LAMARCK'S THEORY OF DESCENT 345 



during the process, we are naturally led to believe 

 that things have always been as we see them, and not 

 as they have progressively been brought about. 



"Among the changes which nature everywhere 

 incessantly produces in her ensemble, and her laws re- 

 main always the s.ime, such of these changes as, to 

 bring about, do not need much more time than the 

 duration of human life, are easily understood by the 

 man who observes them ; but he cannot perceive 

 those which are accomplished at the end of a con- 

 siderable time. 



" If the duration of human life only extended to 

 the length of a. second, and if there existed one of 

 our actual clocks mounted and in movement, each 

 individual of our species who should look at the 

 hour-hand of this clock would never see it change its 

 place in the course of his life, although this hand 

 would really not be stationary. The observations 

 of thirty generations would never learn anything 

 very evident as to the displacement of this hand, 

 because its movement, only being that made during 

 half a minute, would be too slight to make an impres- 

 sion ; and if observations much more ancient should 

 show that this same hand had really moved, those 

 who should see the statement would not believe it, and 

 would suppose there was some error, each one having 

 always seen the hand on the same point of the dial- 

 plate. 



" I leave to my readers all the applications to be 

 made regarding this supposition. 



" Nature, that immense totahty of different beings 

 and bodies, in every part of which exists an eternal 

 circle of movements and changes regulated by law ; 

 totality alone unchangeable, so long as it pleases its 

 Sublime Author to make it exist, should be re- 

 garded as a whole constituted by its parts, for a 

 purpose which its Author alone knows, and not exclu- 

 sively for any one of them. 



