Chapter XVIII: Part 18

The founder of this system seems to have been Asanga, an influential monk of Peshawar, who wrote the first text-book of the creed, the _Yogachchara Bhumi Sastra_, in the 6th century A.D. Hsüan Tsang, who travelled in the first half of the 7th, found the monastery where Asanga had lived in ruins, and says that he had lived one thousand years after the Buddha.[1] Asanga managed with great dexterity to reconcile the two opposing systems by placing a number of Saivite gods or devils, both male and female, in the inferior heavens of the then prevalent Buddhism, and by representing them as worshippers and supporters of the Buddha and of Avalokitesvara. He thus made it possible for the half-converted and rude tribes to remain Buddhists while they brought offerings, and even bloody offerings, to these more congenial shrines, and while their practical belief had no relation at all to the Truths or the Noble Eightfold Path, but busied itself almost wholly with obtaining magic powers (_Siddhi_), by means of magic phrases (_Dharani_), and magic circles (_Mandala_). Asanga's happy idea bore but too ample fruit. In his own country and Nepal, the new wine, sweet and luscious to the taste of savages, completely disqualified them from enjoying any purer drink; and now in both countries Saivism is supreme, and Buddhism is even nominally extinct, except in some outlying districts of Nepal. But this full effect has only been worked out in the lapse of ages; the Tantra literature has also had its growth and its development, and some unhappy scholar of a future age may have to trace its loathsome history. The nauseous taste repelled even the self-sacrificing industry of Burnouf, when he found the later Tantra books to be as immoral as they are absurd. "The pen," he says, "refuses to transcribe doctrines as miserable in respect of form as they are odious and degrading in respect of meaning."

Such had been the decline and fall of Buddhism considered as an ethical system before its introduction into Tibet. The manner in which its order of mendicant recluses, at first founded to afford better opportunities to those who wished to carry out that system in practical life, developed at last into a hierarchical monarchy will best be understood by a sketch of the history of Tibet.

Early political history.

Its real history commences with Srong Tsan Gampo, who was born a little after 600 A.D., and who is said in the Chinese chronicles to have entered, in 634, into diplomatic relationship with Tai Tsung, one of the emperors of the Tang dynasty. He was the founder of the present capital of Tibet, now known as Lhasa; and in the year 622 (the same year as that in which Mahomet fled from Mecca) he began the formal introduction of Buddhism into Tibet. For this purpose he sent the minister Thumi Sambhota, afterwards looked upon as an incarnation of Mañju-sri, to India, there to collect the sacred books, and to learn and translate them. Thumi Sambhota accordingly invented an alphabet for the Tibetan language on the model of the Indian alphabets then in use. And, aided by the king, who is represented to have been an industrious student and translator, he wrote the first books by which Buddhism became known in his native land. The most famous of the works ascribed to him is the _Mani Kambum_, "the Myriad of Precious Words"--a treatise chiefly on religion, but which also contains an account of the introduction of Buddhism into Tibet, and of the closing part of the life of Srong Tsan Gampo. He is also very probably the author of another very ancient standard work of Tibetan Buddhism, the _Samatog_, a short digest of Buddhist morality, on which the civil laws of Tibet have been founded. It is said in the _Mani Kambum_ to have fallen from heaven in a casket (Tibetan, _samatog_), and, like the last-mentioned work, is only known to us in meagre abstract.

King Srong Tsan Gampo's zeal for Buddhism was shared and supported by his two queens, Bribsun, a princess from Nepal, and Wen Ching, a princess from China. They are related to have brought with them sacred relics, books and pictures, for whose better preservation two large monasteries were erected. These are the cloisters of La Brang (Jokhang) and Ra Moché, still, though much changed and enlarged, the most sacred abbeys in Tibet, and the glory of Lhasa. The two queens have become semi-divine personages, and are worshipped under the name of the two _Dara-Eke_, the "glorious mothers," being regarded as incarnations of the wife of Siva, representing respectively two of the qualities which she personifies, divine vengeance and divine love. The former is worshipped by the Mongolians as _Okkin Tengri_, "the Virgin Goddess"; but in Tibet and China the rôle of the divine virgin is filled by _Kwan Yin_, a personification of Avalokitesvara as the heavenly word, who is often represented with a child in her arms. Srong Tsan Gampo has also become a saint, being looked upon as an incarnation of Avalokitesvara; and the description in the ecclesiastical historians of the measures he took for the welfare of his subjects do great credit to their ideal of the perfect Buddhist king. He is said to have spent his long reign in the building of reservoirs, bridges and canals; in the promotion of agriculture, horticulture and manufactures; in the establishment of schools and colleges; and in the maintenance of justice and the encouragement of virtue. But the degree of his success must have been slight. For after the death of himself and of his wives Buddhism gradually decayed, and was subjected by succeeding kings to cruel persecutions; and it was not till more than half a century afterwards, under King Kir Song de Tsan, who reigned 740-786, that true religion is acknowledged by the ecclesiastical historians to have become firmly established in the land.

The Tibetan sacred books.

This monarch again sent to India to replace the sacred books that had been lost, and to invite Buddhist pandits to translate them. The most distinguished of those who came were Santa Rakshita, Padma Sambhava and Kamala Sila, for whom, and for their companions, the king built a splendid monastery still existing, at Samje, about three days' journey south-east of Lhasa. It was to them that the Tibetans owed the great collection of what are still regarded as their sacred books--the _Kandjur_. It consists of 100 volumes containing 689 works, of which there are two or three complete sets in Europe, one of them in the India Office library. A detailed analysis of these scriptures has been published by the celebrated Hungarian scholar Csoma de Körös, whose authoritative work has been republished in French with complete indices and very useful notes by M. Léon Feer. These volumes contain about a dozen works of the oldest school of Buddhism, the Hinayana, and about 300 works, mostly very short, belonging to the Tantra school. But the great bulk of the collection consists of Mahayana books, belonging to all the previously existing varieties of that widely extended Buddhist sect; and, as the Sanskrit originals of many of these writings are now lost, the Tibetan translations will be of great value, not only for the history of Lamaism, but also for the history of the later forms of Indian Buddhism.

The last king's second son, Lang Darma, concluded in May 822 a treaty with the then emperor of China (the twelfth of the Tang dynasty), a record of which was engraved on a stone put up in the above-mentioned great convent of La Brang (Jokhang), and is still to be seen there.[2] He is described in the church chronicles as an incarnation of the evil spirit, and is said to have succeeded in suppressing Buddhism throughout the greater part of the land. The period from Srong Tsan Gampo down to the death of Lang Darma, who was murdered about A.D. 850, in a civil war, is called in the Buddhist books "the first introduction of religion." It was followed by more than a century of civil disorder and wars, during which the exiled Buddhist monks attempted unsuccessfully again and again to return. Many are the stories of martyrs and confessors who are believed to have lived in these troublous times, and their efforts were at last crowned with success, for in the century commencing with the reign of Bilamgur in 971 there took place "the second introduction of religion" into Tibet, more especially under the guidance of the pandit Atisha, who came to Tibet in 1041, and of his famous native pupil and follower Brom Ston. The long period of depression seems not to have been without a beneficial influence on the persecuted Buddhist church, for these teachers are reported to have placed the Tantra system more in the background, and to have adhered more strongly to the purer forms of the Mahayana development of the ancient faith.

The temporal sovereignty of the Lamas.

For about three hundred years the Buddhist church of Tibet was left in peace, subjecting the country more and more completely to its control, and growing in power and in wealth. During this time it achieved its greatest victory, and underwent the most important change in its character and organization. After the reintroduction of Buddhism into the "kingdom of snow," the ancient dynasty never recovered its power. Its representatives continued for some time to claim the sovereignty; but the country was practically very much in the condition of Germany at about the same time--chieftains of almost independent power ruled from their castles on the hill-tops over the adjacent valleys, engaged in petty wars, and conducted plundering expeditions against the neighbouring tenants, whilst the great abbeys were places of refuge for the studious or religious, and their heads were the only rivals to the barons in social state, and in many respects the only protectors and friends of the people. Meanwhile Jenghiz Khan had founded the Mongol empire, and his grandson Kublai Khan became a convert to the Buddhism of the Tibetan Lamas. He granted to the abbot of the Sakya monastery in southern Tibet the title of tributary sovereign of the country, head of the Buddhist church, and overlord over the numerous barons and abbots, and in return was officially crowned by the abbot as ruler over the extensive domain of the Mongol empire. Thus was the foundation laid at one and the same time of the temporal sovereignty of the Lamas of Tibet, and of the suzerainty over Tibet of the emperors of China. One of the first acts of the "head of the church" was the printing of a carefully revised edition of the Tibetan Scriptures--an undertaking which occupied altogether nearly thirty years and was not completed till 1306.

Under Kublai's successors in China the Buddhist cause flourished greatly, and the Sakya Lamas extended their power both at home and abroad. The dignity of abbot at Sakya became hereditary, the abbots breaking so far the Buddhist rule of celibacy that they remained married until they had begotten a son and heir. But rather more than half a century afterwards their power was threatened by a formidable rival at home, a Buddhist reformer.

The Luther of Tibet.

Tsongkapa, the Luther of Tibet, was born about 1357 on the spot where the famous monastery of Kunbum now stands. He very early entered the order, and studied at Sakya, Brigung and other monasteries. He then spent eight years as a hermit in Takpo in southern Tibet, where the comparatively purer teaching of Atisha (referred to above) was still prevalent. About 1390 he appeared as a public teacher and reformer in Lhasa, and before his death in 1419 there were three huge monasteries there containing 30,000 of his disciples, besides others in other parts of the country. His voluminous works, of which the most famous are the _Sumbun_ and the _Lam Nim Tshenpo_, exist in printed Tibetan copies in Europe, but have not yet been translated or analysed. But the principal lines on which his reformation proceeded are sufficiently attested. He insisted in the first place on the complete carrying out of the ancient rules of the order as to the celibacy of its members, and as to simplicity in dress. One result of the second of these two reforms was to make it necessary for every monk openly to declare himself either in favour of or against the new views. For Tsongkapa and his followers wore the yellow or orange-coloured garments which had been the distinguishing mark of the order in the lifetime of its founder, and in support of the ancient rules Tsongkapa reinstated the fortnightly rehearsal of the _Patimokkha_ or "disburdenment" in regular assemblies of the order at Lhasa--a practice which had fallen into desuetude. He also restored the custom of the first disciples to hold the so-called _Vassa_ or yearly retirement, and the public meeting of the order at its close. In all these respects he was simply following the directions of the Vinaya, or regulations of the order, as established probably in the time of Gotama himself, and as certainly handed down from the earliest times in the pitakas or sacred books. Further, he set his face against the Tantra system, and against the animistic superstitions which had been allowed to creep into life again. He laid stress on the self-culture involved in the practice of the paramitas or cardinal virtues, and established an annual national fast or week of prayer to be held during the first days of each year. This last institution indeed is not found in the ancient Vinaya, but was almost certainly modelled on the traditional account of the similar assemblies convoked by Asoka and other Buddhist sovereigns in India every fifth year. Laymen as well as monks take part in the proceedings, the details of which are unknown to us except from the accounts of the Catholic missionaries--Fathers Huc and Gabet--who describe the principal ceremonial as, in outward appearance, wonderfully like the high mass. In doctrine the great Tibetan teacher, who had no access to the Pali Pitakas, adhered in the main to the purer forms of the Mahayana school; in questions of church government he took little part, and did not dispute the titular supremacy of the Sakya Lamas. But the effects of his teaching weakened their power. The "orange-hoods," as his followers were called, rapidly gained in numbers and influence, until they so overshadowed the "red-hoods," as the followers of the older sect were called, that in the middle of the 15th century the emperor of China acknowledged the two leaders of the new sect at that time as the titular overlords of the church and tributary rulers over the realm of Tibet. These two leaders were then known as the _Dalai Lama_ and the _Pantshen Lama_, and were the abbots of the great monasteries at Gedun Dubpa, near Lhasa, and at Tashi Lunpo, in Farther Tibet, respectively. Since that time the abbots of these monasteries have continued to exercise the sovereignty over Tibet.

