MEMOIR OF LAMARCK. 
43 
imitated, in newly deceased persons, still there are 
no signs of returning intelligence, there is no life, no 
voluntary action, not a trace of the spiritual agent 
that has been summoned from its dwelling. Whence 
it follows, that though the organization is that by 
which the intellectual and governing power manifests 
its presence and habitation, still it is evidently some- 
thing distinct from and independent of it*.” 
With opinions having such a decided tendency 
to materialism, it is not surprising that Lamarck 
seldom makes allusion to a Deity, and when he 
does so, he nearly confines himself to the bare 
acknowledgment of his existence. In his earlier 
works, there is no mention made of a Supreme 
Being whatever; and even when his existence is 
admitted, He is divested of the attributes ■which 
belong to him. The glory of forming the works of 
creation, in which His beneficence and power are so 
signally manifested, is ascribed to nature, or a cer- 
tain order of things. This power to which the Deity 
has delegated his prerogatives, and w'hich he has 
appointed his vicegerent, Lamarck defines as “ An 
order of things composed of objects independent of 
matter, which are determined by the observation of 
bodies, and the whole amount of which constitutes 
a power, unalterable in its essence, governed in all 
its acts, and constantly acting upon all the parts of 
the physical universe t.” This blind power, which 
* Kirby's Bridge. Treat. Intro, p. xxxii. 
t N. Diet. d’Hist. Nat. xxii. Art. Nature, 377 ; Anim. sans 
Vert. i. p. 317. 
