"To talk of climate or Lamarckian habit producing such adaptions to other organic beings is futile." (ii., p. 121, 1858.)
On the other hand, another great English thinker and naturalist of rare breadth and catholicity, and despite the fact that he rejected Lamarck"s peculiar evolutional views, a.s.sociated him with the most eminent biologists.
In a letter to Romanes, dated in 1882, Huxley thus estimates Lamarck"s position in the scientific world:
"I am not likely to take a low view of Darwin"s position in the history of science, but I am disposed to think that Buffon and Lamarck would run him hard in both genius and fertility. In breadth of view and in extent of knowledge these two men were giants, though we are apt to forget their services. Von Bar was another man of the same stamp; Cuvier, in a somewhat lower rank, another; and J. Muller another." (_Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley_, ii., p. 42, 1900.)
The memory of Lamarck is deeply and warmly cherished throughout France.
He gave his country a second Linne. One of the leading botanists in Europe, and the greatest zoologist of his time, he now shares equally with Geoffroy St. Hilaire and with Cuvier the distinction of raising biological science to that eminence in the first third of the nineteenth century which placed France, as the mother of biologists, in the van of all the nations. When we add to his triumphs in pure zoology the fact that he was in his time the philosopher of biology, it is not going too far to crown him as one of the intellectual glories, not only of France, but of the civilized world.
How warmly his memory is now cherished may be appreciated by the perusal of the following letter, with its delightful reminiscences, for which we are indebted to the venerable and distinguished zoologist and comparative anatomist who formerly occupied the chair made ill.u.s.trious by Lamarck, and by his successor, De Blainville, and who founded the Laboratoire Arago on the Mediterranean, also that of Experimental Zoology at Roscoff, and who still conducts the _Journal de Zoologie Experimentale_.
PARIS LE 28 _Decembre_, 1899.
M. le PROFESSEUR PACKARD.
_Cher Monsieur_: Vous m"avez fait l"honneur de me demander des renseignements sur la famille de De Lamarck, et sur ses relations, afin de vous en servir dans la biographie que vous preparez de notre grand naturaliste.
Je n"ai rien appris de plus que ce que vous voulez bien me rappeler comme l"ayant trouve dans mon adresse de 1889. Je ne connais plus ni les noms ni les adresses des parents de De Lamarck, et c"est avec regret qu"il ne m"est pas possible de repondre a vos desirs.
Lorsque je commencai mes etudes a Paris, on ne s"occupait guere des idees generales de De Lamarck que pour s"en moquer. Excepte Geoffroy St. Hilaire et De Blainville, dont j"ai pu suivre les belles lecons et qui le citaient souvent, on parlait peu de la philosophie zoologique.
Il m"a ete possible de causer avec des anciens collegues du grand naturaliste; au Jardin des Plantes de tres grands savants, dont je ne veux pas ecrire le nom, le traitaient _de fou_!
Il avait loue un appartement sur le haut d"une maison, et la cherchait d"apres la direction des nuages a prevoir l"etat du temps.
On riait de ces etudes. N"est-ce pas comme un observatoire de meteorologie que ce savant zoologiste avait pour ainsi dire fonde avant que la science ne se fut emparee de l"idee?
Lorsque j"eus l"honneur d"etre nomme professeur au Jardin des Plantes en 1865, je fis l"historique de la chaire que j"occupais, et qui avait ete ill.u.s.tree par De Lamarck et De Blainville. Je crois que je suis le premier a avoir fait l"histoire de notre grand naturaliste dans un cours public. Je dus travailler pas mal pour arriver a bien saisir l"idee fondamentale de la philosophie. Les definitions de la nature et des forces qui president aux changements qui modifient les etres d"apres les conditions auxquelles ils sont soumis ne sont pas toujours faciles a rendre claires pour un public souvent difficile.
Ce qui frappe surtout dans ses raisonnements, c"est que De Lamarck est parfaitement logique. Il comprend tres bien ce que plus d"un transformiste de nos jours ne cherche pas a eclairer, que le premier pas, le pas difficile a faire pour arriver a expliquer la creation par des modifications successives, c"est le pa.s.sage de la matiere inorganique a la matiere organisee, et il imagine la chaleur et l"electricite comme etant les deux facteurs qui par attraction ou repulsion finissent par former ces pet.i.ts amas organises qui seront le point de depart de toutes les transformations de tous les organismes.
Voila le point de depart--la generation spontanee se trouve ainsi expliquee!
De Lamarck etait un grand et profond observateur. On me disait au Museum (des contemporains) qu"il avait l"Instinct de l"Espece. Il y aurait beaucoup a dire sur cette expression--l"instinct de l"espece--il m"est difficile dans une simple lettre de developper des idees philosophiques que j"ai sur cette question,--laquelle suppose la notion de l"individu parfaitement definie et acquis.
Je ne vous citerai qu"un exemple. Je ne l"ai vu signale nulle part dans les ouvrages anciens sur De Lamarck.
Qu"etaient nos connaissances a l"epoque de De Lamarck sur les Polypiers? Les Hydraires etaient loin d"avoir fourni les remarquables observations qui parurent dans le milieu a peu pres du siecle qui vient de finir, et cependant De Lamarck deplace hardiment la Lucernaire--l"eloigne des Coralliaires, et la rapproche des etres qui forment le grand groupe des Hydraires. Ce trait me parait remarquable et le rapporte a cette reputation qu"il avait au Museum de jouir de l"instinct de l"espece.
