LAMARCK. 123 
different from what science is wont to designate by that 
name. Why does the horse exist? Because it was pre- 
destined and prepared for man by the Deity.” This 
is supposed to occur by means of the “ derivative law.” 
But this again is a word which conveys no meaning, 
a phrase which implies that the horse has become a 
horse because it was so to be. The predecessors of the 
horse modify themselves for the interest of man, who 
does not as yet exist, but is already taken into account 
by the intelligent Will. 
These ancestors of. the horse might therefore be 
compared to the sports of Nature; the transformation 
takes place, not because from inherent reasons it must 
take place, but because it so pleases the intelligent Will. 
We must beg to decline such “natural laws” as these, 
Owen says, “I deem an innate tendency to deviate from 
the parental type, operating through periods of adequate 
duration, to be the most probable nature or way of 
operation of the secondary law, whereby species have 
been derived one from the other.* From the Ichthyo- 
saurus to Man, he sees the connection of descent; he 
denies that the influence of circumstances is decisive; he 
rejects a dozen times any sort of miracle; but the next 
moment he cleaves to miracle again, namely, to an innate 
tendency towards a certain future development not im- 
posed by circumstances and dependent on them, but 
conducive to a special purpose. 
Thus deal the trimmers, who, through fear of conse- 
quences, appease their scientific consciences with a word. 
We now come to a courageous writer, whose principal 
work, “La Philosophie Zoologique,’** was overlooked 
and well-nigh forgotten for half a century, until it 
