LAMARCK'S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 



237 



by their enormous numbers, the more highly organ- 

 ized and perfect animals which compose the first 

 classes and the first orders of this kingdom, so great 

 is the difference in the means and facility of multi- 

 plying between the two. 



" But nature has anticipated the dangerous effects 

 of this vast power of reproduction and multiplication. 

 She has prevented it on the one hand by consider- 

 ably limiting the duration of life of these beings so 

 simply organized which compose the lower classes, 

 and especially the lowest orders of the animal king- 

 dom. On the other hand, both by making these 

 animals the prey of each other, thus incessantly re- 

 ducing their numbers, and also by determining 

 through the diversity of climates the localities where 

 they could exist, and by the variety of seasons — i.e., 

 by the influences of different atmospheric conditions 

 — the time during which they could maintain their 

 existence. 



" By means of these wise precautions of nature 

 everything is well balanced and in order. Individuals 

 multiply, propagate, and die in different ways. No 

 species predominates up to the point of effecting the 

 extinction of another, except, perhaps, in the highest 

 classes, where the multiplication of the individuals is 

 slow and difficult ; and as the result of this state of 

 things we conceive that in general species are pre- 

 served " (p. 22). ^f 



Here we have in anticipation the doctrine of Mal- 

 thus, which, as will be remembered, so much im-' 

 pressed Charles Darwin, and led him in part to work 

 out his principle of natural selection. 



The author then taking up other subjects, first 

 asserts that among the changes that animals and 

 plants unceasingly bring about by their production 

 and debris, it is not the largest and most perfect ani- 



