Lamarck, Evolution, and the Politics of Science

Lamarck, Evolution, and the Politics of Science

Author(s): Richard W. Burkhardt, Jr.

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Source: Journal of the History of Biology, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Autumn, 1970), pp. 275-298

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Lamarck, Evolution, and the Politics of Science

RICHARD W. BURKHARDT, JR.

Department of the History of Science

Harvard University

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Lamarck's evolutionary theory, briefly mentioned in a lecture in

1800 and further developed in later writings, seems to have made little impression upon Lamarck's contemporaries. Several explanations for this lack of response, in addition to the usual unhelp- ful statements about the time not being "ripe," have been offered.

Logically enough, these explanations for the most part have ascribed the poor reception of Lamarck's evolutionary theory to either the existence of hostile views dominating the science of the time or the insufficiency of Lamarck's own arguments and examples-or to a combination of the two. Certainly both of these factors played fundamental roles in the response to

Lamarck's evolutionary theory. What has not been commented upon in any detail is the way in which Lamarck's highly personal thoughts about science and about the scientific community of his day were crucial for the way in which he presented his evolutionary views and thus, presumably, for the way in which these views were received. Lamarck looked upon the needs of science somewhat differently than did most of his younger contemporaries. Moreover, in a curious way, he displayed simultaneously an insensitivity to the difficulties others might have in accepting his novel views and a conviction that these views would indeed be poorly received. For these reasons, and possibly also because he doubted that his strength would last through all of his projected works, it appears that he did not really take great pains to present his theory in such a fashion as to compel his contemporaries to treat it seriously. He seems to have thus assured his theory of the very fate that he feared it would have.

Only brief remarks on the development and structure of

Lamarck's evolutionary theory will be made here. Primary atten-

Journal of the History of Biology, vol. 3, no. 2 (Fall 1970), pp. 275-298.

275



RICHARD W. BURKHARDT, JR. tion will be devoted instead to Lamarck's conception of his own role as scientist, to his perception of his relations with the rest of the French scientific community, and to the effect that these views seem to have had on the way in which he presented his evolutionary ideas. In light of these considerations certain aspects of the reception of Lamarck's theory will be examined. Clearly these are not the only problems of interest in regard to the imme- diate fate of Lamarck's evolutionary hypothesis. Crucial to the whole question, obviously, is the problem of the strengths and the weaknesses of Lamarck's hypothesis relative to the scientific evidence available in his time. But this problem, which needs to be treated at length, will not be elaborated upon here. The scientific enterprise is a complex, multidimensional, human activity- as one writer has stated, "Science stands in the region where the intellectual, the psychological and the sociological coordinate axes intersect." IThe focus of the present essay will be limited to several largely unexplored psychological and social factors relevant to the presentation and reception of Lamarck's evolutionary ideas.2

LAMARCK AND THE FRENCH SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY

The most familiar image of Lamarck is probably that of the aged, poor, and blind scientist in the last years of his life, forgotten by the vast majority of the scientists of his day and comforted only by a devoted daughter's assurances that posterity would grant him the recognition that he had not received from his contemporaries. This image is based largely upon comments made by :tienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.3

Upon Lamarck's death, the sharpest critique of the scientific community that had neglected Lamarck came from the pen of

Frangois-Vincent Raspail.4 Not an unbiased observer, Raspail

1. J. M. Ziman, Public Knowledge: An Essay Concerning the Social

Dimension of Science (Cambridge, 1968), p. 11.

2. The author is currently completing a doctoral dissertation at Harvard

University on Lamarck's evolutionary theory and its reception.

3. See especially Fragments biographiques, pr9ce'd6s d',tudes

SUT la vie, les ouvrages et les doctrines de Buffon (Paris, 1838), pp. 81-82.

4. "MNcrologie; parallle," Annales des sciences d'observation, 3 (1830):

159-160. This article is not mentioned by Marcel Landrieu in Lamarck: le fondateur du transformisme (Paris, 1909), a biography which, if somewhat lacking in critical analysis, is nevertheless generally an excellent source of information. Part of the article was reproduced but unidentified as to authorship by A. Giard in his preface to "Discours d'ouverture des cours de zoologie . . . par J.-B. Lamarck," Bulletin Scientiflque de la

France et de la Belgique, 40 (1907): 449. Giard, citing the original source

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Lamarck and the Politics of Science displayed a disdain for established authority (scientific as well as political) which led (or perhaps allowed) him to make observations that other men would have hesitated to put into print.

Raspail's little-known article concerning Lamarck appeared in the short-lived journal that Raspail co-edited with Jacques Fred- eric Saigey.5 In the article Raspail contrasted the works and successes of two recently deceased scientists-Lamarck and the eminent chemist Nicolas-Louis Vauquelin. Vauquelin, like

Lamarck, had been a member of the First Class of the Institut and a professor at the Museum d'Histoire naturelle. There, in

Raspail's view, was where the similarities between the two men ended. Vauquelin, said Raspail, was a man who "cultivated science and fortune at the same time," while Lamarck, up every morning at five o'clock for science, "forgot fortune, and lived forgotten by power":

Little suited to intrigue and to the cares [menagemens] of ambition, [Lamarck] expressed his large views boldly, without accommodating them to the tastes of the various powers that passed successively before him. He struggled against adversaries who, in becoming more powerful than he, seemed to eclipse him with the renown bestowed upon them by journalism and ministerial favors .. . Vauquelin, surrounded by flatterers and disciples, died in opulence. His fortune would have satis- fied the cupidity of twenty heirs. His positions have swelled the cumuls of seven to eight scientists who divided up the spoils. Lamarck, blind and paralyzed, at his last breath felt of the passage as Lyc6e, IV, 1829, takes the passage directly from F.

Picavet, Les Iciologues (Paris, 1891), p. 599. Picavet seems also to have been unaware of the identity of the author of the article.

On Raspail see Dora B. Weiner, Raspail: Scientist and Reformer (New

York and London, 1968).

5. Four volumes of the Annales des sciences d'observation appeared: two in 1829 and two in 1830. On the Annales see Weiner, Raspail, p. 76.

Weiner notes that Raspail was "excessively prone to feeling slighted by professors and academicians" (p. 74), but she does not indicate the extent to which the Annales served as an outlet for Raspail's and Saigey's feelings about certain aspects of contemporary French science. At one point, venting their distress over the "coteries" dominating French science, they wrote: "Oh! que cette science qui a tant de charmes aux yeux de la jeunesse et des amateurs devient affligeante quand on penetre plus avant dans son sanctuaire! Vous qui la cultivez dans la retraite, croyez-nous, con- servez bien toute la puret6 de vos illusions; n'approchez pas." Annales, 3

(1830), 158. De Blainvifle, Cuvier, Chevreul, and numerous other prominent scientists of the day were roughly treated in the Annales, which prove to be an interesting source for comments on the internal politics of French science in this period.

