natural bias or acquired predilection. Most of his companions were actively engaged in the field or in other public services, for France was now occupied with the eventful struggle which commenced in 1756. His eldest brother had fallen in the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom; others of them were still in the army; and all his most cherished associations were connected with the profession of arms. With so much to inspire an aversion to seclusion and comparative inactivity, nothing could have induced him to remain at college but the authority of his father, who still enforced compliance with his wishes. That salutary restraint, however, having been removed by death, in 1760, no time was lost by young Lamarck in following his own inclinations. With nothing but a letter of recommendation from a lady residing in the neighbourhood of his father, addressed to the colonel of a French regiment, he set out for the army, which was then in Germany. Lamarck’s somewhat diminutive stature and boyish appearance, which made him look younger than he really was, were ill fitted to make amends for the want of influential patronage. His reception was by no means flattering, but nothing could daunt the zeal of the young volunteer. He joined a company of grenadiers, and determined to trust to fortune and his own exertions for obtaining that rank which individuals of his birth and education commonly acquire by other means.
Zeal like this seldom fails sooner or later in attaining its object, and in the present instance it was speedily rewarded. Lamarck had joined the army on the day preceding the battle of Fissingshausen, in which a vigorous but unsuccessful attack was made by the combined troops of the marshal de Broglie and the prince of Soubise, on the army commanded by Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. Cuvier relates1, that in the vicissitudes of the contest, the company to which M. Lamarck was attached happened to be thrown into such a position as completely exposed it to the fire of the enemy’s artillery, and that, owing to the confusion which took place in the French army, it was entirely forgotten and left in that perilous situation. All the officers were soon killed, as well as the greater number of privates, when an old grenadier, perceiving that there were no longer any of the French within sight, proposed to the young volunteer, who by the death of the officers had unexpectedly acquired the temporary command, that the little troop should be withdrawn. This, however, he resolutely refused to do until he received regular orders to that effect, which at last were dispatched, when the troop were discovered to be missing, and reached him with the utmost difficulty, owing to the rapid advance of the enemy. This instance of intrepidity and vigorous adherence to orders gave so much satisfaction to the commander-in-chief, that he instantly issued an order for Lamarck’s promotion. Some time afterwards, he was nominated to a lieutenancy, and his warmest anticipations of success, in a profession which he had made so many sacrifices to embrace, promised in time to be realized. But these prospects were speedily overclouded by an accident which completely put a stop to his military career, and gave a different complexion to the whole tenor of his life and habits. Some one of his companions, in sport, had lifted him by the head, and thereby strained so severely the glands of his neck, that he was for some time placed in the greatest danger. After many remedies had been tried to no purpose, a cure was at last effected by the celebrated M. Tenon, by means of a complicated operation. But his health had by this time become so much impaired, that after residing for a length of time in Paris in the hope of its amendment, he found it necessary to abandon all intention of rejoining the army.
In these circumstances it became necessary for him to think of some new occupation, and he seems not to have been long in forming a resolution to study medicine. His pecuniary circumstances, however, were so very limited, consisting of a pension of only 400 francs, that he was obliged in the mean time to employ himself as a clerk in the office of a banker in order to obtain the means of daily subsistence. The intervals he spent in study; and such were the buoyancy and activity of his mind, that even when his prospects were most discouraging, he never seems to have lost the expectation of rising to usefulness and distinction. He reverted with eagerness to the physical studies which he had commenced at college, and soon showed a preference for certain departments of natural history. He delighted to engage in controversial discussions on these subjects with his companions, and to indulge in speculations respecting the most abstruse points in physics and the phenomena of the natural world. It is not improbable that it was about this time, when the wide and varied fields of science were just beginning to open to his view, that he conceived some of those crude and fanciful notions which characterise so many of his theoretical views. It is less a matter of surprise that such ideas should suggest themselves, at the outset of his career, to one of his ardent temperament and lively imagination, than that he should have persisted in maintaining them when his knowledge was more extended and his judgment matured, although in the opinion of almost every other person their fallacy appeared demonstrable.
Botany and meteorology were the branches on which he first bestowed the greatest degree of attention. Even before he left the army, he had become attached to the former; and during his stay at Monaco, had examined the singular vegetation of that rocky country. During his illness, he was lodged, for the sake of economy, in an apartment at the top of a high house, from which the clouds formed almost the only spectacle; and to relieve the tedium of his long solitude, he was accustomed to watch their varying forms and aspects, and carefully to observe all the other atmospheric phenomena, indulging his fancy in forming conjectures about their nature and origin. This circumstance, he himself states, first inspired him with a desire to study meteorology; and we can perceive in these solitary meditations, one of the causes which tended to give their fanciful complexion to many of his subsequent speculations.
After continuing his physical studies with much ardour for several years, he at length appeared in the character of an author. His “French Flora, or a brief Description of all the Plants which grow naturally in France,” was published in 1778. The immediate occasion of this work was a desire to furnish his fellow-students with a system of arrangement which should lead with greater ease and certainty to the determination of plants than any then in use. For this purpose he adopted a modification of the binary or dichotomous method, the principle of which consists in arranging natural objects by their positive and negative characters, dividing and subdividing always by two, and allowing a choice only between two opposite characters. Although this plan is, of course, highly artificial, and ill calculated to throw light on the affinities and analogies of objects, yet it is much recommended by its extreme simplicity, which adapts it to the comprehension of those who have but little acquaintance with the technical and descriptive language of natural history. If judiciously applied, it affords an easy index to particular genera and species, and renders the subject at once accessible without any preparatory labour. Indeed, the principle on which it rests must to a certain extent be implied in every artificial system of arrangement.
This work soon acquired a considerable degree of popularity, not only by its intrinsic value, but from the seasonable time of its appearance. The study of botany, which had hitherto been confined almost exclusively to the members of the medical profession, was now becoming a popular and even fashionable pursuit; a distinction which it owed chiefly to the writings and example of J. J. Rousseau. Every work, therefore, calculated to facilitate the study, was likely to meet with a favourable reception among those who would probably have been repelled by dry technical details and rigorous scientific precision. Its publication had an important influence on Lamarck’s fortune and prospects. It secured for him the friendship and patronage of M. de Buffon, who was then in the height of his popularity, and possessed of much influence, not only from his rank, character, and celebrity, but also from his authority with the government. Even its want of a very philosophical and precise system was probably one of the circumstances that recommended it to Buffon’s attention, as it was thereby assimilated to his own writings, from which every thing of that nature was expressly excluded. Through his influence, an edition of the work was printed at the royal press, and its author introduced to the favourable notice of many of the leading savans of the day. He had soon an opportunity of turning his popularity to some profitable account, for a place happening to become vacant in the botanical department of the Academy of Sciences, Lamarck was presented with the appointment, in preference to others of older standing and much higher pretensions. He thus acquired a certain status among men of science, which encouraged him to prosecute the studies which he had so successfully begun, and at the same time afforded him the means of doing so in a more efficient manner.
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