Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/244

 232 L A M L A M sidered, might be easily conceived as resulting from such agencies as heat and electricity causing in small gelatinous bodies an utricular structure, and inducing a &quot; singular tension,&quot; a kind of &quot;erethisme &quot; or &quot; orgasrne&quot;; and, having thus accounted for the first appearance of life, he explained the whole organization of animals and forma tion of different organs by four laws : &quot;1. Life by its proper forces tends continually to increase the volume of every body possessing it, and to enlarge its parts, up to a limit which it brings about. &quot; 2. The production of a new organ in an animal body results from the supervention of a new want (besoin) continuing to make itself felt, and a new movement which this want gives birth to and encourages. &quot; 3. The development of organs and their force of action are con stantly in ratio to the employment of these organs. &quot; 4. All which has been acquired, laid down, or changed in the organization of individuals in the course of their life is conserved by generation and transmitted to the new individuals which pro ceed from those which have undergone those changes.&quot; It is the second law which has been principally associated with Lamarck s name, and is often referred to as his hypothesis of the evolution of organs in animals by appetence or longing, although Lamarck does not teach that the animal s desires affect its conforma tion directly, but that altered wants lead to altered habits, which result in the formation of new organs as well as in modification, growth, or dwindling of those previously existing. Thus, he suggests that, ruminants being pursued by carnivora, their legs have grown slender; and, their legs being only fit for support, while their jaws are weak, they have made attack with the crown of the head, and the determination of fluids thither has led to the growth of horns. So also the stretching of the giraffe s neck to reach the foliage he supposes to have led to its elongation ; and the kangaroo, sitting upright to support the young in its pouch, he imagines to have had its fore-limbs dwarfed by disuse, and its hind legs and tail exaggerated by using them in leaping. The length to which he carried such notions can be fairly estimated by the illustration which, long after the publication of his Philosophic Zooloaiquc, he selected in the introduction to the Hist. Nat. dcs Anim, sans Vert. &quot;I conceive that a gasteropod mollusc, which, as it crawls along, finds the need of touching the bodies in front of it, makes efforts to touch those bodies with some of the foremost parts of its head, and sends to these every time quantities of nervous fluids, as well as other liquids. I conceive, I say, that it must result from this reiterated afflux towards the points in question that the nerves which abut at these points will, by slow degrees, be extended. Now, as in the same circumstances other fluids of the animal flow also to the same places, and especially nourishing fluids, it must follow that two or more tentacles will appear and develop insensibly in those circumstances on the points referred to.&quot; However absurd this may seem, it must be admitted that, unlimited time having been once granted for organs to be developed in series of generations, the objections to their being formed in the way here imagined are only such as equally apply to the theory of their origin by natural selection. Thus, for example, neither theory considers that it has to deal, not with crude heaps of mere functional organs, but with exquisitely orderly forms, nor accounts for the symmetrical first appearance of parts or for sex ; nor, though La marck tried hard, has he or any later writer reduced to physical law the rise of consciousness in association with structures which in their physical relations are mere mechanisms capable of reflex actions. In judging the reasonableness of the second law of Lamarck as compared with more modern and now widely received theories, it must be observed that it is only an extension of his third law ; and that third law is a fact. The strengthening of the blacksmith s arm by use is proverbially notorious. It is, therefore, only the sufficiency of the Lamarckian hypothesis to explain the first com mencement of new organs which is in question, if evolution by the mere operation of forces acting in the inorganic world be granted ; and surely the Darwinian theory is equally helpless to account for the bjginuings of a new organ, while it demands as imperatively that every stage in the assumed hereditary development of an organ must have been useful. Furthermore, to no writer more recent than Lamarck can be attributed the credit of first pointing attention to the repetition of acquired variations in the progeny, or the idea of weaving that fact into a theory of the origin of species. His words are : &quot;Every thing which nature has caused individuals to acquire or lose by the