277



RICHARD W. BURKHARDT, JR. only a few tears flow, but these were sincere and unselfish. His death is, for his two daughters, not only a sorrowful loss, but a calamity besides. He was of no use to the powers that be

[le pouvoir]; how will the powers that be think of being useful to his family? Will the scientists, too busy soliciting for themselves, have enough time to awaken compassion for it? Vau- quelin was replaced by M. Serullas at the Institut, and at the

Museum by M. Chevreul. The first nomination honors the

Institut, the second has added one sinecure more to the sinecures already in existence. The two places of M. Lamarck were solicited for while he was alive; the intrigue will not be inactive after his death.6

The above images of Lamarck and the French scientific community in 1829 are not without foundation.7 One must assume on the basis of the scientific positions that Lamarck attained during his career, however, that he had not always been divorced from the power structure of the French scientific community. Though perhaps not as adept at pursuing his own self- interests as were certain other notable scientific figures, he was not negligent in seeking for himself a position in the official scientific structure when that structure was being reorganized during the Revolution.8 Nor did he fail in the course of his career to take an interest in various priority concerns. He displayed, as will be shown, a keen and perhaps even exaggerated sense of scientific rivalry.

In 1777 Lamarck received for a proposed work on the plants of

France virtually the strongest official support available-Buffon, apparently impressed by the non-Linnaean aspects of Lamarck's approach, arranged to have the work published at government expense.9 Buffon's relationships with government ministers, one

6. Annales 3, pp. 159-160. The translations from the French are the author's own.

7. For more details on the "intrigue" concerning the positions left open by Lamarck's death consult Pol Nicard, etude sur la vie et les travaux de

M. Ducrotay de Blainville (Paris, 1890), pp. 105-111, and the Annales des sciences d'observation, 2 (1829), 152; 3 (1830), 305, 310-312, 469-470, 474-

475.

8. See Lamarck's M6moire sur les cabinets d'histoire naturelle et partic- uliWrement sur celui du jardin des plantes (n.d., 1790?), reproduced in

Landrieu, Lamarck, pp. 42-51.

9. Correspondance relating to this matter may be found in Oeuvres complRtes de Buffon, nouvelle 6dition .

. . par J.-L. Lanessan . . suivie de la correspondance . . . recueillie et annot6e par J. Nadault de Buffon

(Paris, 1884-1885), 14, 356-360. Landrieu seems to have been unaware of the existence of these materials.

278



Lamarck and the Politics of Science may note, tended to be excellent.") Lamarck's Flore frangoise was published in 1778."1 Shortly thereafter Lamarck was chosen

(again, evidently, with Buffon's support) to fill a vacant spot in the botanical section of the Academy of Sciences. Under the circumstances this was quite extraordinary, for Lamarck had been presented by the Academy en seconde ligne behind Jean

Descemet. the candidate en premiere ligne. By the decision of the king, Lamarck received the position.1"

In 1 781 Buffon entrusted his son to Lamarck's care and sent the two of them on an extended tour, securing for Lamarck for the purpose the title of Correspondant du Jardin et du Cabinet du

Roi and giving him several scientific missions to fulfill in that capacity. Upon his return to Paris Lamarck apparently devoted most of his energies to work on the botanical section of the

Encyclopedie methodique. Buffon died in 1788, but in the following year La Billarderie, the new Intendant of the Jardin du Roi, created for Lamarck the position of Gardes des Herbiers du

Cabinet du Roi. The science of pre-Revolutionary France was evidently not without its politics, and these politics apparently proved on several occasions to be to Lamarck's advantage.

In 1789 the Committee of Finances, named by the National

Assembly, suggested for reasons of economy that the position of

Garde des Herbiers at the Jardin du Roi be suppressed, and

Lamarck was thus in danger of losing the place that he had only just received. In arguing that the position should not be suppressed, Lamarck maintained that it was not "one of those use- less positions, created under the ancien regime for the well-being of certain favored individuals."

13 In speaking of his own qualifi- cations as a botanist, he commented that the prospect of having to meet with the obstacles of "envy" and the "preferences" in-

10. See Condorcet's "tloge de M. le Comte de Buffon," Oeuvres de

Condorcet (Paris, 1847), 3, 360-361.

11. Flore franmoise, 3 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1778). Though the title page reads 1778, the work apparently did not appear until 1779, as evidenced by the report of 1779 by Duhamel and Guettard included in the work.

12. Cuvier, who mentioned this incident in his gloge of Lamarck, remarked that Descemet "was never able to recover the place that this sort of unjust favor [passe-droit] made him miss." "tloge de M. Lamarck,"

Mnzoires de l'Academie Royale des Sciences de l'Institut de France, 13

(1835), viii. Landrieu, Lamarck, p. 38, has published the note from the minister to the permanent secretary of the Academy (then Condorcet) announcing the king's decision.

13. MWnzoire sur le projet du Comite' des Finances, relatif n.d. [1789]). In Landrieu, Lamarck, p. 36. a la suppression de la place de Botaniste attach. au Cabinet d'Histoire naturelle (Paris,

279



RICHARD W. BURKHARDT, JR. volved in "intrigue" had been unable to diminish his ardor and keep him from planning a general botanical work.14 By the beginning of the Revolution, evidently, Lamarck's experience within the scientific community had given him a strong feeling that, in the midst of the pursuit of science, personal interests were frequently pursued as well. Unfortunately very little is known about Lamarck's activities during the early years of the

Revolution.'5 He emerged from the tumultuous first half of the

1790s occupying a place in the First Class of the Institut and a chair at the Museum d'Histoire naturelle.

The 1790s were critical years for Lamarck's professional career and for the development of his evolutionary thought. Early in the decade he considered species to be immutable. By 1800, however, he had changed his mind. During the decade, he under- took in the capacity of Professor at the Museum d'Histoire naturelle the study and teaching of a field virtually new to him-"the zoology of the insects, worms, and microscopic animals" (in short, to use Lamarck's term, the "invertebrates"). By no means, though, did he confine himself to this task. Among his other activities at this time was a long and ineffective battle that he waged against the new chemistry of Lavoisier. It was particularly in the course of this last-mentioned undertaking that he came to view the science of his time as being dominated by unphilosoph- ical views and selfish personal interests.'6

Lamarck's confrontation with the newly formed chemical orthodoxy of his day began publicly in 1794 with the appearance

14. Considerations en faveur du chevalier de Lamarck, ancien officier au Regiment de Beaujolais, de l'Acad6mie Royale des Sciences, Botaniste du Roi, attache au Cabinet d'Histoire Naturelle (Paris, 1789). In Landrieu,

Lamarck, p. 35. The projected work to which Lamarck referred was apparently the Thedtre Universel de Botanique mentioned in the Flore frangoise, I, cxviii.

