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
archaean 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 palaeontological 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 _Hydrogeologie_. 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