MEMOIR OF LAMARCK. 
61 
speculations. He possessed especially all the re- 
quisite qualifications for a zoologist, and it is on 
what he accomplished in this department that his 
fame must principally rest. When we perceive the 
admirable manner in which he discerned and cha- 
racterized natural groups, his skill in seizing on the 
most distinctive marks of species, the indefatigable 
industry with which he investigated their history and 
synonymy, together with the excellence of his system 
of arrangement, — we are led to regret that he was 
so late in entering upon this field of labour, as to 
be obliged to confine his attention to one division 
of the animal kingdom, and that he so frequently 
deviated even from that, in order to indulge his 
favourite practice of theorizing. 
However little value may now be attached to 
these theories, without a due consideration of them, 
we can neither appreciate some of the best of La- 
marck’s writings, nor understand the character of 
the man himself. In his own eyes, they appeared 
of paramount importance. The most practically 
useful of his zoological and botanical works he re- 
garded as trivial in comparison. He conceived them 
to present a key to some of the most secret opera- 
tions of nature, and to afford the means of placing 
many branches of knowledge on a new foundation. 
This ardent attachment to views which have so 
generally been considered extravagant and untenable, 
may seem surprising in the case of an individual 
whom all must acknowledge to be possessed of 
much acuteness and discrimination. It is perhaps 