15. Lamarck's connections during the most difficult days of this period were presumably rather good. By a countermanding order made on his behalf by the Comiie de Salut public (April 17, 1794) he was exempted from the act of the previous day by which he (as a member of the nobility) would have had to leave Paris. See F.-A. Aulard, Recueil des Actes du

Comite de Salut public (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1899), XII, 640.

16. Slightly earlier, in the years that he was supposed to be Garde des

Herbiers at the Jardin du Roi (1789-1793), Lamarck presumably found evidence for the view that personal interests stood in the way of his own attempts to advance the science of botany. It seems that he was not allowed by the botanists at the Jardin (Ren6 Louiche Desfontaines and

Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu) to work with some of the collections there. On this subject see Edmond Perrier, "Lamarck et le transformisme actuel,"

Centenaire de la Fondation du Mus&um d'Histoire naturelle (Paris, 1893), pp. 479-480, or Landrieu, Lamarck, p. 52 (fn. 2).

280



Lamarck and the Politics of Science of his Recherches sur les causes des principaux faits physiques.17

This work, according to Lamarck, had actually been composed some eighteen years earlier and had been presented to the Acad- emy of Sciences in 1780.18 Busy in 1780 with botanical works, he was unable to publish his physical "researches" just then, but he took care to have the permanent secretary of the Academy affix his paraph to the manuscript in order to assure for Lamarck a date for his ideas should any problems of priority arise.9 When the work was finally published, however, no one but Lamarck seems to have felt that the ideas in question were worthy of this precau- tion.

An explication of Lamarck's physico-chemical views cannot be undertaken here, nor is it necessary for this discussion. What is important for the present purposes is Lamarck's attitude toward the lack of response that his physico-chemical writings received.

He continued the argument of the Recherches in his Refutation de la theorie pneumatique (1796), contrasting his own "pyrotic" theory of chemistry with the views of Fourcroy and the other

"pneumatic" chemists. His observations on the little attention that the earlier work had received were the following:

Certainly when in the important search for the laws of nature and the phenomena resulting from them a new consideration is presented to the public, reason and an interest in the truth require that it be examined and submitted to the light of discussion, in order to better appreciate its worth. But, one well suspects, the particular interest of the authors whose view this consideration contradicts can lead them to neglect the examination of it, and even to neglect as long as possible all discussion regarding it. It seems that this is what has happened since the publication of my Recherches, and it is

17. 2 vols. (Paris, Maradan).

18. Ibid., I, vii.

19. Ibid., I, viii. This was not the only time that Lamarck displayed an interest in matters of priority. On one occasion he communicated a meteorological observation to the First Class of the Institut and had the observation inserted in the proc8s verbal "pour prendre date d ce sujet."

Institut de France. Acad&mie des Sciences. Proc?s verbaux des stances de l'Acad6mie. 1 (An IV-VIII, 1795-1799; published in 1910), 63. A much more significant example of a priority concern on Lamarck's part is revealed in the friction with Cuvier over who was the first to think of certain changes in the classification of the invertebrates (the most notable being the placement of the molluscs above the insects in a serial arrange- ment of the invertebrates). Both men made a number of comments about this dispute. See, for example, Cuvier's "Ploge de M. Lamarck," p. xxv, fn. 1, and Lamarck's Philosophie zoologique (Paris, 1809), I, 122-123.

281



RICHARD W. BURKHARDT, JR. probable that it will always happen in similar circumstances.

It is well enough known that the interest of scientists is not always in accord with the interest of the sciences.20

Like the Recherches, Lamarck's Refutation de la theorie pneumatique seemed to fall upon deaf ears. Therefore in 1796

Lamarck began presenting his physico-chemical views to the

First Class of the Institut in a series of memoirs, hoping thereby to elicit a detailed discussion of his arguments. His desires were not realized. Eventually he chose not to finish the reading of the memoirs, for they seemed, he said, "to weary several of my colleagues and to be disagreeable to them." 21 He published the memoirs in 1797 under the title of Me'moires de physique et d'histoire naturelle.22

The objections that Lamarck offered to the new chemistry of

Lavoisier, however misguided these objections may have seemed to Lamarck's contemporaries, had seemed to Lamarck to be the consequences of right thinking about the fundamentals on which the science of chemistry ought to be founded. Convinced of the merits of his arguments, he believed when his arguments were neglected that this neglect was the result of a conspiracy against him engineered by persons who feared that their theories

(and hence their reputations) would be destroyed by his observations.23 It seems that by the early 1800's, when Lamarck

20. RWfutation de la thgorie pneumatique (Paris, 1796), pp. 2-3.

21. M,6moires de Physique d'histoire naturelle (see fn. 22), p. 410.

22. Lamarck, intending to publish these memoirs successively, as he read them to the Institut, first entitled the proposed collection M*6moires presentant les bases d'une nouvelle thgorie, physique et chimique, fond6e sur la consideration des molecules essentielles des composes, et sur celle des trois #tats principaux du feu dans la nature; servant en outre de de- veloppement a l'ouvrage intituLW: Rgfutation de la Th.6orie pneumatique.

(Paris, An V [1797]). This title page apparently appeared when the first memoir was published. The full title which Lamarck later substituted for it, and by which the collection of memoirs is generally known, is MWmoires de Physique et d'Histoire naturelle, .6tablis sur des bases de raisonnement indapendantes de toute th,eorie; avec l'exposition de nouvelles considerations sur la cause generale des dissolutions; sur la mati&re du feu; sur la couleur des corps; sur la formation des composes; sur l'origine des min,6raux; et sur l'organisation des corps vivans (Paris, An V [1797]).

23. In addition to the example cited on pp. 281-282, see Lamarck's

Mtmoires de Physique et d'Histoire naturelle, p. 409 (fn.) and his Hydro- g6ologie, pp. 103, 122, 159 (fn.), and 164. For comments regarding the neglect of his meteorological work, which he viewed in similar terms, consult his "Sur les variations de l'etat du ciel . . ." Journal de physique,

56 (1802), 138, his Annuaires m9t6orologiques (especially no. 9, for 1808), and his "Met6orologie," Nouveau Dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle, 20 (Paris-

D1terville, 1818), 474-477.

282



Lamarck and the Politics of Science first began to make his evolutionary ideas known, he had come to expect little favorable reaction, indeed little reaction at all, to the various ideas he was expressing.24 In his Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivans, from which his better known Philosophie zoologique developed, he wrote:

I am well aware that now few people will take interest in what I am going to set forth, and that among those who may peruse this book, the majority will claim to find here only systems, only vague opinions, by no means founded upon exact knowledge. They will say it; they will not write it.25

One can safely doubt that the major French chemists at the end of the eighteenth century felt threatened by Lamarck's ideas and thus actively conspired against him. Busy with their own researches, which were proving to be quite profitable, they had little reason to display any sort of intellectual sympathy for the framework Lamarck was proposing, which, despite

Lamarck's claims for its significance and novelty, must have struck them as inappropriate and outmoded. One wonders, however, how they did respond, or managed not to respond, to the chemical and physical memoirs that Lamarck read at the meet- ings of the Institut. Lamarck's published comments alluding to the repression of his ideas are for the most part not very specific.

