Philosophie Zoologique
RARE FIRST EDITON of Lamarck’s landmark work on evolution: “The dawn of evolution,” and “a classic in the field of evolutionary theory” (Printing and the Mind of Man, 262). A BEAUTIFUL COPY in contemporary tree calf.
Lamarck was “interested in meteorology, geology, chemistry, and paleontology and it is thought that his observations in these fields contributed to the formulation of his evolutionary theory, which he first put forward in Zoological Philosophy (1809). Until the late 1790s, he had believed that species remained unchanged, but fossil evidence, and his nonbelief in extinction, combined to change his mind. He saw evolution as a natural tendency to greater complexity and put forward four laws to explain how such complexity is brought about. The second law states that ‘the production of a new organ in an animal body results from a new need that continues to make itself felt,’ and the fourth law, for which he is best remembered, states that such acquired characteristics are inherited” (Biographical Encyclopedia of Scientists).
“With this theory, Lamarck offered much more than an account of how species change. He also explained what he understood to be the shape of a truly ‘natural’ system of classification of the animal kingdom. The primary feature of this system was a single scale of increasing complexity composed of all the different classes of animals, starting with the simplest microscopic organisms, or “infusorians,” and rising up to the mammals. The species, however, could not be arranged in a simple series. Lamarck described them as forming “lateral ramifications” with respect to the general “masses” of organization represented by the classes. Lateral ramifications in species resulted when they underwent transformations that reflected the diverse, particular environments to which they had been exposed.
"By Lamarck’s account, animals, in responding to different environments, adopted new habits. Their new habits caused them to use some organs more and some organs less, which resulted in the strengthening of the former and the weakening of the latter. New characters thus acquired by organisms over the course of their lives were passed on to the next generation... Small changes that accumulated over great periods of time produced major differences. Lamarck thus explained how the shapes of giraffes, snakes, storks, swans, and numerous other creatures were a consequence of long-maintained habits. The basic idea of “the inheritance of acquired characters” had originated with Anaxagoras, Hippocrates, and others, but Lamarck was essentially the first naturalist to argue at length that the long-term operation of this process could result in species change” (Britannica).
Although Lamarck’s theory of evolution was ultimately replaced by Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, Darwin acknowledged his debt to Lamarck, writing in the preface to the third edition of The Origin of Species, that Lamarck “first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic as well as in the inorganic world being the result of natural law, and not of miraculous interposition”.
Paris: Dentu and the author, 1809. Octavo, contemporary tree calf gilt, morocco lettering pieces. Three parts in two volumes (complete). Repair to spine leather. Small repair to title page of vol. one; closed tear to p.127 of vol. 1. Text very clean with only occasional light foxing. A beautiful copy of a scarce and important work.
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