ulated most distinctly by
Louis Dumas (1765-1813). Later vitalists gave it a thoroughly mystical
aspect, distinguishing several varieties, such as the _nisus formativus_
or formative effort, to explain the forms of organisms, accounting for
the fact that from the egg of a bird, a bird and no other species always
develops (_l. c._, p. 18).

[117] _Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivans_ (1802), p. 70.
The same view was expressed in _Memoires de physique_ (1797),
pp. 254-257, 386.

[118] Here might be quoted for comparison other famous definitions of
life:

"Life is the sum of the functions by which death is resisted."--Bichat.

"Life is the result of organization."--(?)

"Life is the principle of individuation."--Coleridge ex. Schelling.

"Life is the twofold internal movement of composition and decomposition,
at once general and continuous."--De Blainville, who wisely added that
there are "two fundamental and correlative conditions inseparable from
the living being--an organism and a medium."

"Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external
relations."--Herbert Spencer.

CHAPTER XI

LAMARCK AS A BOTANIST

During the century preceding the time of Lamarck, botany had not
flourished in France with the vigor shown in other countries. Lamarck
himself frankly stated in his address to the Committee of Public
Instruction of the National Convention that the study of plants had been
for a century neglected by Frenchmen, and that the great progress which
it had made during this time was almost entirely due to foreigners.

"I am free to say that since the distinguished Tournefort the French
have remained to some extent inactive in this direction; they have
produced almost nothing, unless we except some fragmentary mediocre
or unimportant works. On the other hand, Linne in Sweden, Dilwillen
in England, Haller in Switzerland, Jacquin in Austria, etc., have
immortalized themselves by their own works, vastly extending the
limit of our knowledge in this interesting part of natural history."

What led young Lamarck to take up botanical studies, his botanical
rambles about Paris, and his longer journeys in different parts of
France and in other countries, his six years of unremitting labor on his
_Flore Francaise_, and the immediate fame it brought him, culminating in
his election as a member of the French Academy, have been already
recounted.

Lamarck was thirty-four whe