In a remarkable unpublished sketch, however, he not only displayed the rancor that his unsuccessful struggles had left with him, but he also gave a fairly explicit description of the methods by which he believed the neglect of his ideas was being brought about: il s'agit dis-je de verser dans les societes particuli'eres en profitant des occasions que l'on fait naltre, le ridicule et le mepris sur l'individu qui a l'audace de ne pas croire ce qu'on fait accroire si facilement a tout le monde. Il y a pour cela un art qui est fort perfectionne dans les grandes villes. On n'a point la maladresse de declamer longuement et avec chaleur contre l'individu; on se feroit soupgonner de prevention, de jalousie,

24. After 1802, in fact, Lamarck did not deliver any memoirs of his own at the Institut. The reason for this is not altogether clear, but may in part have been due to the fact that the last memoir he delivered at the

Institut was not only commented upon but in fact severely criticized (by

Laplace). The memoir was Lamarck's "Memoire sur les variations de l1'tat du ciel," published in the Journal de physique, 56 (1802), 114-138. The incident is referred to in a letter from Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire to

Cuvier, Institut de France (Fonds Cuvier), MS 3225 (12).

25. (Paris, 1802), p. 69.

283




&c. &c. Mais avec quelques monosyllabes employes a propos, un sourir meme et un clein d'oeil, un air de dedain, passant promptement a autre chose, on produit tout l'effet desire. Et si paraventure quelque question par un homme sans finesse etoit faite a cet egard; deux mots suffisent en reponse: celui dont on parle c'est un homme qui ne sgait rien, qui ne connois pas les faits; qui n'a jamais fait d'experience. Ainsi un certain nombre de suppots du grande oeuvre, repandus dans tous les coins de la societe n'attaquant jamais ouvertement l'ennemi commun, mais le ruinant partout dans l'obscurite, ne lui laissent aucun moyen de deffense. De cette maniere ils previennent tout ebranlemant du bel edifice qu'ils concourent a maintenir.26

One suspects that although there is probably considerable distortion in Lamarck's view of the personal motives involved in the neglect of his physico-chemical ideas, there is probably still a good deal of truth in the general picture presented above.

Potential contributions to science may be judged tacitly and may never receive a public hearing.27 A scientist and his work may be discredited by means of innuendo rather than through open confrontation. Such mechanisms seem to have been operating in respect to Lamarck's evolutionary ideas. Before examining some aspects of the reception of Lamarck's evolutionary ideas, some elaboration upon Lamarck's conception of his role as scientist is in order.

LAMARCK AS NATURALISTE PHILOSOPHE

From Lamarck's writings one can get a fairly good sense of what he considered his role as scientist to be-that of a man with the powers of meditation and the breadth of vision neces-

26. Mus6um national d'Histoire naturelle, MS 756, ler cahier, p. 11. The passage is from a discourse apparently originally intended as an introduction to Lamarck's Hydrog6ologie, the manuscript of which bears the title Physique terrestre. The discourse is entitled "Discours contenant une discussion critique sur les th6ories physiques en general, sur celles maintenant etablies, sur les moyens pris pour les maintenir, enfin sur les difficultes d'operer des rectifications dans les 6carts otd l'on s'est jette."

The manuscript of the discourse is incomplete. For the passage cited here, minor abbreviations in the manuscript have been replaced by the full words. Lamarck's spellings have been preserved. In the manuscript

Lamarck wrote "proneurs" above "supp6ts" and "6difice" above "oeuvre"

(line 15 of the above passage).

27. See the interesting observations by Michael Polanyi, "The Growth of Science in Society," Minerva, 5 (1967), 533-545.

284



Lamarck and the Politics of Science sary to give to science the rational foundations and the direction that it needed. The role seems to have become clarified in his mind in the 1790s as he criticized at length the new chemistry of Lavoisier and as he struggled against what he considered to be an over-emphasis in contemporary science upon the importance of facts and facts alone. By 1800 he had a name for the performer of this role-the Naturaliste philosophe.28 It was in the spirit of the Naturaliste philosophe, the naturalist- philosopher, that Lamarck attacked the chemistry of Lavoisier, projected the broad undertaking that was to be his "terrestrial physics," and conceived his theory of evolution.

The manuscript version of the introduction to Lamarck's

Hydrogeologie is instructive in presenting Lamarck's view of the progress of scientific methodology up to the beginning of the nineteenth century:

Dans les sciences physiques, on s'est d'abord trop presse d'etablir des theories sur chacune des parties de ces sciences; en sorte qu'on a ete contraint de se passer de la connoissance d'une multitude de faits dont la consideration neanmoins est essentielle pour decouvrir les veritables loix de la nature. Ce tort, contre lequel des personnes sages se sont elevees avec beaucoup de raison, a ete a la fin remplace par un autre, qui est tout aussi nuisible 'a l'avancement de nos connoissances physiques que le premier, et qui lui est entirerement oppose. II semble qu'un penchant naturel, entraine toujours l'homme vers un exces quelconque, et l'empeche, dans tout, de saisir le seul point convenable a l'objet.

En effet, c'est a present un merite fort estime que de ne s'occuper qu'a recueillir des faits. On doit en rechercher de toutes parts; on doit les considerer tous isolement; enfin on doit se circonscrira partout dans les plus petits details; cette marche seule, dit-on, est estimable.

Pour moi je pense qu'il peut etre maintenant utile de rassembler les faits recueillis, et de s'efforcer 'a les considerer

28. The phrase was used by Lamarck in the introductory lecture to his course at the Museum in 1800 and appeared in print in his SystWme des animaux sans vertebres (Paris, 1801), p. 11. Lamarck does not define the phrase, nor does he use it to the exclusion of similar phrases. The phrase does seem to be especially useful in describing him, however, for it suggests the important meditative element involved in his approach to the study of nature. One may note an interesting connection between Lamarck's ideas about the importance of the habit of meditation and his notion of the effects of use and disuse: he observes that of all the organs of man's body, the brain-the "organ of thought"-is most affected by exercise (Rech. org. corps vivans, p. 126).

