Species

124 Species

Let us first see what is meant by the name of species.

Any collection of like individuals which were produced by others similar to them-

selves is called a species.

This definition is exact: for every individual possessing life always resembles very

closely those from which it sprang; but to this definition is added the allegation that

the individuals composing a species never vary in their specific characters, and conse-

quently that species have an absolute constancy in nature.

It is just this allegation that I propose to attack, since clear proofs drawn from

observation show that it is ill-founded.^44

As Gillispie puts it, “(Lamarck’s) position is rather that species do not exist, than
that they are mutable.”^45 Lamarck reiterates in the Zoological Philosophy the early
view of Buffon that only individual organisms exist in nature:

Thus, among living bodies, nature, as I have already said, definitely contains noth-

ing but individuals which succeed one another by reproduction and spring from one

another; but the species among them have only a relative constancy and are only

invariable temporarily.^46

It is interesting to note that here and elsewhere Lamarck explicitly restricts his
comments to living bodies. His nominalism with respect to organisms is obvi-
ous, and species are not themselves in nature, but, as Locke had said, are made for
communication:

Nevertheless, to facilitate the study and knowledge of so many different bodies it is

useful to give the name species to any collection of like individuals perpetuated by

reproduction without change, so long as their environment does not alter enough to

cause variations in their habits, character and shape.^47

The generative conception is again in play, except that Lamarck has added tempo-
rality to the mix. In the Recherches^48 Lamarck proposed that there was a “life-fluid”
that was a variety of physical energy, a feu éthéré, that maintained organisms in their
form, and it impelled spontaneous generation out of inanimate matter. Species was
a notion that applied to the mineral kingdom as well as the biological, but mineral
species differed in that they had no individuality while plants and animals did, and
neither did they reproduce. In the Zoological Philosophy he added that all classifica-
tions are arbitrary products of thought, and that in nature there are only individu-
als. Lamarck did not accept the reality of extinction apart from human agency, but

(^44) La ma rck 1809. English translation La ma rck 1914, 35.
(^45) Gillispie 1959, 271.
(^46) La ma rck 1914, 44.
(^47) Loc. cit.
(^48) La ma rck 1802.