[102] Discours, etc. Sixth edition.

[103] Felix Bernard, The Principles of Paleontology, Paris, 1895, translated by C. E. Brooks, edited by J. M. Clark, from 14th Annual Report New York State Geologist, 1895, pp. 127–217 (p. 16). Bernard gives no reference to the work in which Schlotheim expressed this opinion. E. v. Schlotheim’s first work, Flora der Vorwelt, appeared in 1804, entitled Beschreibung merkwürdiger Kraüterabdrücke und Pflanzenversteinerungen. Ein Beytrag zur Flora der Vorvelt. I Abtheil. Mit 14 Kpfrn. 4o. Gotha, 1804. A later work was Beyträge zur Naturgeschichte der Versteinerungen in geognostischer Hinsicht (Denkschrift d. k. Academie d. Wissenschaften zu München für den Jahren 1816 und 1817. 8 Taf. München, 1819). He was followed in Germany by Sternberg (Versuch einer geognostischbotanischen Darstellung der Flora der Vorvelt. 1–8. 1811. Leipzig, 1820–38); and in France by A. T. Brongniart, 1801–1876 (Histoire des Végétaux fossiles, 1828). These were the pioneers in palæophytology.

[104] Bernard’s History and Methods of Paleontological Discovery (1879), p. 23.

[105] In his valuable and comprehensive Geschichte der Geologie und Paläontologie (1899), Prof. K. von Zittel, while referring to Lamarck’s works on the tertiary shells of Paris and his Animaux sans Vertèbres, also giving a just and full account of his life, practically gives him the credit of being one of the founders of invertebrate palæontology. He speaks of him as “the reformer and founder of scientific conchology,” and states that “he defined with wonderful acuteness the numerous genera and species of invertebrate animals, and created thereby for the ten years following an authoritative foundation.” Zittel, however, does not mention the Hydrogéologie. Probably so rare a book was overlooked by the eminent German palæontologist.

[106] History and Methods of Paleontological Discovery (1879), p. 23.

CHAPTER X
LAMARCK’S OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY AND BIOLOGY

Lamarck died before the rise of the sciences of morphology, embryology, and cytology. As to palæontology, which he aided in founding, he had but the slightest idea of the geological succession of life-forms, and not an inkling of the biogenetic law or recapitulation theory. Little did he know or foresee that the main and strongest support of his own theory was to be this same science of the extinct forms of life. Yet it is a matter of interest to know what were his views or opinions on the nature of life; whether he made any suggestions bearing on the doctrine of the unity of nature; whether he was a vitalist or not; and whether he was a follower of Haller and of Bonnet,[107] as was Cuvier, or pronounced in favor of epigenesis.

We know that he was a firm believer in spontaneous generation, and that he conceived that it took place not only in the origination of his primeval germs or ébauches, but at all later periods down to the present day.

Yet Lamarck accepted Harvey’s doctrine, published in 1651, that all living beings arose from germs or eggs.[108]