285



RICHARD W. BURKHARDT, JR. dans leur ensemble, afin d'en obtenir les resultats genenraux les plus probables. Celui qui conclueroit que dans l'etude de la nature, nous devons toujours nous borner a amasser des faits; ressembleroit 'a un architecte qui conseilleroit toujours de tailler des pierres, de preparer des mortiers, des bois, des ferrures, &c. et qui n'oseroit jamais employer ces materiaux pour construire un edifice.29

Lamarck was not afraid to build an edifice. As Naturaliste philosophe he aspired to see things whole, and he refused to restrict his science to problems that he considered to be of secondary interest and importance. He did not deny the importance of facts, nor did he fail to agree that "system-building" in science tended only to be wasted effort. But, as he asked rhetorically in his Hydrogeologie, what must one then do with such questions as whether or not the beds of the oceans had changed in the course of the earth's history?

. . . are we reduced to being able to form only arbitrary hypotheses, only gratuitous assumptions on these basic sub- jects, and, as many now think, must we avoid, under the pretext of this danger, envisaging the most important questions, only to occupy ourselves with the consideration of those of an inferior order, only to gather without end all the small facts that appear, and only to study them in isolation down to the most minute details without ever trying to discover the general facts or those of the first order, of which the others are only the last results?30

Lamarck was interested in "facts", but his facts were what he called grands faits, not petits faits; facts of the first order of imnportance, not of the second order of importance.3' As he posed the above question he was in the midst of working on his

29. Museum national d'Histoire naturelle, MS 756, ier cahier, p. 3.

30. Hydroge'ologie (Paris, An X [18021), pp. 5-6. Three years later

Lamarck introduced his hypothesis of geological change in the following terms: "Perhaps it will be said that it would be wiser to be silent tin regard to a number of geological facts] than to offer some supposition that one would not know how to prove, even if it had some likelihood. I do not think so, and I believe that the course of silence is good for nothing. Every effort to lift the veil which hides nature's operations from us is useful; a mediocre idea often gives birth to a better one, and by force of trying one will perhaps obtain some successes. All that is important in such circumstances is to give as certain only that which is clearly demonstrated."

"Considerations sur quelques faits applicables A la theorie du globe."

Annales du Mus6um d'Histoire naturelle, 6 (1805), 38-39.

31. Hydrog6ologie, p. 7.

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Lamarck and the Politics of Science

Physique terrestre, which was to encompass "considerations of the first order" relative to the earth's atmosphere (meteorology), to the earth's crust (hydrogeology), and to living organisms

(biology).32

EVOLUTIONARY IDEAS

Lamarck's appraisal of the way his ideas would be treated by his contemporaries, his desire to deal with problems of the first magnitude, and his fear that failing health would prevent him from completing all of his projected researches combined to influence the way in which he presented his evolutionary theory.

These factors display themselves in the section entitled "motives for this work" introducing his Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivans.

The Recherches originated, Lamarck said, when he decided to publish the opening discourse of his course for 1802 so that the ideas expressed in it would not be misrepresented. Having intended at first to publish just the discourse, he "soon felt the necessity of adding some developments to it in order to be better understood." The book was written rapidly.33 Materials that

Lamarck had intended to use in his Biologie were employed, for he feared that his health might not permit him to finish the

Biologie after he finished his Meteorologie, which he planned to publish first.34 Lamarck's comments on the reception that he expected for his ideas are extremely interesting:

I am well aware that the novelty of the considerations exposed in this work and especially their extreme dissimilarity with what is commonly thought in these matters call for a more extensive treatment in order that the base of the considerations in question be better founded and more easily perceived. Despite that, I have said enough about them so that the small number of those to whom I address these Re- cherches may be in a position to understand me and to recog- nize what is justified. There is, indeed, enough knowledge

32. Ibid., p. 8.

33. Lamarck says he wrote the book rapidly but does not indicate just how much time the writing took. The time from the delivery of the discourse

(27 floreal an 10) to when he delivered a copy of the published book to the Institut (9 thermidor an 10) was slightly less than two and a half months. It is not entirely clear from what Lamarck says, however, whether he began work on the book before or after he delivered the discourse.

34. Pages v-vi.

287



RICHARD W. BURKHARDT, JR. spread among the men who have seriously occupied themselves with the observation of nature, so that each of them can easily supply the details and all the applications that are missing here.

I am furthermore aware that even if I were to give to this writing the dimensions that its object calls for, there are, considering the present state of science, many reasons stand- ing in the way of my principles being or rather appearing to be appreciated by those who ought to be the natural judges of them.

I have acquired much experience in this regard, so that I know almost in advance what for the present must result from my efforts to make known some important truths that I have succeeded in discovering. My goal, nevertheless, will be completely fulfilled as soon as I have recorded them.35

Lamarck's feelings about personal motives influencing the response to his ideas have been seen in some of his earlier writings. What is particularly striking about the above passage is Lamarck's apparent lack of concern relative to convincing the prominent scientists of his day of the validity of his views.

He seems to have been interested in making known his ideas, but rather less inclined to worry about trying to prove them to those disinclined to appreciate them in the first place.36 Those who were sympathetic with his observations were to be left with the task of verifying them. This, one must suppose, was a highly inopportune moment in Lamarck's career for him to adopt such a posture. Undoubtedly somewhat discredited in the eyes of his contemporaries by his physico-chemical speculations and, it seems, by his meteorological researches as well, Lamarck was in no position to tackle the fundamental problems of biology in an apparently speculative fashion and hope that his thoughts would be considered attentively.

It should be remarked at this point that beyond his often- verbalized awareness that new ideas tend to catch on slowly,

Lamarck seems to have been singularly insensitive to the specific difficulties others might have in accepting his views. Though

35. Ibid., pp. vi-viii.

36. This approach seems to have been fully as characteristic of

Lamarck's actual behavior as the other approach that he suggested (see below, p. 297). Lamarck's ambivalence on this matter, indicated by his numerous attempts to promulgate his views, suggests how much he cared about his ideas but how incapable he was of advancing them in a way that would impress his contemporaries and how frustrated he was from his earlier unsuccessful intellectual ventures.

288




Ducrotay de Blainville's Histoire des sciences de l'organisation is not uniformly reliable, the following comment made there about the difficulty of impressing Lamarck with a criticism is probably an apt one:

. . . it must be admitted that it was scarcely with the intention of enlightening himself that [Lamarck] entertained discussion. Indeed he listened very little, and instead of re- sponding to objections, he would enter again into the exposition of his doctrines. IR e'tait lui-meme et ne pouvait rien recevoir d'ailleurs.37

Indeed, neither criticism, ridicule, nor neglect could shake

Lamarck's confidence in the merits of his own ideas. In the

Philosophie zoologique he wrote "the facts I am stating are very numerous and positive, and the consequences I have deduced from them have appeared to me to be just and necessary, so that

I am persuaded that only with difficulty will they be replaced by better ones."

