SPECIES. 115 



DEFINITION. " Species is a collection or group of individuals 

 characterised by a similarity of distinctive points, the transmis- 

 sion of which is accomplished naturally, regularly, and inde- 

 finitely, in a given order of things."* 



It is, in more scientific terms, the definition by Lamarck, 

 "a collection of similar individuals which generation perpe- 

 tuates in the same state, so that the circumstances of their 

 situation do not sufficiently alter so as to make their habits, 

 their character, or their form vary."f Lamarck, to whom 

 Isidore Geoffrey has rendered greater justice than any one else 

 before or after him,J admitted the unlimited variableness of 

 species. He admitted that we all descend, just as we are, from 

 an anatomical element, developed in a determinate sense, and 

 that we may have been worms, insects, birds, and mammals be- 

 fore becoming men, running through all the phases through 

 which animal organisation has passed during our uterine life. 

 We see that Lamarck approached frankly and resolutely the 

 problem of the origin of humanity. 



In taking but superficially certain exaggerations into which 

 Lamarck fell, at a time less rich in facts than our own, it is 

 not difficult to give a certain grotesque turn to his ideas, and 

 to laugh at them as being unnatural ; but we must not thus 

 judge the work of a man's whole life, and we must appreciate 

 Lamarck by the basis of his doctrine more than by the ex- 

 amples he has given us : ' ' a profound philosopher," said 

 Etienne Geoffroy,|| "able in laying down principles, less able 

 in the choice of his proofs." 



We must judge Lamarck as Isidore Geoffroy has done in his 

 Histoire Naturelle Generale, where we find a complete and im- 



* The terms of this definition are almost entirely borrowed from Isidore 

 Geoffroy. By ending it with these words, " in the present order of things," 

 Isidore Geoffroy only defined the existing species, and took away, without any 

 reason, the palseontologic species. . 



f Lamarck, Discours de I' An XI, p. 45. 



See Flourens, Examen dit, livre de M. Darwin sur I'Ovigine des Especes, 

 18mo, Paris, 1864. We are at least astonished to find the name of the Geof- 

 froys mentioned but once in such a work (p. 45) . M. Flourens charges Darwin 

 with only quoting the partisans of his own opinions (p. 40). 



[See above, p. 84, note. EDITOR.] 



|| Sur I' Influence du monde ambiant, 1831 (Memoires de I'Acaddmie des Sciences), 

 vol. xii, p. 81. 



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