dministration to work under the direction of that
professor in arranging the very numerous collection of insects of the
Museum, so as to place them under the eye of the public." And here he
remained until his appointment. Several years (1825) before Lamarck's
death he had asked to have Latreille fill his place in giving
instruction.

Audouin (1797-1841), also an eminent entomologist and morphologist, was
appointed _aide-naturaliste-adjoint_ in charge of Mollusca, Crustacea,
Worms, and Zooephytes. He was afterwards associated with H. Milne Edwards
in works on annelid worms. December 26, 1827, Latreille asked to be
allowed to employ Boisduval as a _preparateur_; he became the author of
several works on injurious insects and Lepidoptera.

CHAPTER VI

POSITION IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE; OPINIONS OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES AND
SOME LATER BIOLOGISTS

De Blainville, a worthy successor of Lamarck, in his posthumous book,
_Cuvier et Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire_, pays the highest tribute to his
predecessor, whose position as the leading naturalist of his time he
fully and gratefully acknowledges, saying: "Among the men whose lectures
I have had the advantage of hearing, I truly recognize only three
masters, M. de Lamarck, M. Claude Richard, and M. Pinel" (p. 43). He
also speaks of wishing to write the scientific biographies of Cuvier and
De Lamarck, the two zooelogists of this epoch whose lectures he most
frequently attended and whose writings he studied, and "who have
exercised the greatest influence on the zooelogy of our time" (p. 42).
Likewise in the opening words of the preface he refers to the rank taken
by Lamarck:

"The aim which I have proposed to myself in my course on the
principles of zooelogy demonstrated by the history of its progress
from Aristotle to our time, and consequently the plan which I have
followed to attain this aim, have very naturally led me, so to
speak, in spite of myself, to signalize in M. de Lamarck the
expression of one of those phases through which the science of
organization has to pass in order to arrive at its last term before
showing its true aim. From my point of view this phase does not seem
to me to have been represented by any other naturalist of our time,
whatever may have been the reputation which he made during his
life."

He then refers to the estimation in which Lamarck was held by Auguste
Comte, who, in his _Cours de Philosophie Positive_, has anticipate