MEMOIR OF LAMARCK. 41 



species were designed to retain the individuality of 

 character with which they were endowed at the 

 time of their creation, and that they have a real 

 existence in nature*. 



The intellectual faculties of animals, Lamarck 

 regards as entirely the result of organization. Even 

 in the case of the most perfect of them, the human 

 species, there is no distinct recognition of a spiritual 

 substance derived from heaven ; and all intellectual 

 phenomena whatever, are ascribed to some physi- 

 cal cause. Nature, he conceives, offers nothing 

 cognizable by us but body; the movements, changes, 

 and properties of bodies, form the only field open to 

 our observation, and the only source of real know- 

 ledge and useful truths t. The place of the soul 

 seems to be usurped by a certain interior sentiment, 

 to which he continually refers, as exercising a most 

 powerful influence over all the faculties, and giving 

 rise to all the passions and affections %. Thus the 

 noblest faculties of the mind, " the capability and 

 godlike reason," by which we are distinguished 

 from other animals, 



and this spirit, 



This all-pervading, this all-conscious soul, 

 This particle of energy divine, 

 Which travels nature, flies from star to star, 

 And visits gods, and emulates their powers ; 



* This subject will be found to be discussed at considerable 

 length, and in a very satisfactory manner, in the second volume 

 of Mr. Lyell's Principles of Geology, p. 1 — 65. 



+ Animaux sans Vertebres, i. p. 260. 



± Ibid. 258, A r . Diet. cTHist. Nat. xvi. Art. 



