LAMARCK’S PHILOSOPHY. 8 i 
dividual development of organisms, as well as by their com- 
parative anatomy and by the parallelism of these series of 
development. Biichner showed very clearly that, even from 
such data alone, the derivation of the different organic 
species from common primary forms followed as a necessary 
conclusion, and that the origin of these original primary 
forms could only be conceived of as the result of a sponta- 
neous generation. 
We now turn from the German to the French Nature- 
philosophers, who have likewise held the Theory of Descent, 
since the beginning of the present century. At their head 
stands Jean Lamarck, who occupies the first place next 
to Darwin and Goethe in the history of the Doctrine of 
Filiation. To him will always belong the immortal glory of 
having for the first time worked out the Theory of Descent, 
as an independent scientific theory of the first order, and as 
the philosophical foundation of the whole science of Biology. 
Although Lamarck was born as early as 1744, he did not 
begin the publication of his theory until the commence- 
ment of the present century, in 1801, and established it more 
fully only in 1809, in his classic “ Philosophie Zoologique.” ? 
This admirable work is the first connected exposition of the 
Theory of Descent carried out strictly into all its conse- 
quences. By its purely mechanical method of viewing 
organic nature, and the strictly philosophical proofs brought 
forward in it, Lamarck’s work is raised far above the pre- 
-vailing dualistic views of his time; and with the exception 
of Darwin’s work, which appeared just half a century later, 
-we know of none which we could in this respect place 
by the side of the “ Philosophie Zoologique.” How far it was 
in advance of its time is perhaps best seen from the cir- 
