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LAMARCK, JEAN BAPTISTE. Systême des Animaux sans Vertèbres, ou Tableau général des classes, des ordres et des genres de ces animaux. Paris: chez l'auteur [et] Déterville, an IX--1801. 8vo, 210 x 130 mm. (8 1/4 x 5 1/8 in.), uncut, quires 8-9 partly unopened, original green paper boards, red morocco lettering-piece on spine, slightly rubbed, corners bumped, dampstaining to first four leaves, some spotting to extreme outer margins, lower blank fore-corners of fols. 27/5-8 (pp. 425-432) and foremargin of addenda leaf torn away. FIRST EDITION, half-title, 8 plates of letterpress tables of which 6 folding, with the addenda leaf "Seconde addition", p. 402 bis, at end. Dibner Heralds of Science 194; Norman 1261.
"Lamarck's first public presentation of his theory of evolution was in his opening discourse for his course on invertebrates at the Museum [d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris] in 1800"; it was published the following year at the beginning of his Système des animaux sans vertèbres" (DSB). "The 'Discours d'ouverture' occupying the first forty-eight pages of the Système contains Lamarck's first published statement of his evolutionary theory of species development, including his idea of the continuous progressive perfection of species from the simplest to the most complex, and his famous theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, generally called 'Lamarckism.' The Système was also the first zoological work to employ the term 'invertebrates' to describe what had previously been lumped under the imprecise category of 'insects and worms'" (Norman).
"Lamarck's first public presentation of his theory of evolution was in his opening discourse for his course on invertebrates at the Museum [d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris] in 1800"; it was published the following year at the beginning of his Système des animaux sans vertèbres" (DSB). "The 'Discours d'ouverture' occupying the first forty-eight pages of the Système contains Lamarck's first published statement of his evolutionary theory of species development, including his idea of the continuous progressive perfection of species from the simplest to the most complex, and his famous theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, generally called 'Lamarckism.' The Système was also the first zoological work to employ the term 'invertebrates' to describe what had previously been lumped under the imprecise category of 'insects and worms'" (Norman).