74 THE ZOOLOGIST 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution, his Life and Work : with 

 Translations of his Writings on Organic Evolution. 

 By Alpheus S. Packard, M.D., LL.D. Longmans, 

 Green & Co. 



Whatever may be the general conclusion as to the claim of 

 Lamarck being "the founder of evolution," there can be no pos- 

 sible doubt as to his life being the " old, old story of a man of 

 genius who lived far in advance of his age, and who died compara- 

 tively unappreciated and neglected." The exact site of his grave 

 " is and forever will be unknown " ; his remains were not even 

 deposited in a separate grave, and his bones are now probably 

 in the catacombs of Paris, mingled with those of a very mixed 

 humanity. His career comprised about twenty-five years de- 

 voted to botany, and he was in his fiftieth year when he assumed 

 the duties of his professorship of zoology, and began his real 

 evolutionary conceptions. This was in 1793, on the eve of the 

 " Terror," and the dull thud of the guillotine " could almost be 

 heard by the quiet workers in the museum." We wish our 

 space would allow many extracts from this delightful narrative, 

 for the old French zoologists and explorers cross the pages, 

 and we learn much about men whose names are household words 

 to most naturalists. 



It is, however, with the views of Lamarck that Dr. Packard 

 is most engaged ; and, as an American, he appropriately defends 

 the estimation of many of his scientific countrymen, who hold 

 the French philosopher as even greater than Darwin. We learn 

 that it was Lamarck who proposed the word "Biology," which 

 first appears in the preface to his ' Hydrogeologie,' published in 

 1802. His definition of species has the true evolutionary ring : 

 " Species, then, have only a relative stability, and are invariable 

 only temporarily." As we read his views, one cardinal axiom 

 seems always prominent : " It is not the organs — that is to say* 



