224 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 



previously formed before their exertions to obtain 

 fresh air can exist ; the throat or oesophagus must be 

 formed previous to the sensation or appetites of hunger 

 and thirst^ {Zoonomia, p. 222). Again (Zoonomia, i., p. 

 498), " From hence I conclude that with the acquisition 

 of new parts, new sensations and new desires, as well as 

 new powers, are produced " (p. 226). Lamarck does 

 not carry his doctrine of use-inheritance so far as 

 Erasmus Darwin, who claimed, what some still main- 

 tain at the present day, that the offspring reproduces 

 " the effects produced upon the parent by accident 

 or cultivation." 



The idea that all animals have descended from a 

 similar living filament is expressed in a more modern 

 and scientific way by Lamarck, who derived them 

 from monads. 



The Erasmus Darwin way of stating that the trans- 

 formations of animals are in part produced by their 

 own exertions in consequence of their desires and 

 aversions, etc., is stated in a quite different way by 

 Lamarck. 



Finally the principle of law of battle, or the. com- 

 bat between the males for the possession of the 

 females, with the result " that the strongest and most 

 active animal should propagate the species," is not 

 hinted at by Lamarck. This view, on the contrary, 

 is one of the fundamental principles of the doctrine 

 of natural selection, and was made use of by Charles 

 Darwin and others. So also Erasmus anticipated 

 Charles Darwin in the third great want of " security," 

 in seeking which the forms and colors of animals 

 have been modified. This is an anticipation of the 



