large and 

 accurate knowledge of the phenomena of life, as a 

 whole. It is remarkable that each of these writers 

 seems to have been led, independently and contem- 

 poraneously, to invent the same name of " Biology " 

 for the science of the phenomena of life; and thus, 

 following Buffon, to have recognised the essential 

 unity of these phenomena, and their contradistinction 

 from those of inanimate nature. And it is hard to 

 say whether Lamarck or Treviranus has the priority 

 in propounding the main thesis of the doctrine of 

 evolution ; for though the first volume of Treviranus's 

 "Biologie" appeared only in 1802, he says, in the preface 

 to his later work, the "Erscheinungen und Gesetze des 

 organischen Lebens," dated 1831, that he wrote the 

 first volume of the " Biologie" "nearly five-and-thirty 

 years ago/' or about 1796. 



Now, in 1794, there is evidence that Lamarck held 

 doctrines which present a striking contrast to those 

 which are to be found in the " Philosophic Zoologique," 

 as the following passages show : 



"685. Quoique mon unique objet dans cet article n'ait ete que 

 de trailer de la cause physique de 1'entretien de la vie des e^res 

 organiques, malgre cela j'ai os6 avancer en debutant, que 1'existence 

 de ces etres etonnants n'appartiennent nullement a la nature ; que 

 tout ce qu'on peut entendre par le mot nature, ne pouvoit donner 

 la vie, c'est-a-dire, que toutes les qualites de la matiere, jointes a 

 toutes les circonstances possibles, et nieme a 1'activite repandue 

 dans Tunivers, ne pouvaient point produire un etre muni du 

 mouvement organique, capable de reproduire son semblable, et 

 sujet a la mort. 



