LAMARCK, Système des animaux sans vertèbres, 1801 Manifeste du Lamarckisme

LAMARCK, Jean Baptiste de.

Systême des animaux sans vertèbres, ou tableau général des classes, des ordres et des genres de ces animaux.

Paris, Deterville, 1801.

8vo (200x120 mm), viii-432 pages and 8 tables. binding : Contemporary full sheep, flat spine. Prize copy for "Ecole centrale de Charente" awarded in 1803. Marginal waterstain on first leaves.

First edition.
One of the very first formulations of the concept of evolution of species (transformism), before Darwin's, and presenting as the cause of evolution (Lamarckism) the heredity of acquired characteristics.

It will take more than 50 years for Darwin's work on environmental selection pressure to contradict Lamarck's Speech.

However, we owe Lamarck the introduction in this book of the distinction between Vertebrate and Invertebrate animals, a distinction that we still use in current taxonomy.

references: Garrison-Morton [215.5 : "The “Discours d’ouverture” contains Lamarck’s first published statement of the theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics"]
Norman [1261 : "The Systême contains Lamarck's first published statement of his evolutionary theory of species development"].

provenance: Prize-giving label to Jacques Boucheron as 2nd prize in Botany at the Ecole Centrale.

Price : 4000 €

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