Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution Part 2

Still more recently Professor Giard[12] has unearthed from the works of Rousseau the following statement by him regarding species: "Est-ce qu'a proprement parler il n'existerait point d'especes dans la nature, mais seulement des individus?"[13] In his _Discours sur l'Inegalite parmi les Hommes_ is the following pa.s.sage, which shows, as Giard says, that Rousseau perfectly understood the influence of the _milieu_ and of wants on the organism; and this brilliant writer seems to have been the first to suggest natural selection, though only in the case of man, when he says that the weaker in Sparta were eliminated in order that the superior and stronger of the race might survive and be maintained.

"Accustomed from infancy to the severity of the weather and the rigors of the seasons, trained to undergo fatigue, and obliged to defend naked and without arms their life and their prey against ferocious beasts, or to escape them by flight, the men acquired an almost invariably robust temperament; the infants, bringing into the world the strong const.i.tution of their fathers, and strengthening themselves by the same kind of exercise as produced it, have thus acquired all the vigor of which the human species is capable. Nature uses them precisely as did the law of Sparta the children of her citizens. She rendered strong and robust those with a good const.i.tution, and destroyed all the others. Our societies differ in this respect, where the state, in rendering the children burdensome to the father, indirectly kills them before birth."[14]

Soon Lamarck abandoned not only a military career, but also music, medicine, and the bank, and devoted himself exclusively to science. He was now twenty-four years old, and, becoming a student of botany under Bernard de Jussieu, for ten years gave unremitting attention to this science, and especially to a study of the French flora.

Cuvier states that the _Flore Francaise_ appeared after "six months of unremitting labor." However this may be, the results of over nine preceding years of study, gathered together, written, and printed within the brief period of half a year, was no hasty _tour de force_, but a well-matured, solid work which for many years remained a standard one.

It brought him immediate fame. It appeared at a fortunate epoch. The example of Rousseau and the general enthusiasm he inspired had made the study of flowers very popular--"_une science a la mode_," as Cuvier says--even among many ladies and in the world of fas.h.i.+on, so that the new work of Lamarck, though published in three octavo volumes, had a rapid success.

The preface was written by Daubenton.[15] Buffon also took much interest in the work, opposing as it did the artificial system of Linne, for whom he had, for other reasons, no great degree of affection. He obtained the privilege of having the work published at the royal printing office at the expense of the government, and the total proceeds of the sale of the volumes were given to the author. This elaborate work at once placed young Lamarck in the front rank of botanists, and now the first and greatest honor of his life came to him. The young lieutenant, disappointed in a military advancement, won his spurs in the field of science. A place in botany had become vacant at the Academy of Sciences, and M. de Lamarck having been presented in the second rank (_en seconde ligne_), the ministry, a thing almost unexampled, caused him to be given by the king, in 1779, the preference over M. Descemet, whose name was presented before his, in the first rank, and who since then, and during a long life, never could recover the place which he unjustly lost.[16]

"In a word, the poor officer, so neglected since the peace, obtained at one stroke the good fortune, always very rare, and especially so at that time, of being both the recipient of the favor of the Court and of the public."[17]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LAMARCK AT THE AGE OF 35 YEARS]

The interest and affection felt for him by Buffon were of advantage to him in another way. Desiring to have his son, whom he had planned to be his successor as Intendant of the Royal Garden, and who had just finished his studies, enjoy the advantage of travel in foreign lands, Buffon proposed to Lamarck to go with him as a guide and friend; and, not wis.h.i.+ng him to appear as a mere teacher, he procured for him, in 1781, a commission as Royal Botanist, charged with visiting the foreign botanical gardens and museums, and of placing them in communication with those of Paris. His travels extended through portions of the years 1781 and 1782.

