LAMARCK'S PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 245 



precisely in 1806,* and in 1809 he devotes a great part 

 of his principal work, the ' Philosophie Zoologiqne,' to 

 their demonstration.t Here he might have rested and 

 have quietly awaited the judgment of his peers; but 

 he is too much convinced; he believes the future of 

 science to depend so much upon his doctrine that to 

 his dying day he feels compelled to explain it further 

 and insist upon it. When already over seventy years 

 of age he enounces it again, and maintains it as firmly 

 as ever in 1815, in his ' Histoire des Animaux sans 

 Vertebres,' and in 1820 in his ' Systeme des Connais- 

 sances Positives.' J 



"This doctrine, so dearly cherished by its author, 

 and the conception, exposition, and defence of which so 

 laboriously occupied the second half of his scientific 

 career, has been assuredly too much admired by some, 

 who have forgotten that Lamarck had a precursor, and 

 that that precursor was Buffon. It has, on the other 

 hand, been too severely condemned by others who have 

 involved it in its entirety in broad and sweeping con- 

 demnation. As if it were possible that so great labour 

 on the part of so great a naturalist should have led him 

 to ' a fantastic conclusion ' only — to a ' flighty error,' 

 and, as has been often said, though not written, to ' one 



sation des Corps Vivants,' Paris, in-8, 1802, p. 50. &e. ; ' Disoours 

 d'Ouverture d'un Ooura de Zoologie pour I'au ix.,' Paris, iii-8, 1803. 

 This discourse is entirely devoted to the consideration of the question, 

 "What is Species?" 



* * Disoours d'Ouverture d'un Cours de Zoologie,' 1806, Paris, in-8, 

 p. 8, &c. 



t See following chapter. 



X ' Hist, des Anim. sans Vertfeb.,' torn, i., Introduction, 1" ed., 1815 ; 

 • Syst. des Conn. Positives,' Paris, iin-8, 1820, 1" part, 2'"e sect. ch. ii. 

 p. 114, &c. 



