Systême des animaux sans vertèbres

Systême des animaux sans vertèbres

Detail map of Paris, Île-de-France, France Overview map of Paris, Île-de-France, France

A: Paris, Île-de-France, France

Lamarck Issues the First Published Statement of Lamarckism

1801
A portrait of Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck

A portrait of Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck

In 1801 French soldier, biologist, and naturalist Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck published Systême des animaux sans vertèbres. The "Discours d'overture" occupying the first forty-eight pages of this work contained 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 Systême 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."

J. Norman (ed) Morton's Medical Bibliography 5th ed (1991) No. 215.5.

Hook & Norman, The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science & Medicine (1991) no. 1261.

Timeline Themes