G2 MEMOIR OF LAMARCK. 
to be accounted for by their being nursed in the 
long solitudes to which his bad health and limited 
circumstances frequently confined him, without hav- 
ing his eyes opened to their fallacies by a discussion 
of their merits, or interchange of thought with 
others : for 
’Tis thought’s exchange, which, like the alternate rush 
Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned scum, 
And defecates the student’s standing pool ; 
By that untutor’d, contemplation raves, 
And nature’s fool by wisdom is outdone. 
It may likewise be supposed that he would be un- 
willing to perceive, or if he did perceive, equally 
reluctant to acknowledge, the imperfection of systems 
which he had wrought out with so much care and 
labour. For that they must have cost him a great 
degree of laborious thought, will appear from the 
slightest inspection. It must also be allowed, that 
they evince a reach of mind, a power of original 
thinking, and a degree of varied knowledge, ealeu 
lated to convey no mean idea of his intellectual 
character. Neither can we deny to them a certain 
degree of consistency, or adaptation of parts to each 
other ; and although the praise of consistency must 
be qualified by the admission that it is consistency 
in error, yet, in such cases, this is of such difficult 
attainment, as of itself to imply a high degree of 
acuteness and circumspection. However startling 
the conclusions to which Lamarck leads us, they 
are generally drawn by a legitimate and fairly 
managed process of induction from the assumed 
