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Philosophie zoologique

by Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de Lamarck

Jean Baptiste Lamarck is remembered primarily as a pre-Darwinian evolutionist who proposed the inheritance of acquired characters to explain evolutionary change. But this narrow view of Lamarck does not do justice to his conception of organic change, nor does it indicate how Lamarck's views on organic change related to the rest of his biological thinking. This edition of Lamarck's most famous treatise, the Zoological Philosophy, provides an opportunity to reconsider this major work of 19th-century biology. It includes as well Lamarck's "Introductory Discourse" of 1800 and Cuvier's infamous "Biographical Memoir," an attack on Lamarck that has been the source of common misconceptions about his work. Introductory essays by David L. Hull and Richard W. Burkhardt, Jr., discuss Lamarck's contributions in the context of his time and reassess their significance for the development of evolutionary theory. - Back cover.