LAMARCK, JEAN BAPTISTE PIERRE ANTOINE DE MONET DE (1744-1829). A French zoologist, re garded as the greatest of the period between Lin wens and Cuvier: the founder of organic evo lution, and of invertebrate paleontology. Tie was born August 1, 1744, at Bazentin-le-Petit, a vil lage in Picardy, the eleventh child of parents Belonging io the minor nobility. Destined by his parents for the Church, though preferring a military life, lie entered the college of the Jesuits at Amiens. But his father dying in 1760, be enlisted at the age of sixteen in the French army, during the Seven Years' War, and distinguished himself. and was promoted to a lieutenaney. military career was, however, checked by a serious neeident, whereupon he went to Paris, studied medicine, and, meeting, Rousseau, was led to study botany tinder Bernard de Jussien. For ten years he studied native and exotic plants. His Flare francaise, published in 1778, brought Lamarck immediate fame. and led to his election to the French Aeademy of Sciences in 1779. In 1781 linfron obtained for him a com mission as royal botanist, charged with visiting the foreign botanical gardens and museums. as well as mines, His travels (1781-82) led him to visit Holland. Germany, and Hungary. On his return he was appointed keeper of the herbarium of the Royal Garden, to which he afterwards gave the present name, Jardin des Plantes. His earcer as a botanist, in which he achieved such success that he was called the French Unmet's, covered a period of about twenty-five years. Meanwhile he took an active part in the reorgan ization of the Museum of Natural History, with the result that his ideas were carried out and extended by Lakanal, and the Jardin des Plantes was transformed into an institution of higher in struction, with a stall' of twelve professors.
We now come to the third stage of his life— Lamarck the zoologist and evolutionist. In the snowier of 1793 the Museum of Natural His to•y having been reorganized, the chair of zo ology was divided, the professorship of verte brate zoology being filled by Geoffroy Saint Eilaire, while to Lamarck, now forty-nine years of age, was assigned the chair of invertebrate zoology. In 1801 appeared his des ani loamy sans eerie:bros, in the introduction to which his views on the origin of species were first published. Lamarck introduced great re turn' 01 the classification of animals. He divided them into vertebrates and invertebrates. Ile founded the classes Infuso•ia, Annelida, Crusta eea, Arachnida, and Tunicata, the order of Cirri pedia, and the mollusean group of lIcteropoda. He also showed that echinoderms are quite dis tinct from polyps, thus anticipating eonelusions of a half-eentury later. lie specialized in the Mollusca, breaking up the Linwean genera into more modern generie groups, and all later work in this braneh has been in the line of expansion and elaboration of his labors. The Philosophic zoologique was published in 1809, and in 1815-22 appeared his monumental work, Ilistoire not/f t-Ole des animaux sans rertares.
Lamarck was greatly interested early in life in meteorology, and from 179$1 to 1810 lie pub lished an annual meteorological report, and was the first to foretell the probabilities of the weather. His speculations in physics and ehem istry were, however. worthless; in fact, he lacked the qualities of an experimenter, in this respect differing from Darwin. A little hook, published in 1822, entitled Hydrogeologie, preserves his re llections on geology, in antagonism to the 'eatas trophie' ideas of envier; and Huxley character ized it as containing 'sober and philosophic hy potheses,' compared with those of Cuvier.
Lamarck was, indeed, the founder of inverte brate paleontology, as Cuvier was of vertebrate paleontology. lie utterly opposed Cu vier's view's of the sudden general extinction and crea tion of species, believing that the fossil forms were the ancestors of the animals now living; species to his mind tieing variable and under going a slow modification. He insisted on the following foundation prineiples of paleontology: (1) The great length of geological time; (2) the. continuous existence of organic life through the geological periods; (3) the physical environ ment in ing of the same general nature throughout, but with (4) eontinued gradual, not catastrophic, changes in the relative distri bution of land and sea—ehanges which (5) caused corresponding modifications in the habi tats, and (6) consequently in the habits, of living beings, so that there has been all through geological history a slow modification of life forms. Although Lamarek was a uniformitarian and thus anticipated Lyell, his idea of creation was evolutional rather than simply uniformi tarian. Lamarck lived a life of hard work, with much high thinking, and sadness, scarcity of money, neglect, and bereavement never dampened his courage. The continued and too prolonged study of minute objects through the magnifying lens brought on blindness. For the last ten years of his long life he was compelled to rely on an amanuensis. The last two volumes of his Anima/Ix suns rertebrcs were dictated to his daughter, Corrialie.
Lamarck was a man of exceedingly fine char acter, generous, free from jealousy and self assertion. Be was patriotic, imperturbable under the attaints of fortune, and patient under affliction. His mind was essentially philosophic, broad, and synthetic; he was a bold thinker, and in every respect an epoeh•making man. Ile died December 18, 1829, at the age of eighty-five years.
Bfattocnarur. The Elogc of Lamarck, by Co sier; Martins, "Un naturaliste philosophic: La marck, sa vie et sex ustivres," in Write des Deux Jiondes (Paris, 1873); De Mortillet and others. Lamarck: Par an groupe de transformistess sea disciples (reprinted from L'howtne, vol. iv., Paris, 1887); Packard, Lamarck, the Foundar of Evolution, His Life and Work, with Transla tions of His Writings on Organic Evolution (New York, 1901). For Lamarek's views on evolution, see LAMARCKISM.