312 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



20. 

 The temi 

 '•Biology.' 



from that side which at the time was the least known, 

 and probably the least promising : he apjjroached it, 

 as it were, from below. But this had the consequence 

 of giving to his original mind in two ways a special 

 direction. First of all, it enabled him to look at natural 

 objects from a more general point of view, not as a 

 zoologist or as a botanist, but as a naturalist and a 

 biologist — i.e., from the more general view of the pheno- 

 mena of Life.^ Indeed he himself seems to have been 

 the first, if not to use, at least to introduce in his 

 published writings, the term " biology." ^ And secondly, 



' ' Philos. Zool..' Discours pre- 

 lim., p. 31: "Le vrai moyeu de 

 ])arvenir a bien connaitre un objet, 

 uieine daus se.? plus petits details, 

 c'est de comtnencer par I'envisager 

 dans son entier ; par examiner 

 d'abord, soit sa masse, soit son 

 etendue, soit I'ensemble des parties 

 qui le composent ; par rechercher 

 quelle est sa nature et son origine, 

 quelles sont ses rapports aveo les 

 autres objets connus ; en un mot, 

 par le considerer sous tous les 

 points de vue qui peuvent nous 

 eclairer sur toutes les g^neralit^s 

 i|ui le concernent." P. 32 : " La 

 n^cessit^ reconnue de bien observer 

 les objets particuliers a fait naitre 

 riiabitude de se boruer a la con- 

 sideration de ces objets et de leurs 

 plus petits details, de maniere 

 qu'ils sont devenus, pour la j)lu- 

 part des naturalistes, le sujet prin- 

 cipal de I'etude. Ce ne serait 

 cependant pas une cause reelle de 

 retard pour les sciences naturelles, 

 si Ton s'obstinait k ne voir dans les 

 objets observes que leur forme, 

 leur dimension, leur parties bk- 

 ternes, memes les plus petites, 

 leur couleur, &c., et si ceux qui 

 se livreut k une pareille etude 

 dedaignaient de s'elever h, des con- 

 siderations sup^rieures, comme de 



chercher quelle est la nature des 

 objets dout ils s'occupent quelles 

 sont les causes des modifications ou 

 des variations auxquelles ces objets 

 sont tous assujettis, quels sont les 

 rapports de ces memes objets entre 

 eux, et avec tous les autres que 

 Ton connait," &c. 



'•^ Lamarck in his ' Hydrog^o- 

 logie,' in an appendix (p. 188) 

 which seems to be a rehear.sal of 

 his opening lecture of 1801, an- 

 nounces a work, 'Biologic,' as a 

 sequel, being the third and last 

 part of the Terrestrial Physics. 

 This work was not published, but 

 was probably comprised in his 

 ' Philosophic Zoologique.' See Prof. 

 A. S. Packard's excellent work on 

 Lamarck, ' The Founder of Evolu- 

 tion, his Life and Work,' London 

 and New York, 1901. As La- 

 marck's writings are very scarce 

 and his teaching only imperfectly 

 understood, frequently misrepre- 

 sented, even bj' competent author- 

 ities, and in popular opinion sur- 

 rounded by mystery and sometimes 

 treated with ridicule, the work of 

 Prof. Packard is most welcome. 

 It contains copious extracts — un- 

 fortunately all translated — from 

 the earlier biological writings and 

 lectures, which are otherwise al- 



