[...]... 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. .. 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,... 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,... 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. .. 1901, by LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO All rights reserved Press of J J Little & Co Astor Place, New York PREFACE 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... 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... 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 de Buffon, 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,... 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... 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... 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 th e 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 .