According to his own statement,[18] in pursuit of this object he collected not only rare and interesting plants which were wanting in the Royal Garden, but also minerals and other objects of natural history new to the Museum. He went to Holland, Germany, Hungary, etc., visiting universities, botanical gardens, and museums of natural history. He examined the mines of the Hartz in Hanover, of Freyburg in Saxony, of Chemnitz and of Cremnitz in Hungary, making there numerous observations which he incorporated in his work on physics, and sent collections of ores, minerals, and seeds to Paris. He also made the acquaintance of the botanists Gleditsch at Berlin, Jacquin at Vienna, and Murray at Gottingen. He obtained some idea of the magnificent establishments in these countries devoted to botany, "and which," he says, "ours do not yet approach, in spite of all that had been done for them during the last thirty years."[19]

On his return, as he writes, he devoted all his energies and time to research and to carrying out his great enterprises in botany; as he stated: "Indeed, for the last ten years my works have obliged me to keep in constant activity a great number of artists, such as draughtsmen, engravers, and printers."[20]

But the favor of Buffon, powerful as his influence was,[21] together with the aid of the minister, did not avail to give Lamarck a permanent salaried position. Soon after his return from his travels, however, M.

d'Angiviller, the successor of Buffon as Intendant of the Royal Garden, who was related to Lamarck's family, created for him the position of keeper of the herbarium of the Royal Garden, with the paltry salary of 1,000 francs.

According to the same _etat_, Lamarck had now been attached to the Royal Garden five years. In 1789 he received as salary only 1,000 livres or francs; in 1792 it was raised to the sum of 1,800 livres.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] _Les Grand Naturalists Francais au Commencement du XIX Siecle._

[11] Was this quiet place in the region just out of Paris possibly near Mont Valerien? He must have been about twenty-two years old when he met Rousseau and began to study botany seriously. His _Flore Francaise_ appeared in 1778, when he was thirty-four years old. Rousseau, at the end of his checkered life, from 1770 to 1778, lived in Paris. He often botanized in the suburbs; and Mr. Morley, in his _Rousseau_, says that "one of his greatest delights was to watch Mont Valerien in the sunset"

(p. 436). Rousseau died in Paris in 1778. That Rousseau expressed himself vaguely in favor of evolution is stated by Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire, who quotes a "_Phrase, malheureus.e.m.e.nt un peu ambigue, qui semble montrer, dans se grand ecrivain, un partisan de plus de la variabilite du type_." (_Resume des Vues sur l'espece organique_, p. 18, Paris, 1889.) The pa.s.sage is quoted in Geoffroy's _Histoire Naturelle Generale des Regnes organiques_, ii., ch. I., p. 271. I have been unable to verify this quotation.

[12] _Lecon d'Ouverture du Cours de l'evolution des etres organises._ Paris, 1888.

[13] _Dictionnaire des Termes de la Botanique._ Art. APHRODITE.

[14] _Discours sur l'Origine et les Fondements de l'Inegalite parmi les Hommes._ 1754.

[15] Since 1742, the keeper and demonstrator of the Cabinet, who shared with Thouin, the chief gardener, the care of the Royal Gardens.

Daubenton was at that time the leading anatomist of France, and after Buffon's death he gathered around him all the scientific men who demanded the transformation of the superannuated and incomplete Jardin du Roi, and perhaps initiated the movement which resulted five years later in the creation of the present Museum of Natural History. (Hamy, _l. c._, p. 12.)

[16] De Mortillet (_Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Transformistes_, p. 11) states that Lamarck was elected to the Academy at the age of thirty; but as he was born in 1744, and the election took place in 1779, he must have been thirty-five years of age.

[17] Cuvier's _eloge_, p. viii.; also _Revue biographique de la Societe Malacologique_, p. 67.

[18] See letters to the Committee of Public Instruction.

[19] Cuvier's _eloge_, p. viii; also Bourguignat in _Revue biog. Soc.

Malacologique_, p. 67.

[20] He received no remuneration for this service. As was afterwards stated in the National Archives, _etat des personnes attachees au Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle a l'epoque du messidor an II de la Republique_, he "sent to this establishment seeds of rare plants, interesting minerals, and observations made during his travels in Holland, Germany, and in France. He did not receive any compensation for this service."

