LAMARCK'S THEORY OF EVOLUTION 269 



viduals ; and in that way the progress acquired in the 

 composition of the organization and in the forms and 

 the diversity of the parts has been preserved. 



" 5. That with the aid of sufficient time, of circum- 

 stances which have been necessarily favorable, of 

 changes that all parts of the surface of the globe have 

 successively undergone in their condition — in a word, 

 with the power that new situations and new habits 

 have in modifying the organs of bodies endowed with 

 life — all those which now exist have been impercep- 

 tibly formed such as we see them. 



"6. Finally, that according to a similar order of 

 things, living beings, having undergone each of the 

 more or less great changes in the condition of their 

 organization and of their parts, that which is desig- 

 nated as a species among them has been insensibly 

 and successively so formed, can have only a relative 

 constancy in its condition, and cannot be as ancient 

 as nature. 



" But, it will be said, when it is necessary to suppose 

 that, with the aid of much time and of an infinite vari- 

 ation in circumstances, nature has gradually formed 

 the different animals that we know, would we not be 

 stopped in this supposition by the sole consideration 

 of the admirable diversity which we observe in the 

 instinct of different animals, and by that of the 

 marvels of all sorts which their different kinds of 

 industry present ? 



" Will one dare to carry the spirit of system (^porter 

 r esprit de systime) to the point of saying that it is 

 nature, and she alone, which creates this astonishing 

 diversity of means, of ruses, of skill, of precautions, 

 of patience, of which the industry of animals offers us 

 so many examples ! What we observe in this respect 

 in the class of insects alone, is it not a thousand times 

 more than is necessary to compel us to perceive that 

 the Hmits of the power of nature by no means permit 

 her herself to produce so many marvels, and to force 



