Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

made an error of genius: he saw rightly that the animal's own will shaped its organs, but, lacking Kant, could only imagine this happening in time, through generations — forgetting the species would have died out first.

Recast in definition form from: “he overlooks the obvious objection which may be made, that long before the organs necessary for its preservation could have been produced by means of such endeavours as these through countless generations, the whole species must have died out from the want of them”

closed the era of natural history not with his famous transformism but with a quieter early distinction: finding a plant's name and finding its real kinships are two different tasks — words and beings no longer interlock.

Recast in definition form from: “… so early on, Lamarck brought the era of natural history …”

the 'revolutionary' versus Cuvier the reactionary fixist is a fine example of simple-mindedness: Lamarck's transformism rested on Classical continuity — he is a contemporary of Jussieu, not of Cuvier.

Recast in definition form from: “… Lamarck is a contemporary of A-L. de Jussieu, not of …”

Jean Baptiste Lamarck, n.Definitions

Jean Baptiste Lamarck