[21] "The ill.u.s.trious Intendant of the Royal Garden and Cabinet had concentrated in his hands the most varied and extensive powers. Not only did he hold, like his predecessors, the _personnel_ of the establishment entirely at his discretion, but he used the appropriations which were voted to him with a very great independence. Thanks to the universal renown which he had acquired both in science and in literature, Buffon maintained with the men who succeeded one another in office relations which enabled him to do almost anything he liked at the Royal Garden."

His manner to public men, as Condorcet said, was conciliatory and tactful, and to his subordinates he was modest and unpretending.

(Professor G. T. Hamy, _Les Derniers Jours du Jardin du Roi_, etc., p. 3.) Buffon, after nearly fifty years of service as Intendant, died April 16, 1788.

CHAPTER III

LAMARCK'S SHARE IN THE REORGANIZATION OF THE JARDIN DES PLANTES AND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Even in his humble position as keeper of the herbarium, with its pitiable compensation, Lamarck, now an eminent botanist, with a European reputation, was by no means appreciated or secure in his position. He was subjected to many worries, and, already married and with several children, suffered from a grinding poverty. His friend and supporter, La Billarderie, was a courtier, with much influence at the Tuileries, but as Intendant of the Royal Garden without the least claim to scientific fitness for the position; and in 1790 he was on the point of discharging Lamarck.[22] On the 20th of August the Finance Committee reduced the expenses of the Royal Garden and Cabinet, and, while raising the salary of the professor of botany, to make good the deficiency thus ensuing suppressed the position of keeper of the herbarium, filled by Lamarck. Lamarck, on learning of this, acted promptly, and though in this cavalier way stricken off from the rolls of the Royal Garden, he at once prepared, printed, and distributed among the members of the National a.s.sembly an energetic claim for restoration to his office.[23]

His defence formed two brochures; in one he gave an account of his life, travels, and works, and in the other he showed that the place which he filled was a pressing necessity, and could not be conveniently or usefully added to that of the professor of botany, who was already overworked.

This manly and able plea in his own defence also comprised a broad, comprehensive plan for the organization and development of a great national museum, combining both vast collections and adequate means of public instruction. The paper briefly stated, in courteous language, what he wished to say to public men, in general animated with good intentions, but little versed in the study of the sciences and the knowledge of their application. It praised, in fit terms, the work of the National a.s.sembly, and gave, without too much emphasis, the a.s.surance of an entire devotion to the public business. Then in a very clear and comprehensive way were given all the kinds of service which an establishment like the Royal Garden should render to the sciences and arts, and especially to agriculture, medicine, commerce, etc. Museums, galleries, and botanical gardens; public lectures and demonstrations in the museum and school of botany; an office for giving information, the distribution of seeds, etc.--all the resources already so varied, as well as the facilities for work at the Jardin, pa.s.sed successively in review before the representatives of the country, and the address ended in a modest request to the a.s.sembly that its author be allowed a few days to offer some observations regarding the future organization of this great inst.i.tution.

The a.s.sembly, adopting the wise views announced in the manifest which had been presented by the officers of the Jardin and Cabinet, sent the address to the Committee, and gave a month's time to the pet.i.tioners to prepare and present a plan and regulations which should establish the organization of their establishment.[24]

It was in 1790 that the decisive step was taken by the officers of the Royal Garden[25] and Cabinet of Natural History which led to the organization of the present Museum of Natural History as it is to-day.

Throughout the proceedings, Lamarck, as at the outset, took a prominent part, his address having led the a.s.sembly to invite the officers of the double establishment to draw up rules for its government.

