WHEN DID LAMARCK'S VIEWS CHANGE? 



229 



physical cause of the maintenance of Ufa of organic 

 beings, still I have ventured to urge at the outset that 

 the existence of these astonishing beings by no means 

 depends on nature ; that all which is meant by the 

 word nature cannot give life — namely, that all the 

 faculties of matter, added to all possible circum- 

 stances, and even to the a-clivity pervading the uni- 

 verse, cannot produce a being endowed with the power 

 of organic movement, capable of reproducing its like, 

 and subject to death. ~| 



" 686. All the individuals of this nature which 

 exist are derived from similar individuals, which, all 

 taken together, constitute the entire species. How- 

 ever, I believe that it is as impossible for man to 

 know the physical origin of the first individual of 

 each species as to assign also physically the cause of 

 the existence of matter or of the whole universe. 

 This is at least what the result of my knowledge and 

 reflection leads me to think. If there exist any va- 

 rieties produced by the action of circumstances, these 

 varieties do not change the nature of the species (c^j 

 vari^tds ne dinaturent point les especes) ; but doubt- 

 less we are often deceived in indicating as a species 

 what is only a variety ; and I perceive that this error 

 may be of consequence in reasoning on this subject " 

 (tome ii., pp. 213-214).// 



It must apparently remain a matter of uncertainty 

 whether this opinion, so decisively stated, was that 

 of Lamarck at thirty-two years of age, and which he 

 allowed to remain, as then stated, for eighteen years, 

 or whether he inserted it when reading the proofs in 

 1794. It would seem as if it were the expression of 

 his views when a botanist and a young man. 



In his Mdmoires de Physique et d'Histoire naturelle, 

 which was published in 1797, there is nothing said 



