Details
LAMARCK, Jean Baptiste de (1744-1829). Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivans. Paris: the author, Maillard, [1802].
8o (213 x 134 mm). Half-title, folding letterpress table. (Occasional foxing, first and last few leaves a bit soiled.) Original blue pastepaper wrappers (worn, hinges torn, lower portion of backstrip defective). Provenance: Gersin (presentation inscription from the author on front pastedown, "Au Citoyen Gersin, de la part de son affectionn frere Lamarck"); 19th-century ms. shelfmark label on spine.
PRESENTATION COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST FULL-LENGTH EXPOSITION OF LAMARCK'S THEORY OF EVOLUTION. In this expanded presentation of his theory, first enunciated two years earlier in the Systme des animaux sans vertbres, Lamarck attempted to explain the reasons for and modus operandi of the evolution of animal and plant species. "Lamarck believed that changes in species occurred over time as the result of two factors: first, a natural tendency in the organic realms towards increasing complexity, as a means of explaining the hierarchical groupings of the major groupings... of animals and plants; and second, the influence of the environment as the factor responsible for all deviations from this norm" (Norman). "Lamarck's conception of a natural tendency toward increasing complexity [in living organisms] provided a perfect complement to his views of the mineral kingdom with the opposite natural tendency. In both cases a long time span allowed nature to do her work and local circumstances explained irregularities. Among living beings, irregularities included all organisms below the level of the 'masses,' which usually meant classes but sometimes was extended to orders and families, never to genera and species" (DSB). This work contains two of Lamarck's most famous hypotheses: "spontaneous generation, as a means of generating the simplest life forms; and the development, through repeated use, of new and heritable organs, as a means of producing more complex species" (Norman).
RARE. Norman 1264.
8o (213 x 134 mm). Half-title, folding letterpress table. (Occasional foxing, first and last few leaves a bit soiled.) Original blue pastepaper wrappers (worn, hinges torn, lower portion of backstrip defective). Provenance: Gersin (presentation inscription from the author on front pastedown, "Au Citoyen Gersin, de la part de son affectionn frere Lamarck"); 19th-century ms. shelfmark label on spine.
PRESENTATION COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST FULL-LENGTH EXPOSITION OF LAMARCK'S THEORY OF EVOLUTION. In this expanded presentation of his theory, first enunciated two years earlier in the Systme des animaux sans vertbres, Lamarck attempted to explain the reasons for and modus operandi of the evolution of animal and plant species. "Lamarck believed that changes in species occurred over time as the result of two factors: first, a natural tendency in the organic realms towards increasing complexity, as a means of explaining the hierarchical groupings of the major groupings... of animals and plants; and second, the influence of the environment as the factor responsible for all deviations from this norm" (Norman). "Lamarck's conception of a natural tendency toward increasing complexity [in living organisms] provided a perfect complement to his views of the mineral kingdom with the opposite natural tendency. In both cases a long time span allowed nature to do her work and local circumstances explained irregularities. Among living beings, irregularities included all organisms below the level of the 'masses,' which usually meant classes but sometimes was extended to orders and families, never to genera and species" (DSB). This work contains two of Lamarck's most famous hypotheses: "spontaneous generation, as a means of generating the simplest life forms; and the development, through repeated use, of new and heritable organs, as a means of producing more complex species" (Norman).
RARE. Norman 1264.