38

On a more modest note, on the basis of an argument that only observed facts and not the consequences drawn from them, could be counted on as true, he provided the following statement concerning what he was presenting:

. . . the thoughts, the reasoning, and the explanations set forth in this work ought to be considered as mere opinions which I am proposing for the purpose of indicating what seems to me to be, and what may actually take place.39

That was not to say, however, that he had given up hope of influencing the science of his time:

In publishing these observations, with the results that I have deduced from them, my purpose is to invite enlightened men who love the study of nature to follow them and to verify them, and to draw from them on their own part the consequences that they consider appropriate.40

A similar expression of intent may be found in the avertisse- ment to the Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertebres

(1815). There Lamarck also added the plea that his work be examined in the same spirit in which it was written, 'because

37. Henri-Marie Ducrotay de Blainville, Histoire des sciences de l'oTgan- isation et de leurs progrTs comme base de la philosophie, redigee etc. par.

F.-L. M. Maupied (Paris, 1845), III, 358.

38. Philosophie zoologique (Paris, 1809), I, xviii.

39. Ibid., I, xxiii.

40. Ibid.

289



RICHARD W. BURKHARDT, JR. in examining it with an opposite or prejudiced frame of mind, the best established considerations, even the clearest truths, will only seem to be errors."41' By 1815, however, this plea was probably too late.

Lamarck's various presentations of his evolutionary theory- the most notable being in several introductory lectures for his course at the Museum, in the Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivans, in the Philosophie zoologique, and in the introduction to the Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertebres- display successive refinements in the interrelation of their parts.

In the earliest presentation (1800), an introductory lecture on the importance of the study of the invetebrates, Lamarck stated that beginning with the simplest animals, and through time and favorable circumstances, nature had brought all her productions into existence.42 Changes in an animal's way of life, Lamarck said, affect the animal's structure, and the structural changes thus acquired are passed on to succeeding generations. In this presentation Lamarck already had some examples of such changes to offer: the web-footing of water birds, the claws of perching birds, and the elongated legs of wading birds were presented as the results of the accumulated effects of the influence of habit upon structure. Denying the existence of a linear series of species or genera, Lamarck maintained that a series of graduated complexity did exist between the "principal masses, such as the large families" of animals. Species and genera were to be looked upon as lateral ramifications from the general series.

Lamarck gradually assembled his ideas of 1800 into a co- herent theory. By 1809 in his Philosophie zoologique the theory had taken on a rather definite framework based on two factors: the inheritance of acquired characteristics, used to explain the lateral ramifications from the general series; and "the cause which continually tends to make organization more complex," responsible for the general series itself. By 1815 in his Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertebres Lamarck felt able to say that "on the source of existence, of the manner of being, of the faculties, of the variations, and of the phenomena of organization of the different animals" he had presented "a truly general theory, linked everywhere in its parts, always consistent in its principles, and applicable to all the known data."

43

41. Pages iii-iv.

42. "Discours d'ouverture, prononce le 21 floreal an 8 [May 11, 1800],"

Systeme des animaux sans vertebres (Paris: Deterville, 1801), pp. 1-48.

43. Pages iii-iv. Lamarck's preference for presenting theories in a

290




Lamarck also suggested in the Histoire naturelle that in presenting the essential facts relative to the organization and the resultant faculties of the various invertebrates he would be providing the pie'ces justificatives of the ideas published in the

Philosophie zoologique and further developed in the Histoire naturelle. Despite this insistence on the factual basis of his theory, however, he never carefully showed the way in which his facts and his theory were related. The successive presentations of his theory were not so much attempts to persuade readers of the theory's validity as they were simple expositions of the theory itself. Lamarck, it seems, was not especially con- cerned about the details. It does not appear that he worried over his examples of evolutionary change, and he may well have been surprised, despite his claims of awareness of his contemporaries' interest in facts, to find that his examples of evolutionary change attracted more attention than did the general arguments of his work.44 Perhaps because of the unfavorable response to these examples he omitted them from the final presentation of his evolutionary views. His theory continued to be associated, much to his disadvantage, with such examples as that of the giraffe gaining its long neck and forelegs through the efforts of successive generations of giraffes stretching to reach the leaves above them.

THE RECEPTION OF LAMARCK'S EVOLUTIONARY IDEAS:

THE ROLE OF CUVIER

With the exception of a few brief and scattered comments

Lamarck's evolutionary ideas were publicly received in silence. deductive form is explicitly stated in a manuscript entitled "La Biologie", which has been published by Pierre-P. Grass6, Rev. Sci., 5 (1944), 267-276

(see p. 271). Despite this preference, Lamarck indicates in the manuscript (believed to have been written between 1809 and 1815) his intention to write a major work (La Biologie) which would begin with an exposition of facts rather than general principles for the very purpose of convincing his contemporaries of the validity of his views. The work was never executed, and the form of the introduction to the Histoire naturelle of 1815 was not appreciably different from Lamarck's earlier writings.

44. There is a strong parallel here between Lamarck's biological writings and his meteorological writings. Looking back in his eleventh and final

Annuaire meteorologique (pour I'an 1810) on the Annuaires he had published for more than a decade, Lamarck admitted a strategic error on his part in not treating the probabilities given in the Annuaires seriously enough: "I perhaps greatly wronged the study that I wanted to encourage, supposing incorrectly that more attention would be paid to the observations recorded in the different numbers of the Annuaire than to the probabilities presented there" (p. 167).

291




Attention will be paid here to the posture toward Lamarck's ideas adopted by the dominant figure of French natural science at the time: Georges Cuvier.

Georges Cuvier's magisterial and disapproving presence has long been recognized as a factor in the poor reception of

Lamarck's evolutionary theory by his contemporaries. Cuvier's reasons for opposing the hypothesis of species mutability have been dealt with at length elsewhere and do not need to be re- peated here.45 Primary concern here will be with the way in which he treated Lamarck's views.

It is not likely that Lamarck's physico-chemical views were neglected for reasons of jealousy, as Lamarck had assumed, and the same can be said of the treatment of his evolutionary views. This does not mean, however, that these views were not methodically neglected. Consider the following statement written by Cuvier in 1806, setting forth his view of what scientific bodies had to do to assure for the science of geology the growth of which that science was capable:

[Scientific bodies] must maintain in [geology's] regard the conduct that they have maintained since their establishment in regard to all the other sciences:

To encourage with their eulogies those who report positive facts, and to retain an absolute silence over the systems which succeed to one another.46

One may well presume that the "absolute silence" recom- mended for "systems" was the very antidote that had first been applied to Lamarck's chemical theories and was later applied to his zoological theories. To Cuvier, evidently, Lamarck's chemical and zoological theories both appeared as "vast edifices [con- structed] on imaginery bases," and thus both deserved the same treatment. In his Eloge of Lamarck Cuvier wrote:

. . .whatever interest [Lamarck's zoological works] may have excited by their positive parts, no one believed their systematic part dangerous enough to merit being attacked; it was left in the same peace as the chemical theory.47

One may suppose that Cuvier's use of the words "dangerous

45. William Coleman, Georges Cuvier, Zoologist: A Study in the History of Evolution Theory (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964).

