112 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 
cumstance that it was not understood by most men, and for 
fifty years was not spoken of at all. Cuvier, Lamarck’s. 
greatest opponent, in his “ Report on the Progress of Natural 
Sciences,” in which the most unimportant anatomical inves- 
tigations are enumerated, does not devote a single word to 
this work, which forms an epoch in science. Goethe, also, who 
took such a lively interest in the French nature-philosophy 
and in “the thoughts of kindred minds beyond the Rhine,” 
nowhere mentions Lamarck, and does not seem to have 
known the “ Philosophie Zoologique” at all. The great repu- 
tation which Lamarck gained as a naturalist he does not owe 
to his highly important general work, but to numerous special 
treatises on the lower animals, particularly on Molluscs, 
as well as to an excellent “ Natural History of Invertebrate 
Animals,” which appeared, in seven volumes, between the 
years 1815-1822. The first volume of this celebrated work 
contains in the general introduction a detailed exposition of 
his theory of filiation. I can, perhaps, give no better 
idea of the extraordinary importance of the “ Philosophie 
Zoologique” than by quoting verbatim some of the most. 
important passages therefrom :— 
“The systematic divisions of classes, orders, families, 
genera, and species, as well as their designations, are the 
arbitrary and artificial productions of man. The kinds or 
species of organisms are of unequal age, developed one after 
the other, and show only a relative and temporary persist- 
ence ; species arise out of varieties. The differences in the 
conditions of life have a modifying influence on the organ- 
ization, the general form, and the parts of animals, and so 
has the use or disuse of organs. In the first beginning only 
the very simplest and lowest animals and plants came into 
