Phenomena of Ontogenesis 
[October, 
516 
the great French naturalist who first systematised the evolu- 
tion hypothesis, crudely and imperfectly it is true, but with 
what breadth and grasp of generalities ! Lamarck, perhaps, 
attained nearer to the truth than some of those to whom 
the glory belongs of having in late years elaborated the 
great theory of Natural Selection, and of having revived 
interest in a subject, the importance of which cannot be 
over-estimated. He believed in a primary developing cause, 
of the nature of which he had no conception, and in a form 
of spontaneous generation, because he could not otherwise 
account for the beginning of life : to quote his own words — - 
“ That all the organisms of the world are the true produc- 
tions of Nature, and that they have been very gradually 
evolved. That Nature, in her course, commences and ever 
re-commences, by forming the simplest organisms, and that 
she only direCtly forms these, that is, the first germs of 
organisation, which have been designated ‘ spontaneous 
generations/” He also maintains that Nature has im- 
planted in the first germs of life a faculty of growth. It 
would appear that he does not intend to identify the agent 
he calls Nature with mechanical causes. The following 
quotation from the Introduction to his “ Philosophic Zoo- 
logique ” seems, however, to point to a contrary conclu- 
sion “ That it is, unquestionably, a very great and pro- 
found truth, that all operations, moral and physical, are due 
to the same source. . . . And, in short, that all the 
phenomena of the intelligence and the will have their origin 
in the primitive and accidental state of the organism.” 
Although not very clear as to the cause he has no doubt as 
to the faCt of a progressive development having taken place 
since the commencement of life in the world ; “ a faCt,” he 
says, “ which deserves all the attention of those who study 
the nature of animals ; a faCt partially seen many centuries 
ago, never completely grasped, always exaggerated.” He 
then proceeds to point out that the reality of the progression 
does not need to be established by an aCt of reasoning, but 
is simply an observed phenomenon. He strongly repudiates 
the opinion, which he complains had been attributed to him, 
that animal and vegetable life had a common origin, and 
he also declares his belief that living cannot have sprung 
from not-living matter. His conception of spontaneous 
generation must therefore have differed considerably from 
modern notions on the subject. He remarks that the 
primary cause has been disturbed here and there in its 
adtion by a casual, and consequently varying, secondary and 
modifying cause. 