De toute part on acclame le grand naturaliste, et"il n"y a pas meme une rue portant son nom aux environs du Jardin des Plantes? J"ai eu beau reclamer le conseil munic.i.p.al de Paris a d"autres favoris que De Lamarck.
Lorsque le Jardin des Plantes fut reorganise par la Convention, De Lamarck avait 50 ans. Il ne s"etait jusqu"alors occupe que de botanique. Il fut a cet age charge de l"histoire de la partie du regne animal renfermant les animaux invertebres sauf les Insectes et les Crustaces. La chaire est restee la meme; elle comprend les vers, les helminthes, les mollusques, et ce qu"on appelait autrefois les Zoophytes ou Rayonnees, enfin les Infusoires. Quelle puissance de travail! Ne fallait-il pas pour pa.s.ser de la Botanique, a 50 ans, a la Zoologie, et laisser un ouvrage semblable a celui qui ill.u.s.tre encore le nom du Botaniste devenue Zoologiste par ordre de la Convention!
Sans doute dans cet ouvrage il y a bien des choses qui ne sont plus acceptables--mais pour le juger avec equite, il faut se porter a l"epoque ou il fut fait, et alors on est pris d"admiration pour l"auteur d"un aussi immense travail.
J"ai une grande admiration pour le genie de De Lamarck, et je ne puis que vous louer de le faire encore mieux connaitre de nos contemporains.
Recevez, mon cher collegue, l"expression de mes sentiments d"estime pour vos travaux remarquables et croyez-moi--tout a vous,
H. DE LACAZE DUTHIERS.
FOOTNOTES:
[50] For example, while Cuvier"s chair was in the field of vertebrate zoology, owing to the kindness of Lamarck ("_par gracieusete de la part de M. de Lamarck_") he had retained that of Mollusca, and yet it was in the special cla.s.sification of the molluscs that Lamarck did his best work (Blainville, _l. c._, p. 116).
[51] De Blainville states that "the Academy did not even allow it to be printed in the form in which it was p.r.o.nounced" (p. 324); and again he speaks of the lack of judgment in Cuvier"s estimate of Lamarck, "the naturalist who had the greatest force in the general conception of beings and of phenomena, although he might often be far from the path"
(p. 323).
[52] _Fragments Biographiques_, pp. 209-219.
[53] _L. c._ p. 81.
[54] _Histoire Naturelle Drolatique et Philosophique des Professeurs du Jardin des Plantes, _etc._ Par Isid. S. de Gosse. Avec des Annotations de M. Frederic Gerard._ Paris, 1847.
[55] _Die Naturanschauung von Darwin, Goethe und Lamarck_, Jena, 1882.
[56] _Geschichte der Zoologie bis auf Joh. Muller und Charles Darwin_, 1872.
[57] We have been unable to find these statements in any of Lamarck"s writings.
CHAPTER VII
LAMARCK"S WORK IN METEOROLOGY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE
When a medical student in Paris, Lamarck, from day to day watching the clouds from his attic windows, became much interested in meteorology, and, indeed, at first this subject had nearly as much attraction for him as botany. For a long period he pursued these studies, and he was the first one to foretell the probabilities of the weather, thus antic.i.p.ating by over half a century the modern idea of making the science of meteorology of practical use to mankind.
His article, "De l"influence de la lune sur l"atmosphere terrestre,"
appeared in the _Journal de Physique_ for 1798, and was translated in two English journals. The t.i.tles of several other essays will be found in the Bibliography at the close of this volume.
From 1799 to 1810 he regularly published an annual meteorological report containing the statement of probabilities acquired by a long series of observations on the state of the weather and the variations of the atmosphere at different times of the year, giving indications of the periods when to expect pleasant weather, or rain, storms, tempests, frosts, thaws, etc.; finally the citations of these probabilities of times favorable to fetes, journeys, voyages, harvesting crops, and other enterprises dependent on good weather.
Lamarck thus explained the principles on which he based his probabilities: Two kinds of causes, he says, displace the fluids which compose the atmosphere, some being variable and irregular, others constant, whose action is subject to progressive and fixed laws.
Between the tropics constant causes exercise an action so considerable that the irregular effects of variable causes are there in some degree lost; hence result the prevailing winds which in these climates become established and change at determinate epochs.
Beyond the tropics, and especially toward the middle of the temperate zones, variable causes predominate. We can, however, still discover there the effects of the action of constant causes, though much weakened; we can a.s.sign them the princ.i.p.al epochs, and in a great number of cases make this knowledge turn to our profit. It is in the elevation and depression (_abaiss.e.m.e.nt_) of the moon above and below the celestial equator that we should seek for the most constant of these causes.
With his usual facility in such matters, he was not long in advancing a theory, according to which the atmosphere is regarded as resembling the sea, having a surface, waves, and storms; it ought likewise to have a flux and reflux, for the moon ought to exercise the same influence upon it that it does on the ocean. In the temperate and frigid zones, therefore, the wind, which is only the tide of the atmosphere, must depend greatly on the declination of the moon; it ought to blow toward the pole that is nearest to it, and advancing in that direction only, in order to reach every place, traversing dry countries or extensive seas, it ought then to render the sky serene or stormy. If the influence of the moon on the weather is denied, it is only that it may be referred to its phases, but its position in the ecliptic is regarded as affording probabilities much nearer the truth.[58]