Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution Part 13

Our claim that Lamarck should share with Cuvier the honor of being a founder of palaeontology[105] is substantiated by the philosophic Lyell, who as early as 1836, in his _Principles of Geology_, expresses the same view in the following words: "The labors of Cuvier in comparative osteology, and of Lamarck in recent and fossil sh.e.l.ls, had raised these departments of study to a rank of which they had never previously been deemed susceptible."

Our distinguished American palaeontologist, the late O. C. Marsh, takes the same view, and draws the following parallel between the two great French naturalists:

"In looking back from this point of view, the philosophical breadth of Lamarck's conclusions, in comparison with those of Cuvier, is clearly evident. The invertebrates on which Lamarck worked offered less striking evidence of change than the various animals investigated by Cuvier; yet they led Lamarck directly to evolution, while Cuvier ignored what was before him on this point, and rejected the proof offered by others. Both pursued the same methods, and had an abundance of material on which to work, yet the facts observed induced Cuvier to believe in catastrophes, and Lamarck in the uniform course of nature. Cuvier declared species to be permanent; Lamarck, that they were descended from others. Both men stand in the first rank in science; but Lamarck was the prophetic genius, half a century in advance of his time."[106]

FOOTNOTES:

[81] Although Defrance (born 1759, died in 1850) aided Lamarck in collecting tertiary sh.e.l.ls, his earliest palaeontological paper (on Hipponyx) did not appear until the year 1819.

[82] In a footnote Lamarck refers to an unpublished work, which probably formed a part of the _Hydrogeologie_, published in the following year.

"_Voyez a ce sujet mon ouvrage int.i.tule: De l'influence du mouvement des eaus sur la surface du globe terrestre, et des indices du deplacement continuel du ba.s.sin des mers, ainsi que de son transport successif sur les differens points de la surface du globe_" (no date).

[83] It should be stated that the first observer to inaugurate the comparative method was that remarkable forerunner of modern palaeontologists, Steno the Dane, who was for a while a professor at Padua. In 1669, in his treatise ent.i.tled _De Solido intra Solidum naturaliter contento_, which Lyell translates "On gems, crystals, and organic petrefactions inclosed within solid rocks," he showed, by dissecting a shark from the Mediterranean, that certain fossil teeth found in Tuscany were also those of some shark. "He had also compared the sh.e.l.ls discovered in the Italian strata with living species, pointed out their resemblance, and traced the various gradations from sh.e.l.ls merely calcined, or which had only lost their animal gluten, to those petrefactions in which there was a perfect subst.i.tution of stony matter"

(Lyell's _Principles_, p. 25). About twenty years afterwards, the English philosopher Robert Hooke, in a discourse on earthquakes, written in 1688, but published posthumously in 1705, was aware that the fossil ammonites, nautili, and many other sh.e.l.ls and fossil skeletons found in England, were of different species from any then known; but he doubted whether the species had become extinct, observing that the knowledge of naturalists of all the marine species, especially those inhabiting the deep sea, was very deficient. In some parts of his writings, however, he leans to the opinion that species had been lost. Some species, he observes with great sagacity, "are _peculiar to certain places_, and not to be found elsewhere." Turtles and such large ammonites as are found in Portland seem to have been the productions of hotter countries, and he thought that England once lay under the sea within the torrid zone (Lyell's _Principles_).

Gesner the botanist, of Zurich, also published in 1758 an excellent treatise on petrefactions and the changes of the earth which they testify. He observed that some fossils, "such as ammonites, gryphites, belemnites, and other sh.e.l.ls, are either of unknown species or found only in the Indian and other distant seas" (Lyell's _Principles_).

Geikie estimates very highly Guettard's labors in palaeontology, saying that "his descriptions and excellent drawings ent.i.tle him to rank as the first great leader of the palaeontological school of France." He published many long and elaborate memoirs containing brief descriptions, but without specific names, and figured some hundreds of fossil sh.e.l.ls.

