272 LAMARCK, HIS LIF£ AND WORK 



the considerations which I have expressed on this 

 subject ; and which especially proves that the ani- 

 mals of which it treats have existed during the whole 

 period of nature. It only proves that they have ex- 

 isted for two or three thousand years ; and every one 

 who is accustomed to reflect, and at the same time to 

 observe that which nature shows us of the monuments 

 of its antiquity, readily appreciates the value of a 

 duration of two or three thousand years in compari- 

 son with it. 



" Hence, as I have elsewhere said, it is sure that 

 this appearance of the stability of things in nature 

 will always be mistaken by the average of mankind 

 for the reality ; because in general people only judge 

 of everything relatively to themselves. 



" For the man who observes, and who in this re- 

 spect only judges from the changes which he himself 

 perceives, the intervals of these changes are stationary 

 conditions {etats) which should appear to be limitless, 

 because of the brevity of life of the individuals of his 

 species. Thus, as the records of his observations 

 and the notes of facts which he has consigned to his 

 registers only extend and mount up to several thou- 

 sands of years (three to five thousand years), which is an 

 infinitely small period of time relatively to those which 

 have sufficed to bring about the great changes which 

 the surface of the globe has undergone, everything 

 seems stable to him in the planet which he inhabits, 

 and he is inclined to reject the monuments heaped 

 up around him or buried in the earth which he treads 

 under his feet, and which surrounds him on all sides.* 



" It seems to me [as mistaken as] to expect some 

 small creatures which only live a year, which inhabit 



* See the Annalss du Museum d'Hist. nai., IV= cahier, i., 1802, 

 pp. 302, 303 : M^moires sur les Fossiles des Environs de Paris, etc. 

 He repeats in his Discours what he wrote in 1802 in the Annales. 



