114 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



his more famous and greater namesake. For its 

 full perception, the discovery of Malthus had to be 

 collated with the speculations of Buffon." 



In the Historical Sketch on the Progress of 

 Opinion on the Origin of Species, which Darwin 

 prefixed to his book, he refers to Lamarck as " the 

 first man whose conclusions on the subject excited 

 much attention ; " rendering " the eminent service of 

 arousing attention to the probability of all change 

 in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, 

 being the result of law, and not of miraculous inter- 

 position." Lamarck was born at Bezantin, in Picar- 

 dy, in 1744. Intended for the Church, he chose the 

 army, but an injury resulting from a practical joke 

 cut short his career as a soldier. He then became a 

 banker's clerk, in which occupation he secured lei- 

 sure for his favourite pursuit of natural history. 

 Through Bufifon's influence he procured a civil ap- 

 pointment, and ultimately became a colleague of 

 Cuvier and Geofifroy St. Hilaire in the Museum of 

 Natural History at Paris. Of Cuvier it will here 

 suffice to say that he remained to the end of his life 

 a believer in special creation, or, what amounts to 

 the same thing, a series of special creations .which, 

 he held, followed the catastrophic annihilations of 

 prior plants and animals. Although orthodox by 

 conviction, his researches told against his tenets, be- 

 cause his important work in the reconstruction of 

 skeletons of long extinct animals laid the foundation 

 of palaeontology. 



