o the objects which this
order makes exist, from the power which it has received from the
SUPREME AUTHOR of all things. She is herself only the general and
unchangeable order that this Sublime Author has created throughout,
and only the totality of the general and special laws to which this
order is subject. By these means, whose use it continues without
change, it has given and will perpetually give existence to its
productions; it varies and renews them unceasingly, and thus
everywhere preserves the whole order which is the result of
it."[200]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"To regard nature as eternal, and consequently as having existed
from all time, is to me an abstract idea, baseless, limitless,
improbable, and not satisfactory to my reason. Being unable to know
anything positive in this respect, and having no means of reasoning
on this subject, I much prefer to think that _all nature_ is only a
result: hence, I suppose, and I am glad to admit it, a first cause,
in a word, a supreme power which has given existence to nature, and
which has made it in all respects what it is."[201]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Nature, that immense totality of different beings and bodies, in
every part of which exists an eternal circle of movements and
changes regulated by law; totality alone unchangeable, so long as it
pleases its SUBLIME AUTHOR to cause its existence, should be
regarded as a whole constituted by its parts, for a purpose which
its Author alone knows, and not exclusively for any one of them.

"Each part is necessarily obliged to change, and to cease to be one
in order to constitute another, with interests opposed to those of
all; and if it has the power of reasoning it finds this whole
imperfect. In reality, however, this whole is perfect and completely
fulfils the end for which it was designed."[202]

Lamarck's work on general philosophy[203] was written near the end of
his life, in 1820. He begins his "Discours preliminaire" by referring to
the sudden loss of his eyesight, his work on the invertebrate animals
being thereby interrupted. The book was, he says, "rapidly" dictated to
his daughter, and the ease with which he dictated was due, he says, to
his long-continued habit of meditating on the facts he had observed.

In the "Principes primordiaux" he considers man as the only being who
has the power of observing nature, and