“They teach in Paris,” he says, “that the integrant molecule of each kind of compound is invariable in nature, and consequently that it is as old as nature, hence, mineral species are constant.
“For myself, I declare that I am persuaded, and even feel convinced, that the integrant molecule of every compound substance whatever, may change its nature, namely, may undergo changes in the number and in the proportions of the principles which compose it.”
He enlarges on this subject through eight pages. He was evidently led to take this view from his assumption that everything, every natural object, organic or inorganic, undergoes a change. But it may be objected that this view will not apply to minerals, because those of the archæan rocks do not differ, and have undergone no change since then to the present time, unless we except such minerals as are alteration products due to metamorphism. The primary laws of nature, of physics, and of chemistry are unchangeable, while change, progression from the generalized to the specialized, is distinctly characteristic of the organic as opposed to the inorganic world.
FOOTNOTES:
[58] “On the Influence of the Moon on the Earth’s Atmosphere,” Journal de Physique, prairial, l’an VI. (1798).
[59] Nature, Dec. 6, 1900.
CHAPTER VIII
LAMARCK’S WORK IN GEOLOGY
Whatever may be said of his chemical and physical lucubrations, Lamarck in his geological and palæontological writings is, despite their errors, always suggestive, and in some most important respects in advance of his time. And this largely for the reason that he had once travelled, and to some extent observed geological phenomena, in the central regions of France, in Germany, and Hungary; visiting mines and collecting ores and minerals, besides being in a degree familiar with the French cretaceous fossils, but more especially those of the tertiary strata of Paris and its vicinity. He had, therefore, from his own experience, slight as it was, some solid grounds of facts and observations on which to meditate and from which to reason.
He did not attempt to touch upon cosmological theories—chaos and creation—but, rather, confined himself to the earth, and more particularly to the action of the ocean, and to the changes which he believed to be due to organic agencies. The most impressive truth in geology is the conception of the immensity of past time, and this truth Lamarck fully realized. His views are to be found in a little book of 268 pages, entitled Hydrogéologie. It appeared in 1802 (an X.), or ten years before the first publication of Cuvier’s famous Discours sur les Revolutions de la Surface du Globe (1812). Written in his popular and attractive style, and thoroughly in accord with the cosmological and theological prepossessions of the age, the Discours was widely read, and passed through many editions. On the other hand, the Hydrogéologie died stillborn, with scarcely a friend or a reader, never reaching a second edition, and is now, like most of his works, a bibliographical rarity.
The only writer who has said a word in its favor, or contrasted it with the work of Cuvier, is the judicious and candid Huxley, who, though by no means favorable to Lamarck’s factors of evolution, frankly said: