DUBLIN XATUEAL HISTOItY SOCIETY. 135 



II. L%io of Nutrition producwg Death, by the forced inequality be- 

 tween the materials fixed by assimilation, and removed by excretion. 

 This law is intended to account for death, which is a puzzle to the 

 naturalists. 



III. Law of Ilovement of Complex Fluids in Canals. — This law I 

 profess my inability to understand: in the statement of it, Lamarck, 

 who, Kke most naturalists, is unacquainted with physics, and untrained 

 in the severe discipline of mathematical reasoning, attributes properties 

 to fluids in motion, which must be considered by lookers-on as little 

 short of miraculous. 



IV. Laiv of Change of Composition of Fluids in Circulation. — This 

 law is as obscure, and as miraculous in its results, as the preceding, 

 Natural religion, however, would appear to consider herself entitled to 

 her miracles as weU as revealed religion. 



y. Organic Forms acquired under the presiding influence of external 

 circumstances are transmitted hy Generation. — This law involves the 

 famous Law of JS'atural Selection, attributed within the last few months 

 to Mr. Darwin. 



VI. By the concurrence of the preceding Laws, of a long lapse of time, 

 and an almost inconceivable diversity of surrounding circumstances, all 

 Species have leen formed in succession. — Lamarck's theory is essentially 

 one of Progression, and is totally opposed to that of Buffon, which is 

 one of Degradation ; yet it is remarkable that they both rest upon the 

 same foundation — the assumed non-reality of species. Like his suc- 

 cessors in the Progression Theory, Lamarck spent his life in the esta- 

 blishment of the reality of species, and it is a humiliating reflection that, 

 at the close of it, he believed himself to have lived under a delusion. 

 Let us hear his confession : — 



" J'ai long temps pense qu'il y avait des Fspeces constantes dans la 

 nature, et qu'elles etoient constituees par les individus qui appartien- 

 nient a chacune d'elles. Maintenant je suis convaincu que j'etois dans 

 I'erreur a cet egard, et qu'il n'y a reellement dans la nature que des 

 individus." 



What must we think of the principles that guide the speculations 

 of naturalists, when we find minds like those of Bufibn and Lamarck 

 drawing opposite conclusions from the same premises ? It matters little 

 in this question whether the premises be true or false, whether species 

 be truly distinct or not ; our surprise at the logic of the naturalists is 

 natural, and must border on a courteous contempt. 



The English revival of Lamarckianism, or ''Progress in Organic 

 Life," by Mr. Darwin, involves no idea in advance of those contained in 

 Lamarck's six laws, but gives a greater prominence to the Law of Con- 

 tinuation of Peculiarities by Generation, by the assertion that such 

 peculiarities, and such only, as are useful to the creature, in its struggle 

 for existence, will become hereditary ; the reason being, that animals 

 provided with such peculiarity will have the advantage in the battle of 

 life over their fellows in the competition for food, females, and other 



