40 



LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 



thing was to be created. On one group he was a 

 little prepared, but it was by accident ; a self-sacrifice 

 to friendship was the cause. For it was both to 

 please his friend Brugui^re as well as to penetrate 

 more deeply into the affections of this very reserved 

 naturalist, and also to converse with him in the 

 only language which he wished to hear, which was 

 restricted to conversations on shells, that M. de 

 Lamarck had made some conchological studies. Oh, 

 how, in 1793, did he regret that his friend had gone to 

 Persia ! He had wished, he had planned, that he 

 should take the professorship which it was proposed 

 to create. He would at least supply his place ; it 

 was in answer to the yearnings of his soul, and this 

 affectionate impulse became a fundamental element 

 in the nature of one of the greatest of zoological 

 geniuses of our epoch." 



Once settled in his new line of work, Lamarck, the 

 incipient zoologist, at a period in life when many 

 students of less flexible and energetic natures become 

 either hide-bound and conservative, averse to taking 

 up a different course of study, or actually cease all 

 work and rust out— after a half century of his life 

 had passed, this rare spirit, burning with enthusiasm, 

 charged like some old-time knight or explorer into a 

 new realm and into " fresh fields and pastures new." 

 His spirit, still young and fresh after' nearly thirty 

 years of mental toil, so unrequited in material things, 

 felt a new stimulus as he began to investigate the 

 lower animals, so promising a field for discovery. 



He said himself : 



" That which is the more singular is that the most 

 important phenomena to be considered have been 

 offered to our meditations only since the time when 



