s a new genealogical tree. He
states that the order of the animal series "is far from simple, that it
is branching, and seems even to be composed of several distinct series;"
though farther on (p. 456) he adds:

"Je regarde _l'ordre de la production_ des animaux comme forme de
deux series distinctes.

"Ainsi, je soumets a la meditation des zoologistes l'ordre presume
de la _formation_ des animaux, tel que l'exprime le tableau
suivant:"

In the matter of the origin of instinct, as in evolution in general,
Lamarck appears to have laid the foundation on which Darwin's views,
though he throws aside Lamarck's factors, must rest. The "inherited
habit" theory is thus stated by Lamarck.

Instinct, he claims, is not common to all animals, since the lowest
forms, like plants, are entirely passive under the influences of the
surrounding medium; they have no wants, are automata.

"But animals with a nervous system have _wants_, _i.e._, they feel
hunger, sexual desires, they desire to avoid pain or to seek
pleasure, etc. To satisfy these wants they contract habits, which
are gradually transformed into so many propensities which they can
neither resist nor change. Hence arise habitual actions and special
_propensities_, to which we give the name of _instinct_.

"These propensities are inherited and become innate in the young, so
that they act instinctively from the moment of birth. Thus the same
habits and instincts are perpetuated from one generation to another,
with no _notable_ variations, so long as the species does not
suffer change in the circumstances essential to its mode of life."

The same views are repeated in the introduction to the _Animaux sans
Vertebres_ (1815), and again in 1820, in his last work, and do not need
to be translated, as they are repetitions of his previously published
views in the _Philosophie zoologique_.

Unfortunately, to illustrate his thoughts on instinct Lamarck does not
give us any examples, nor did he apparently observe to any great extent
the habits of animals. In these days one cannot follow him in drawing a
line--as regards the possession of instincts--between the lowest
organisms, or Protozoa, and the groups provided with a nervous system.

_Lamarck's meaning of the word "besoins," or wants or needs._--Lamarck's
use of the word wants or needs (_besoins_) has, we think, been greatly
misunderstood and at times caricatured or pronounced as "absurd." The