imitated, in newly deceased persons, still there are no signs of returning intelligence, there is no life, no voluntary action, not a trace of the spiritual agent that has been summoned from its dwelling. Whence it follows, that though the organization is that by which the intellectual and governing power manifests its presence and habitation, still it is evidently something distinct from and independent of it[1]."
With opinions having such a decided tendency to materialism, it is not surprising that Lamarck seldom makes allusion to a Deity, and when he does so, he nearly confines himself to the bare acknowledgment of his existence. In his earlier works, there is no mention made of a Supreme Being whatever; and even when his existence is admitted, He is divested of the attributes which belong to him. The glory of forming the works of creation, in which His beneficence and power are so signally manifested, is ascribed to nature, or a certain order of things. This power to which the Deity has delegated his prerogatives, and which he has appointed his vicegerent, Lamarck defines as "An order of things composed of objects independent of matter, which are determined by the observation of bodies, and the whole amount of which constitutes a power, unalterable in its essence, governed in all its acts, and constantly acting upon all the parts of the physical universe[2]." This blind power, which