He was the first to recognize trilobites (Illaenus) in the Silurian slates of Angers, in a memoir published in 1762. Some of his generic names, says Geikie, "have pa.s.sed into the languages of modern palaeontology," and one of the genera of chalk sponges which he described has been named after him, _Guettardia_. In his memoir "On the accidents that have befallen fossil sh.e.l.ls compared with those which are found to happen to sh.e.l.ls now living in the sea" (Trans. Acad. Roy.

Sciences, 1765, pp. 189, 329, 399) he shows that the beds of fossil sh.e.l.ls on the land present the closest possible a.n.a.logy to the flow of the present sea, so that it becomes impossible to doubt that the accidents, such as broken and worn sh.e.l.ls, which have affected the fossil organisms, arose from precisely the same causes as those of exactly the same nature that still befall their successors on the existing ocean bottom. On the other hand, Geikie observes that it must be acknowledged "that Guettard does not seem to have had any clear ideas of the sequence of formations and of geological structures."

[84] Scheuchzer's "Complaint and Vindication of the Fishes" (_Piscium Querelae et Vindiciae_, Germany, 1708), "a work of zoological merit, in which he gave some good plates and descriptions of fossil fish" (Lyell).

Gesner's treatise on petrefactions preceded Lamarck's work in this direction, as did Brander's _Fossillia Hantoniensia_, published in 1766, which contained "excellent figures of fossil sh.e.l.ls from the more modern (or Eocene) marine strata of Hamps.h.i.+re. In his opinion fossil animals and testacea were, for the most part, of unknown species, and of such as were known the living a.n.a.logues now belonged to southern lat.i.tudes"

(Lyell's _Principles_, eighth edition, p. 46).

[85] _Annales du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle_, vi., 1805, pp. 222-228.

[86] _Recueil de Planches des Coquilles fossiles des environs de Paris_ (Paris, 1823). There are added two plates of fossil fresh-water sh.e.l.ls (twenty-one species of Limnaea, etc.) by Brard, with sixty-two figures.

[87] _Cuvier et Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. Biographies scientifiques_, par Ducrotay de Blainville (Paris, 1890, p. 446).

[88] "Memoire sur des os fossiles decouverts aupres de la ville d'Aix en Provence" (Mem. Acad. Sc., Paris, 1760, pp. 209-220).

[89] "Sur un os d'une grosseur enorme qu'on a trouve dans une couche de glaise au milieu de Paris; et en general sur les oss.e.m.e.ns fossiles qui ont appartenu a de grands animaux" (_Journal de Physique_, tome xvii., 1781. pp. 393-405). Lamanon also, in 1780, published in the same _Journal_ an article on the nature and position of the bones found at Aix en Provence; and in 1783 another article on the fossil bones belonging to gigantic animals.

[90] Hollmann had still earlier published a paper ent.i.tled _De corporum marinorum, aliorumque peregrinorum in terra continente origine_ (_Commentarii Soc. Goettingen._, tom. iii., 1753, pp. 285-374).

[91] _Novi Commentarii Soc. Sc. Goettingensis_, tom. ii., _Commentat._, tom. i.

[92] His first palaeontological article appears to have been one ent.i.tled _Beitrage zur Naturgeschichte der Vorwelt_ (Lichtenberg, _Voigt's Magaz._, Bd. vi., S. 4, 1790, pp. 1-17). I have been unable to ascertain in which of his publications he describes and names the cave-bear.

[93] _Specimen archaeologia telluris terrarumque imprimis Hannoveranae_, pts. i., ii. _c.u.m 4 tabl. aen. 4 maj._ Gottingae, 1803.

[94] Faujas Saint-Fond wrote articles on fossil bones (1794); on fossil plants both of France (1803) and of Monte Bolca (1820); on a fish from Nanterre (1802) and a fossil turtle (1803); on two species of fossil ox, whose skulls were found in Germany, France, and England (1803), and on an elephant's tusk found in the volcanic tufa of Darbres (1803); on the fossil sh.e.l.ls of Mayence (1806); and on a new genus (_Clotho_) of bivalve sh.e.l.ls.

