Although it is now a century since Lamarck published the germs of his theory, it is perhaps only within the past fifty years that the scientific world and the general public have become familiar with the name of Lamarck and of Lamarckism.

The rise and rehabilitation of the Lamarckian theory of organic evolution, so that it has become a rival of Darwinism; the prevalence of these views in the United States, Germany, England, and especially in France, where its author is justly regarded as the real founder of organic evolution, has invested his name with a new interest, and led to a desire to learn some of the details of his life and work, and of his theory as he unfolded it in 1800 and subsequent years, and finally expounded it in 1809. The time seems ripe, therefore, for a more extended sketch of Lamarck and his theory, as well as of his work as a philosophical biologist, than has yet appeared.

But the seeker after the details of his life is baffled by the general ignorance about the man—his antecedents, his parentage, the date of his birth, his early training and education, his work as a professor in the Jardin des Plantes, the house he lived in, the place of his burial, and his relations to his scientific contemporaries.

Except the Éloges of Geoffroy St.Hilaire and Cuvier, and the brief notices of Martins, Duval, Bourguignat, and Bourguin, there is no special biography, however brief, except a brochure of thirty-one pages, reprinted from a few scattered articles by the distinguished anthropologist, M.Gabriel deMortillet, in the fourth and last volume of a little-known journal, l’Homme, entitled Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Transformistes, ses Disciples, Paris, 1887. This exceedingly rare pamphlet was written by the late M.Gabriel deMortillet, with the assistance of Philippe Salmon and Dr.A. MondiÈre, who with others, under the leadership of Paul Nicole, met in 1884 and formed a RÉunion Lamarck and a DÎner Lamarck, to maintain and perpetuate the memory of the great French transformist. Owing to their efforts, the exact date of Lamarck’s birth, the house in which he lived during his lifetime at Paris, and all that we shall ever know of his place of burial have been established. It is a lasting shame that his remains were not laid in a grave, but were allowed to be put into a trench, with no headstone to mark the site, on one side of a row of graves of others better cared for, from which trench his bones, with those of others unknown and neglected, were exhumed and thrown into the catacombs of Paris. Lamarck left behind him no letters or manuscripts; nothing could be ascertained regarding the dates of his marriages, the names of his wives or of all his children. Of his descendants but one is known to be living, an officer in the army. But his aims in life, his undying love of science, his noble character and generous disposition are constantly revealed in his writings.

The name of Lamarck has been familiar to me from my youth up. When a boy, I used to arrange my collection of shells by the Lamarckian system, which had replaced the old Linnean classification. For over thirty years the Lamarckian factors of evolution have seemed to me to afford the foundation on which natural selection rests, to be the primary and efficient causes of organic change, and thus to account for the origin of variations, which Darwin himself assumed as the starting point or basis of his selection theory. It is not lessening the value of Darwin’s labors, to recognize the originality of Lamarck’s views, the vigor with which he asserted their truth, and the heroic manner in which, against adverse and contemptuous criticism, to his dying day he clung to them.

During a residence in Paris in the spring and summer of 1899, I spent my leisure hours in gathering material for this biography. I visited the place of his birth—the little hamlet of Bazentin, near Amiens—and, thanks to the kindness of the schoolmaster of that village, M.Duval, was shown the house where Lamarck was born, the records in the old parish register at the mairie of the birth of the father of Lamarck and of Lamarck himself. The Jesuit Seminary at Amiens was also visited, in order to obtain traces of his student life there, though the search was unsuccessful.

My thanks are due to Professor A. Giard of Paris for kind assistance in the loan of rare books, for copies of his own essays, especially his LeÇon d’Ouverture des Cours de l’Évolution des Êtres organisÉs, 1888, and in facilitating the work of collecting data. Introduced by him to Professor Hamy, the learned anthropologist and archivist of the MusÉum d’Histoire Naturelle, I was given by him the freest access to the archives in the Maison deBuffon, which, among other papers, contained the MS. Archives du MusÉum; i.e., the ProcÈs verbaux des SÉances tenues par les Officiers du Jardin des Plantes, from 1790 to 1830, bound in vellum, in thirty-four volumes. These were all looked through, though found to contain but little of biographical interest relating to Lamarck, beyond proving that he lived in that ancient edifice from 1793 until his death in 1829. Dr.Hamy’s elaborate history of the last years of the Royal Garden and of the foundation of the MusÉum d’Histoire Naturelle, in the volume commemorating the centennial of the foundation of the Museum, has been of essential service.

My warmest thanks are due to M.Adrien deMortillet, formerly secretary of the Society of Anthropology of Paris, for most essential aid. He kindly gave me a copy of a very rare pamphlet, entitled Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Transformistes, ses Disciples. He also referred me to notices bearing on the genealogy of Lamarck and his family in the Revue de Gascogne for 1876. To him also I am indebted for the privilege of having electrotypes made of the five illustrations in the Lamarck, for copies of the composite portrait of Lamarck by Dr.Gachet, and also for a photograph of the Acte de Naissance reproduced by the late M.Salmon.

I have also to acknowledge the kindness shown me by Dr.J. Deniker, the librarian of the BibliothÈque du MusÉum d’Histoire Naturelle.

I had begun in the museum library, which contains nearly if not every one of Lamarck’s publications, to prepare a bibliography of all of Lamarck’s writings, when, to my surprise and pleasure, I was presented with a very full and elaborate one by the assistant-librarian, M.Godefroy Malloisel.

To Professor Edmond Perrier I am indebted for a copy of his valuable Lamarck et le Transformisme Actuel, reprinted from the noble volume commemorative of the centennial of the foundation of the MusÉum d’Histoire Naturelle, which has proved of much use.

Other sources from which biographical details have been taken are Cuvier’s Éloge, and the notice of Lamarck, with a list of many of his writings, in the Revue biographique de la SociÉtÉ malacologique de France, 1886. This notice, which is illustrated by three portraits of Lamarck, one of which has been reproduced, I was informed by M.Paul Kleinsieck was prepared by the late J.R. Bourguignat, the eminent malacologist and anthropologist. The notices by Professor Mathias Duval and by L.A. Bourguin have been of essential service.

As regards the account of Lamarck’s speculative and theoretical views, I have, so far as possible, preferred, by abstracts and translations, to let him tell his own story, rather than to comment at much length myself on points about which the ablest thinkers and students differ so much.

It is hoped that Lamarck’s writings referring to the evolution theory may, at no distant date, be reprinted in the original, as they are not bulky and could be comprised in a single volume.

This life is offered with much diffidence, though the pleasure of collecting the materials and of putting them together has been very great.

Brown University, Providence, R.I.,
October, 1901.