WHEN DID LAMARCK'S VIEWS CHANGE? 23 1 



this that these evolutionary views were expressed in 

 his first course, or in one of the earlier courses of 

 zoological lectures — i.e., soon after his appointment in 

 1793 — and if not then, at least one or two, or perhaps 

 several, years before the year 1800? For even if the 

 change in his views were comparatively sudden, he 

 must have meditated upon the subject for months and 

 even, perhaps, years, before finally committing himself 

 to these views in print. So strong and bold a thinker 

 as Lamarck had already shown himself in these fields 

 of thought, and one so inflexible and unyielding in 

 holding to an opinion once formed as he, must have 

 arrived at such views only after long reflection. 

 There is also every reason to suppose that Lamarck's 

 theory of descent was conceived by himself alone, 

 from the evidence which lay before him in the plants 

 and animals he had so well studied for the preceding 

 thirty years, and that his inspiration came directly 

 from nature and not from Buffon, and least of all 

 from the writings of Erasmus Darwin. ' 