46. "Rapport de l'Institut national . . . sur un ouvrage de M. Andr, ayant pour titre: Theorie de la surface actuelle de la terre," Journal des mines, 21 (1807), 421.

47. "tloge de Lamarck," (see fn. 12 above), p. ii.

292



Lamarck and the Politics of Science enough to merit being attacked" instead of some equivalent of

"reasonable enough to merit being considered" is not without significance. One may also remark that, in the statement that

Lamarck's zoological speculations were "left in the same peace as the chemical theory," the word "peace" should probably be interpreted strictly as the public silence that Cuvier recom- mended for all "systems." Certainly the picture that ?tienne

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire painted of the last years of Lamarck's life was not one of peaceful neglect. In Geoffroy's words, "attacked on all sides, insulted even by odious jests, Lamarck, too indignant to respond to such cutting epigrams, submitted to the insult from them with a sorrowful patience."

48

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was a friend of Lamarck, and he himself adopted the general theory that modern species have de- scended from primitive forms, but these are not reasons to doubt the validity of his statement. In an unpublished manuscript one finds Cuvier writing about Lamarck: "In truth his explanations are sometimes very amusing despite the admiration that some naturalists pretend to show for them."49 In another work, published posthumously, Cuvier's comment on authors who had favored the idea of species transformation was: "From the moment that these authors wished to enter into detail they fell into ridicule."

60

Frederic Cuvier said of his brother Georges that he put ideas of species transformation

. . . in the rank of those frivolous games of the imagination with which the truth has nothing in common; with which one may amuse oneself when they are skillfully and gracefully presented, but which lose all their charm when taken seriously.5'

It requires no great feat of the imagination to suppose that

Cuvier at times made light of the ideas of Lamarck-one is simply left wondering what specific plaisanteries he conceived.

If most of these productions are lost forever to the historian, owing to Cuvier's program of public silence in such matters, a

48. Fragments biographiques, (see fn. 3 above), p. 81.

49. Institut de France (Fonds Cuvier), MS 3065, p. 122. The manuscript, entitled "Sur la variet6 de composition des animaux," had only been just begun when Cuvier died in 1832. The original French of the passage cited is: "en verite ses explications sont quelquefois bien plaisantes malgr6 l'admiration que quelques naturalistes affectent de montrer pour elles."

50. Legons d'anatomie comparFe, 2nd ed. (1835), I, 101.

51. "Observations preliminaires," Recherches sur les Ossemens fossiles,

4th ed., 1 (1834), viii.

293



RICHARD W. BURKHARDT, JR. few examples still remain.52 Perhaps the best example comes from the manuscript of the first edition of Cuvier's Recherches sur les Ossemens fossiles, now considered at the Museum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris. In the introductory discourse to the published version of this work there is a lengthy paragraph presenting ideas which are attributed somewhat vaguely in a footnote to De Maillet, Rodig, and Lamarck.53 An examination of the published passage indicates that the ideas referred to are for the most part Lamarck's. The passage, which follows a brief discussion of the theories of the earth of Leibniz,

De Maillet, and Buffon begins:

In our times, some freer minds than ever have also wanted to exercise themselves on [the subject of the origin of the earth]. Some writers have reproduced and prodigiously extended the ideas of De Maillet. They say that all was fluid in the origin; that the fluid engendered at first some very simple animals such as the monads or other infusorial and micro- scopical species, that, through time and in taking up diverse habits, the races of these animals became more complex and diversified themselves to the point where we see them today.54

At this point in the published work Cuvier continues with a reference to ideas which can be found in Lamarck's Hydro- geologie. At this point in the manuscript, however, Cuvier continues with the following caricature of evolutionary thought, which never appeared in print:

. . .that the habit of chewing, for example, resulted at the end of a few centuries in giving them teeth; that the

52. See in the published works Cuvier's Histoire des sciences naturelles

. complet6e etc. par Magdeleine de Saint-Agy, III (1841), 85-88; Legons d'anatomie compar6e, 2nd ed., I (1835), 99-102 (esp. p. 101); and for general comments upon Lamarck's work, Cuvier, "Ploge de Lamarck."

53. Recherches sur les Ossemens fossiles (Paris, 1812), I: 28. The footnote reads: "Voyez la Physique de Rodig, p. 106. Leipsig, 1801; et la p. 169 du 2e tome de Telliamed. M. de Lamarck est celui qui a developpe dans ces derniers temps ce systeme avec le plus de suite et la sagacite la plus soutenue dans son Hydrog6ologie et dans sa Philosophie Zoologique."

In the 1830 edition of the Discours sur les Revolutions . . . du Globe . . . and in the fourth edition of the Ossements fossiles the phrase "et la sagacit6 la plus soutenue" is dropped from the footnote. Cuvier's reference to Telliamed is apparently to the 1749 edition of that work, where beginning on page 169, volume 2, the idea that flying fish may be transformed into birds is presented. The Rodig work referred to is apparently the work entitled Lebende Natur. Page 106 of this work also has a discussion of the transformation of flying fish into birds.

54. Recherches sur les Ossemens fossiles, I, 28.

294



Lamarck and the Politics of Science habit of walking gave them legs; ducks by dint of diving became pikes; pikes by dint of happening upon dry land changed into ducks; hens searching for their food at the water's edge, and striving not to get their thighs wet, succeeded so well in elongating their legs that they became herons or storks. Thus took form by degrees those hundred thousand diverse races, the classification of which so cruelly embar- rasses the unfortunate race that habit has changed into naturalists.55

The above passage provides an excellent example not only of

Cuvier's incisive rhetoric but also of his general inclination to confront Lamarck's theory, when he mentioned it at all, on the level of the examples offered in its support, and not in its general aspects. One should also remark that the discussion of the hen changed by habit into a heron or stork, exaggerated though it may be, does have a counterpart in Lamarck's writings; the example of the fish being changed into a duck and vice versa, however, may be traced perhaps to DeMaillet or Rodig but not to Lamarck. In discussing Lamarck, Cuvier characteristically lumped him together with scientifically disreputable popularizers such as De Maillet, Rodig, and Robinet.56 Lamarck's cause cannot have been helped by the association.

