MEMOIR OF LAMARCK. 37 
refutation of them. It is difficult, indeed, to con- 
ceive how Lamarck could advance a theory so 
utterly opposed to observation and probability, and 
at the same time succeed so effectually in convincing 
himself of its truth. He must have perceived many 
of the inadmissible and absurd conclusions to which 
it led ; yet he persists in maintaining it by a kind 
of sophistry which could impose on none hut him- 
self. He admits the value of observation and ex- 
perience in the discovery of truth ; but finding that 
they bore no testimony to the wonderful transforma- 
tions he was desirous to prove, he gets rid of their 
evidence altogether, by alleging that they do not 
extend over a sufficiently lengthened period to take 
cognizance of these changes. The argument, there- 
fore, on this point, virtually amounts to this, that 
observation gives no notice of these operations, but 
that instead of thence inferring that they do not 
take place, the proper conclusion is, that they are 
actually going on, and have been in progress since 
the creation ! How indispensable unlimited time is 
to give an air of plausibility to Lamarck’s theory, is 
strikingly evinced by the fact, of which he was 
perfectly aware, that we have the means of com- 
paring animals that lived upwards of two or three 
thousand years ago, with the same species as they 
exist at present, and the conformity between them 
is found to be complete. Numerous quadrupeds, 
birds, reptiles, and insects, have been found em- 
balmed in the Egyptian cemeteries, with all the 
parts in such a state of preservation as to be per- 