influence of the circumstances to which their race is long exposed, and consequently by the influence of the predominant employment of such organ, or its constant disuse, she preserves by generation to the new individuals proceeding from them, provided that the changes are common to the two sexes, or to those which have produced these new individuals&quot; (Phil. Zool., i. 235). It is interesting to note in this passage that he hesitated to believe that peculiarities could become permanent unless possessed by both parents. Notwithstanding his attempt to evolve all vital action from the forces at work in the inorganic world, Lamarck made a broad dis tinction between the &quot;power of life,&quot; to which he attributed the production of &quot; a real progression in the composition of the organiza tion of animals,&quot; and the modifying effects of external circumstances. The existence of such a progression cannot now be doubted, and constitutes evolution in the only sense in which it is universally admitted. Lamarck, equally with Darwin, teaches the more speculative doctrine that the complex forms are descended from simpler ancestors. In the modus opcrandi by which they hold this to have been accomplished both have admitted the action of a variety of modifying circumstances. Lamarck gave great import ance to the influence of new wants acting indirectly by stimulating growth and use. Darwin has given like importance to the effects of accidental variations acting indirectly by giving advantage in the struggle for existence. The speculative writings of Darwin have, however, been interwoven with a vast number of beautiful experi ments and observations bearing on his speculations, though by no means proving his theory of evolution ; while the speculations of Lamarck lie apart from his wonderful descriptive labours, unrelieved by intermixture with other matters capable of attracting the nume rous class who, provided they have new facts set before them, are not careful to limit themselves to the conclusions strictly deducible therefrom. But those who read the Philosophic Zoulogique will find how many truths often supposed to be far more modern are stated with abundant clearness in its pages. (J. CL.) LAMARIINE, ALPHONSE MARIE Louis DE PEAT DE (1790-18G9), poet, historian, and statesman, was born at M&con on the 21st of October 1790, and died at Passy on the 1st of March 1869. The family of Lamartine was good, and the title of Prat was taken from an estate in Tranche Comte. His father was imprisoned during the Terror, and only released owing to the events of the 9th Thermidor. Subsequently the family returned to the country. Lamartine s early education was received from his mother. He was sent to school at Lyons in 1805, but not being happy there was transferred to the care of the Peres de la Foi at Belley, where he remained until 1809. For some time afterwards lie lived at home, reading- romantic and poetical literature, but in 1811, being then tv- enty years old, he set out on his travels for Italy, where he seems to have sojourned for nearly two years. His family having been steady royalists, he entered the Gardes du corps at the return of the Bourbons, and during the Hundred Days he sought refuge first in Switzerland and then at Aix en Savoie, where he fell in love, with abundant results of the poetical kind. After Waterloo he returned to Paris, and znixed a good deal in society. In 1818-19 lie revisited Switzerland, Savoy, and Italy, the death of his beloved affording him new subjects for verse. He had now got together a considerable body of poetry, and after some difficulties he got his first book, the Meditations, published (1820). It was exceedingly popular, and helped him to make a position. He had left the army for some time, and he now entered the diplomatic service and was appointed secretary to the embassy at Naples. On his way to his post he married at Geneva a young English lady, Marianne Birch, who had both money and beauty (1823), and in the same year his Nouvelles Meditations appeared. In 1824 he was transferred from Naples to Florence, where he remained for five years. His Last Canto of Ckilde Harold appeared in 1825, and he had to fight a duel with an Italian officer, Colonel Pepe, in consequence of a phrase in it. The Harmonies Poliliques et Eeligieuses appeared in 1829, when he had left Florence. Having refused on appointment at Paris under the Polignac ministry (destined to be fatal to legitimising he went on a special mission to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who was not yet king of the Belgians, but was talked of as king of Greece. The next year he vras elected to the Academy. Lamartine was in Switzerland, not in Paris, at the time of the Revolution of July, and, though he put forth a pamphlet on Rational Policy, he did not take any active part in politics. In 1832 lie set out with his wife and daughter for Palestine, having been unsuccessful in his candidature for a seat in the chamber. His daughter Julia died at Beyrout, and