Even a sympathetic observer such as ttienne Geoffroy Saint-

Hilaire had to admit that Lamarck's presentation suffered from some "great flaws in execution." These flaws, said Geoffroy

Saint-Hilaire, were what Lamarck's adversaries used to Lamarck's disadvantage:

In order to arrive at the demonstration of the true principle of the variability of forms in organized beings, Lamarck too often produced profuse, exaggerated, and for the most part

55. Musdum national d'Histoire naturelle, MS 631, pp. 35-36. The original is as follows: "que l'habitude de macher par exemple, finit au bout de quelques si6cles par leur donner des dents; l'habitude de marche, leur donna des jambes; les canards a force de plonger devinrent des brochets; les brochets a force de se trouver a sec se chang6rent en canards; les poules en cherchant leur pature au bord des eaux, et en s'efforqant de ne pas se mouiller les cuisses, r6ussirent si bien a s'alonger les jambes qu'elles devinrent des herons ou des cigognes. Ainsi se formerent par degres ces cent mille races diverses, dont la classification embarrasse si cruellement la race malheureuse que l'habitude a changee en naturalistes." It may be noted, as Coleman, in Georges Cuvier (p. 191), has already done, that the manuscripts of Cuvier's published works almost invariably correspond precisely to the published works themselves. An omission of the sort represented by this passage is quite rare.

56. See the first two items cited in fn. 52 above and Cuvier's article

"Nature," Dictionnaire des sciences naturelles, 34 (1825), 261-268.

295



RICHARD W. BURKHARDT, JR. erroneous proofs, which his adversaries, adept at seizing the weak side of his talent, hastened to pick up and bring to light.57

It is difficult to estimate just how much the posture of Cuvier toward Lamarck's evolutionary ideas may have influenced contemporaries who might otherwise have been disposed to give

Lamarck's ideas some serious attention. Presumably Cuvier's influence in this regard was considerable. The combination of public neglect and private ridicule seems to have been devastating for Lamarck's evolutionary theory. To criticize Cuvier's anti- evolutionary role in the history of science, however, without at the same time being critical of Lamarck's own responsibility for the fate of his own ideas, is to present a very one-sided analysis.

Lamarck was unquestionably well aware that Cuvier claimed never to go any farther than the facts would allow him. Lamarck was similarly well aware that Cuvier's example was a weighty one in the eyes of the vast majority of the naturalists of the day.

There is a strong likelihood that one reason Lamarck did not tie at least the early presentations of his evolutionary theory to factual evidence was that his theory did not initially arise in response to specific facts, or at least not to specific facts that directly suggested the process of evolution, so much as it arose as the result of considerations of certain broad problems such as the origin of life and the possible extinction of species. But it seems that after Lamarck conceived of his evolutionary theory, for a number of reasons which have been suggested here, he proceeded to present it in a highly speculative fashion, paying little attention to factual evidence that might have been sum- moned in its support. Almost flamboyant,-considering the circumstances-in his inattention to the sort of details needed to give his theory some semblance of legitimacy in the eyes of most of his contemporaries, he left his work open to ridicule.

As Raspail, the sharp-tongued observer of the French scientific scene, remarked in the year after Lamarck's death: "Among us ridicule is a deadly weapon; all its blows are mortal." 58

In the course of his writings Lamarck made a number of statements of considerable wisdom concerning scientific methodology and the intellectual and psychological problems of the individual scientist. Some of these, it must be admitted, contrast

57. Fragments biographiques, p. 81.

58. Annales des sciences d'observation, 3 (1830), 277. The comment comes from an article on teratological studies entitled "Monstruosites remarquables" in which Raspail defends the researches of ttienne

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.

296



Lamarck and the Politics of Science rather strikingly with certain aspects of his own scientific work.

It is especially interesting to note that he once observed: "Men who strive in their works to push back the limits of human knowledge know well that it is not enough to discover and prove a useful truth that was previously unknown, but that it is necessary also to be able to propagate it and get it recognized."

59

Lamarck was capable of prescribing the appropriate course of action but he was incapable of executing it.

EPILOGUE

Lamarck viewed man as a part of nature. Though he hedged somewhat in his comments about man's animal origins, his thoughts on this subject were clear enough. For him to say that man was a part and a product of nature was not the same, however, as to say that man was an unreservedly admirable product of nature or nature's ultimate product (despite what one might be led to suppose on the basis of some of his comments about the "plan" of nature). Lamarck viewed man as "the most surprising and admirable" being on the earth, but also as combining in himself the worst sorts of qualities as well as the best.60 Self-concern, an excess of which results in egoism, and a desire to dominate were seen by Lamarck as integral parts of human nature.6' The mention of these views is not meant to suggest that the pessimistic side of Lamarck's thoughts on human nature was a derivative of his own experiences within the

French scientific community. Conversely, though, it seems that his thoughts on the way individual scientists at times behaved would not have brightened his outlook on human nature.

On the broadest scale, Lamarck's view of man could be extremely grim. Man, as Lamarck saw him, was not simply a part of nature, but a disruptive part. It is significant that the only extinctions of species that Lamarck could imagine were extinctions caused by man. While others were writing on the great progress man would experience in the future, Lamarck, though not denying man's potential, expressed serious reservations. The following passage is offered in closing as Lamarck's most dis- concerting comment on man and as surely one of the very earliest prophecies of global ecological disaster as the result of human action:

By his egoism too short-sighted for his own good, by his

59. Philosophie zoologique, II, 450.

60. "Homme," Nouveau Dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle, 15 (1817), 270.

61. Ibid., p. 273.

297



RICHARD W. BURKHARDT, JR. tendency to revel in all that is at his disposal, in short, by his lack of concern for the future and for his fellow man, man seems to work for the annihilation of his means of con- servation and for the destruction of his own species. In destroying everywhere the large plants that protect the soil in order to secure things to satisfy his greediness of the moment, man rapidly brings about the sterility of the ground on which he lives, dries up the springs, and chases away the animals that once found their subsistence there. He causes large parts of the globe that were once very fertile and well populated in all respects to become dead, sterile, uninhabitable, and de- serted. Neglecting always the words of experience, abandoning himself to his passions, he is perpetuually at war with his own kind, destroying them everywhere and under all pretexts, so that one sees formerly great populations become more and more diminished. One could say that he is destined to ex- terminate himself, after having rendered the globe uninhabitable.62

Acknowledgments

The author gratefully acknowledges the permission of the

Museum d'Histoire naturelle and the Institut de France to consult the manuscript sources cited in this paper. The research for this paper was supported in part by a National Science Foundation travel grant.

62. Ibid., pp. 270-271 n.

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Lamarck, Evolution, and the Politics of Science

Lamarck, Evolution, and the Politics of Science

Author(s): Richard W. Burkhardt, Jr.

Reviewed work(s):

Source: Journal of the History of Biology, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Autumn, 1970), pp. 275-298

Published by:

Springer

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4330543

Accessed: 01/01/2013 22:02

Lamarck, Evolution, and the Politics of Science

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Lamarck, Evolution, and the Politics of Science

Lamarck, Evolution, and the Politics of Science

Author(s): Richard W. Burkhardt, Jr.

Reviewed work(s):

Source: Journal of the History of Biology, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Autumn, 1970), pp. 275-298

Published by:

Springer

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4330543

Accessed: 01/01/2013 22:02

Lamarck, Evolution, and the Politics of Science

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