[95] _Sur les oss.e.m.e.ns qui se trouvent dans le gyps de Montmartre_ (_Bulletin des sciences pour la Societe philomatique_, tomes 1, 2, 1798, pp. 154-155).

[96] The following account is translated from the fourth edition of the _Oss.e.m.e.ns fossiles_, vol. 1., 1834, also the sixth edition of the _Discours_, separately published in 1830. It does not differ materially from the first edition of the _Essay on the Theory of the Earth_, translated by Jameson, and republished in New York, with additions by Samuel L. Mitch.e.l.l, in 1818.

[97] In the first edition of the _Theorie_ he says fifteen years, writing in 1812. In the later edition he changed the number of years to thirty.

[98] De Blainville is inclined to make light of Cuvier's law and of his a.s.sumptions; and in his somewhat cynical, depreciatory way, says:

"Thus for the thirty years during which appeared the works of M. G.

Cuvier on fossil bones, under the most favorable circ.u.mstances, in a kind of renascence of the science of organization of animals, then almost effaced in France, aided by the richest osteological collections which then existed in Europe, M. G. Cuvier pa.s.sed an active and a comparatively long life, in a region abounding in fossil bones, without having established any other principle in osteology than a witticism which he had been unable for a moment to take seriously himself, because he had not yet investigated or sufficiently studied the science of organization, which I even doubt, to speak frankly, if he ever did.

Otherwise, he would himself soon have perceived the falsity of his a.s.sertion that a single facet of a bone was sufficient to reconstruct a skeleton from the observation that everything is harmoniously correlated in an animal. It is a great thing if the memory, aided by a strong imagination, can thus pa.s.s from a bone to the entire skeleton, even in an animal well known and studied even to satiety; but for an unknown animal, there is no one except a man but slightly acquainted with the anatomy of animals who could pretend to do it. It is not true anatomists like Hunter, Camper, Pallas, Vicq-d'Azyr, Blumenbach, Soemmering, and Meckel who would be so presuming, and M. G. Cuvier would have been himself much embarra.s.sed if he had been taken at his word, and besides it is this a.s.sertion which will remain formulated in the mouths of the ignorant, and which has already made many persons believe that it is possible to answer the most difficult and often insoluble problems in palaeontology, without having made any preliminary study, with the aid of dividers, and, on the other hand, discouraging the Blumenbachs and Soemmerings from giving their attention to this kind of work."

Huxley has, _inter alia_, put the case in a somewhat similar way, to show that the law should at least be applied with much caution to unknown forms:

"Cuvier, in the _Discours sur les Revolutions de la Surface du Globe_, strangely credits himself, and has ever since been credited by others, with the invention of a new method of palaeontological research. But if you will turn to the _Recherches sur les Oss.e.m.e.ns fossiles_, and watch Cuvier not speculating, but working, you will find that his method is neither more nor less than that of Steno. If he was able to make his famous prophecy from the jaw which lay upon the surface of a block of stone to the pelvis which lay hidden in it, it was not because either he or any one else knew, or knows, why a certain form of jaw is, as a rule, constantly accompanied by the presence of marsupial bones, but simply because experience has shown that these two structures are coordinated"

(_Science and Hebrew Tradition. Rise and Progress of Paleontology_ 1881, p. 23).

[99] _History and Methods of Paleontological Discovery_ (1879).

[100] The following statement of Cuvier's views is taken from Jameson's translation of the first _Essay on the Theory of the Earth_, "which formed the introduction to his _Recherches sur les Oss.e.m.e.ns fossiles_,"

the first edition of which appeared in 1812, or ten years after the publication of the _Hydrogeologie_. The original I have not seen, but I have compared Jameson's translation with the sixth edition of the _Discours_ (1820).

