62 MEMOIR OF LAMARCK. 



to be accounted for by their being nursed in the 

 long solitudes to which his bad health and limited 

 circumstances frequently confined him, without hav- 

 ing his eyes opened to their fallacies by a discussion 

 of their merits, or interchange of thought with 

 others: for 



'Tis thought's exchange, which, like the alternate rush 

 Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned scum, 

 And defecates the student's standing pool •, 

 By that untutor'd, contemplation raves, 

 And nature's fool by wisdom is outdone. 



It may likewise be supposed that he would be un- 

 willing to perceive, or if he did perceive, equally 

 reluctant to acknowledge, the imperfection of systems 

 which he had wrought out with so much care and 

 labour. For that they must have cost him a gretit 

 degree of laborious thought, will appear from the 

 slightest inspection. It must also be allowed, that 

 they evince a reach of mind, a power of original 

 thinking, and a degree of varied knowledge, calcu 

 lated to convey no mean idea of his intellectual 

 character. Neither can we deny to them a certain 

 degree of consistency, or adaptation of parts to each 

 other ; and although the praise of consistency must 

 be qualified by the admission that it is consistency 

 in error, yet, in such cases, this is of such difficult 

 attainment, as of itself to imply a high degree of 

 acuteness and circumspection. However startling 

 the conclusions to which Lamarck leads us, they 

 are generally drawn by a legitimate and fairly 

 managed process of induction from the assumed 



