RE LA TION BE T WEEN SCIENCE A ND RELIGION 375 



as having existed from all time, is to me an abstract 

 idea, baseless, limitless, improbable, and not satis- 

 factory to my reason. Being unable to know any- 

 thing positive in this respect, and having no means 

 of reasoning on this subject, I much prefer to think 

 that all nature is only a result: hence, I suppose, 

 and I am glad to admit it, a first cause, in a word, a 

 supreme power which has given existence to nature, 

 and which has made it in all respects what it is." * 



" 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 cause its existence, should be 

 regarded as a whole constituted by its parts, for 

 a purpose which its Author alone knows, and not 

 exclusively for any one of them. 



" Each part is necessarily obliged to change, and 

 to cease to be one in order to constitute another, 

 with interests opposed to those of all; and if it has 

 the power of reasoning it finds this whole imperfect. 

 In reality, however, this whole is perfect and com- 

 pletely fulfils the end for which it was designed." f 



Lamarck's work on general philosophy:]: was writ- 

 ten near the end of his life, in 1820. He begins his 

 " Discours pr^liminaire " by referring to the sudden 

 loss of his eyesight, his work on the invertebrate ani- 

 mals being thereby interrupted. The book was, he 

 says, "rapidly" dictated to his daughter, and the 

 ease with which he dictated was due, he says, to his 

 long-continued habit of meditating on the facts he 

 had observed. 



* Loc. cit., i., p. 361. f Loc. cit., ii., p. 465. 



X Systime analytique des Connaissances de V Homme, etc. 



