[180] Lamarck’s idea of the animal series was that of a branched one, as shown by his genealogical tree on p. 193, and he explains that the series begins at least by two special branches, these ending in branchlets. He thus breaks entirely away from the old idea of a continuous ascending series of his predecessors Bonnet and others. Professor R. Hertwig therefore makes a decided mistake and does Lamarck a great injustice in his “Zoölogy,” where he states: “Lamarck, in agreement with the then prevailing conceptions, regarded the animal kingdom as a series grading from the lowest primitive animal up to man” (p. 26); and again, on the next page, he speaks of “the theory of Geoffroy St.-Hilaire and Lamarck” as having in it “as a fundamental error the doctrine of the serial arrangement of the animal world” (English Trans.). Hertwig is in error, and could never have carefully read what Lamarck did say, or have known that he was the first to throw aside the serial arrangement, and to sketch out a genealogical tree.
[181] The foregoing pages (283–286) are reprinted by the author from the Discours of 1803. See pp. 266–270.
[182] Perrier thus comments on this passage: “Ici nous sommes bien près, semble-t-il, non seulement de la lutte pour la vie telle one la concevra Darwin, mais même de la sélection naturelle. Malheureusement, au lieu de poursuivre l’idée, Lamarck aussitôt s’engage dans une autre voie,” etc. (La Philosophie zoologique avant Darwin, p. 81).
[183] The expression “sentiment intérieur” may be nearly equivalent to the “organic sense” of modern psychologists, but more probably corresponds to our word consciousness.
[184] Lamarck’s division of Animaux sensibles comprises the insects, arachnids, crustacea, annelids, cirripedes, and molluscs.
[185] Rather a strange view to take, as the brain of insects is now known to be nearly as complex as that of mammals.
[186] Richerand, Physiologie. vol ii. p. 151.
[187] “As all animals do not have the power of performing voluntary acts, so in like manner instinct is not common to all animals: for those lacking the nervous system also want the organic sense, and can perform no instinctive acts.
“These imperfect animals are entirely passive, they do nothing of themselves, they have no wants, and nature as regards them treats them as she does plants. But as they are irritable in their parts, the means which nature employs to maintain their existence enables them to execute movements which we call actions.”
It thus appears that Lamarck practically regards the lowest animals as automata, but we must remember that the line he draws between animals with and without a nervous system is an artificial one, as some of the forms which he supposed to be destitute of a nervous system are now known to possess one.