344 



LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 



limbs like the others, and consequently a pelvis to 

 sustain their hind legs. But here, as elsewhere, that 

 which is lacking in them is the result of atrophy 

 brought about, at the end of a long time, by the want 

 of use of the parts which were useless. 



" If we consider that in the Phocae, where the pelvis 

 still exists, this pelvis is impoverished, narrowed, and 

 with no projections on the hips, we see that the 

 lessened (mMiocre) use of the hind feet of these 

 animals must be the cause, and that if this use should 

 entirely cease, the hind limbs and even the pelvis 

 would in the end disappear. 



" The considerations which I have just presented 

 may doubtless appear as simple conjectures, because 

 it is possible to establish them only on direct and 

 positive proofs. But if we pay any attention to the 

 observations which I have stated in this work, and if 

 then we examine carefully the animals which I have 

 mentioned, as also the result of their habits and their 

 surroundings, we shall find that these conjectures will 

 acquire, after this examination, an eminent proba- 

 bility. 



" The following tableau * will facilitate the compre- 

 hension of what I have just stated. It will be seen 

 that, in my opinion, the animal scale begins at least 

 by two special branches, and that in the course of 

 its extent some branchlets (rameaux) would seem to 

 terminate in certain places. 



" This series of animals beginning with two branches 

 where are situated the most imperfect, the first of 

 these branches received their existence only by direct 

 or spontaneous generation. 



" A strong reason prevents our knowing the changes 

 successively brought about which have produced the 

 condition in which we observe them ; it is because 

 we are never witnesses of these changes. Thus we 

 see the work when done, but never watching them 



* Reproduced on page 193. 



