Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivans (sic) et particulièrement sur son origine, sur la cause de son développement et des progrès de sa composition... Précédé du Discours d'ouverture du Cours de Zoologie donné dans le Muséum d'histoire naturelle, l'an X de la République Hardcover - 1802

Paris: chez l'auteur, Maillard, 1802. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. 1st Edition. Hardcover. 8vo - over 7¾ - 1¾" tall. No date [1802]. 8vo (200 x 127 mm), viii, 216 pp., including half title and one folding table. Bound in 20th century half black morocco and green cloth over boards, gilt-lettered spine, new endpapers, green sprinkled edges. Internally crisp and clean with only minor occasional spotting (a bit stronger to first and final pages). Two pages with ink annotations in contemporary hand. Provenance: collection of Roman Vishniac, Russian-American biologist, photographer and pioneer in photomicroscopy. A fine and tall copy. ---- Norman 1264. - RARE. 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 Systeme des animaux sans vertebres, 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). - Visit our website to see more images!