[101] Cuvier, in speaking of these revolutions, "which have changed the surface of our earth," correctly reasons that they must have excited a more powerful action upon terrestrial quadrupeds than upon marine animals. "As these revolutions," he says, "have consisted chiefly in changes of the bed of the sea, and as the waters must have destroyed all the quadrupeds which they reached if their irruption over the land was general, they must have destroyed the entire cla.s.s, or, if confined only to certain continents at one time, they must have destroyed at least all the species inhabiting these continents, without having the same effect upon the marine animals. On the other hand, millions of aquatic animals may have been left quite dry, or buried in newly formed strata or thrown violently on the coasts, while their races may have been still preserved in more peaceful parts of the sea, whence they might again propagate and spread after the agitation of the water had ceased."

[102] _Discours_, etc. Sixth edition.

[103] Felix Bernard, _The Principles of Paleontology_, Paris, 1895, translated by C. E. Brooks, edited by J. M. Clark, from 14th Annual Report New York State Geologist, 1895, pp. 127-217 (p. 16). Bernard gives no reference to the work in which Schlotheim expressed this opinion. E. v. Schlotheim's first work, _Flora der Vorwelt_, appeared in 1804, ent.i.tled _Beschreibung merkwurdiger Krauterabdrucke und Pflanzenversteinerungen. Ein Beytrag zur Flora der Vorvelt._ I Abtheil.

Mit 14 Kpfrn. 4^o. Gotha, 1804. A later work was _Beytrage zur Naturgeschichte der Versteinerungen in geognostischer Hinsicht_ (_Denkschrift d. k. Academie d. Wissenschaften zu Munchen fur den Jahren 1816 und 1817_. 8 Taf. Munchen, 1819). He was followed in Germany by Sternberg (_Versuch einer geognostischbotanischen Darstellung der Flora der Vorvelt._ 1-8. 1811. Leipzig, 1820-38); and in France by A. T.

Brongniart, 1801-1876 (_Histoire des Vegetaux fossiles_, 1828). These were the pioneers in palaeophytology.

[104] Bernard's _History and Methods of Paleontological Discovery_ (1879), p. 23.

[105] In his valuable and comprehensive _Geschichte der Geologie und Palaontologie_ (1899), Prof. K. von Zittel, while referring to Lamarck's works on the tertiary sh.e.l.ls of Paris and his _Animaux sans Vertebres_, also giving a just and full account of his life, practically gives him the credit of being one of the founders of invertebrate palaeontology. He speaks of him as "the reformer and founder of scientific conchology,"

and states that "he defined with wonderful acuteness the numerous genera and species of invertebrate animals, and created thereby for the ten years following an authoritative foundation." Zittel, however, does not mention the _Hydrogeologie_. Probably so rare a book was overlooked by the eminent German palaeontologist.

[106] _History and Methods of Paleontological Discovery_ (1879), p. 23.

CHAPTER X

LAMARCK'S OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY AND BIOLOGY

Lamarck died before the rise of the sciences of morphology, embryology, and cytology. As to palaeontology, which he aided in founding, he had but the slightest idea of the geological succession of life-forms, and not an inkling of the biogenetic law or recapitulation theory. Little did he know or foresee that the main and strongest support of his own theory was to be this same science of the extinct forms of life. Yet it is a matter of interest to know what were his views or opinions on the nature of life; whether he made any suggestions bearing on the doctrine of the unity of nature; whether he was a vitalist or not; and whether he was a follower of Haller and of Bonnet,[107] as was Cuvier, or p.r.o.nounced in favor of epigenesis.

We know that he was a firm believer in spontaneous generation, and that he conceived that it took place not only in the origination of his primeval germs or _ebauches_, but at all later periods down to the present day.

Yet Lamarck accepted Harvey's doctrine, published in 1651, that all living beings arose from germs or eggs.[108]

He must have known of Spallanzani's experiments, published in 1776, even if he had not read the writings of Trevira.n.u.s (1802-1805), both of whom had experimentally disproved the theory of the spontaneous generation of animalcules in putrid infusions, showing that the lowest organisms develop only from germs.