The officers met together August 23d, and their distrust and hostility against the Intendant were shown by their nomination of Daubenton, the Nestor of the French savants, to the presidency, although La Billarderie, as representing the royal authority, was present at the meeting. At the second meeting (August 24th) he took no part in the proceedings, and absented himself from the third, held on August 27, 1790. It will be seen that even while the office of Intendant lasted, that official took no active part in the meetings or in the work of the inst.i.tution, and from that day to this it has been solely under the management of a director and scientific corps of professors, all of them original investigators as well as teachers. Certainly the most practical and efficient sort of organization for such an establishment.[26]

Lamarck, though holding a place subordinate to the other officers, was present, as the records of the proceedings of the officers of the Jardin des Plantes at this meeting show.

During the middle of 1791, the Intendant, La Billarderie, after "four years of incapacity," placed his resignation in the hands of the king.

The Minister of the Interior, instead of nominating Daubenton as Intendant, reserved the place for a _protege_, and, July 1, 1791, sent in the name of Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the distinguished author of _Paul et Virginie_ and of _etudes sur la Nature_. The new Intendant was literary in his tastes, fond of nature, but not a practical naturalist. M. Hamy wittily states that "Bernardin Saint-Pierre contemplated and dreamed, and in his solitary meditations had imagined a system of the world which had nothing in common with that which was to be seen in the Faubourg Saint Victor, and one can readily imagine the welcome that the officers of the Jardin gave to the singular naturalist the Tuileries had sent them."[27]

Lamarck suffered an indignity from the intermeddling of this second Intendant of the Jardin. In his budget of expenses[28] sent to the Minister of the Interior, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre took occasion to refer to Lamarck in a disingenuous and blundering way, which may have both amused and disgusted him.

But the last days of the Jardin du Roi were drawing to a close, and a new era in French natural science, signalized by the reorganization of the Jardin and Cabinet under the name of the _Museum d'Histoire Naturelle_, was dawning. On the 6th of February, 1793, the National Convention, at the request of Laka.n.a.l,[29] ordered the Committees of Public Instruction and of Finances to at once make a report on the new organization of the administration of the Jardin des Plantes.

Laka.n.a.l consulted with Daubenton, and inquired into the condition and needs of the establishment; Daubenton placed in his hands the brochure of 1790, written by Lamarck. The next day Laka.n.a.l, after a short conference with his colleagues of the Committee of Public Instruction, read in the tribune a short report and a decree which the Committee adopted without discussion.

Their minds were elsewhere, for grave news had come in from all quarters. The Austrians were bombarding Valenciennes, the Prussians had invested Mayence, the Spanish were menacing Perpignan, and bands of Vendeans had seized Saumur after a b.l.o.o.d.y battle; while at Caen, at Evreux, at Bordeaux, at Ma.r.s.eilles, and elsewhere, muttered the thunders of the outbreaks provoked by the proscription of the Girondins. So that under these alarming conditions the decree of the 10th of June, in spite of its importance to science and higher learning in France, was pa.s.sed without discussion.

In his _Lamarck_ De Mortillet states explicitly that Lamarck, in his address of 1790, changed the name of the Jardin du Roi to Jardin des Plantes.[30] As the article states, "Entirely devoted to his studies, Lamarck entered into no intrigue under the falling monarchy, so he always remained in a position straitened and inferior to his merits." It was owing to this and his retired mode of life that the single-minded student of nature was not disturbed in his studies and meditations by the Revolution. And when the name of the Jardin du Roi threatened to be fatal to this establishment, it was he who presented a memoir to transform it, under the name of Jardin des Plantes, into an inst.i.tution of higher instruction, with six professors. In 1793, Laka.n.a.l adopted Lamarck's plan, and, enlarging upon it, created twelve chairs for the teaching of the natural sciences.

Bourguin thus puts the matter:

"In June, 1793, Laka.n.a.l, having learned that 'the Vandals' (that is his expression) had demanded of the tribune of the Convention the suppression of the Royal Garden, as being an annex of the king's palace, recurred to the memoirs of Lamarck presented in 1790 and gave his plan of organization. He inspired himself with Lamarck's ideas, but enlarged upon them. Instead of six positions of professors-administrative, which Lamarck asked for, Laka.n.a.l established twelve chairs for the teaching of different branches of natural science."[31]

FOOTNOTES: