The Spirit of System

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck was at once a highly competent taxonomist in a traditional mold and a bold, almost visionary, philosopher of nature who aspired to contrive an all-embracing "physics of the earth" by sheer force of intellect. In this first modern book-length study of Lamarck, Richard Burkhardt examines the origin and development of his theory of organic evolution, the major theory prior to Darwin.