Constitution of Lamaism.

As there has been no further change in the doctrine, and no further reformation in discipline, we may leave the ecclesiastical history of Lamaism since that date unnoticed, and consider some principal points on the constitution of the Lamaism of to-day. And first as to the mode of electing successors to the two Great Lamas. It will have been noticed that it was an old idea of the northern Buddhists to look upon distinguished members of the order as incarnations of Avalokitesvara, of Mañju-sri, or of Amitabha. These beings were supposed to possess the power, whilst they continued to live in heaven, of appearing on earth in a _Nirmana-kaya_, or apparitional body. In the same way the Pantshen Lama is looked upon as an incarnation, the Nirmana-kaya, of Amitabha, who had previously appeared under the outward form of Tshonkapa himself; and the Dalai Lama is looked upon as an incarnation of Avalokitesvara. Theoretically, therefore, the former, as the spiritual successor of the great teacher and also of Amitabha, who occupies the higher place in the mythology of the Great Vehicle, would be superior to the latter, as the spiritual representative of Avalokitesvara. But practically the Dalai Lama, owing to his position in the capital,[3] has the political supremacy, and is actually called the _Gyalpo Rinpotshe_, "the glorious king"--his companion being content with the title _Pantshen Rinpotshe_, "the glorious teacher." When either of them dies it is necessary for the other to ascertain in whose body the celestial being whose outward form has been dissolved has been pleased again to incarnate himself. For that purpose the names of all male children born just after the death of the deceased Great Lama are laid before his survivor. He chooses three out of the whole number; their names are thrown into a golden casket provided for that purpose by a former emperor of China. The Chutuktus, or abbots of the great monasteries, then assemble, and after a week of prayer, the lots are drawn in their presence and in presence of the surviving Great Lama and of the Chinese political resident. The child whose name is first drawn is the future Great Lama; the other two receive each of them 500 pieces of silver. The Chutuktus just mentioned correspond in many respects to the Roman cardinals. Like the Great Lamas, they bear the title of Rinpotshe or Glorious, and are looked upon as incarnations of one or other of the celestial Bodhisats of the Great Vehicle mythology. Their number varies from ten to a hundred; and it is uncertain whether the honour is inherent in the abbacy of certain of the greatest cloisters, or whether the Dalai Lama exercises the right of choosing them. Under these high officials of the Tibetan hierarchy there come the Chubil Khans, who fill the post of abbot to the lesser monasteries, and are also incarnations. Their number is very large; there are few monasteries in Tibet or in Mongolia which do not claim to possess one of these living Buddhas. Besides these mystical persons there are in the Tibetan church other ranks and degrees, corresponding to the deacon, full priest, dean and doctor of divinity in the West. At the great yearly festival at Lhasa they make in the cathedral an imposing array, not much less magnificent than that of the clergy in Rome; for the ancient simplicity of dress has disappeared in the growing differences of rank, and each division of the spiritual army is distinguished in Tibet, as in the West, by a special uniform. The political authority of the Dalai Lama is confined to Tibet itself, but he is the acknowledged head also of the Buddhist church throughout Mongolia and China. He has no supremacy over his co-religionists in Japan, and even in China there are many Buddhists who are not practically under his control or influence.

The best work on Lamaism is still Köppen's _Die Lamaische Hierarchie
und Kirche_ (Berlin, 1859). See also Bushell, "The Early History of
Tibet," in the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, 1879-1880, vol.
xii.; Sanang Setzen's _History of the East Mongols_ (in Mongolian,
translated into German by J. Schmidt, _Geschichte der Ost-Mongolen_);
"Analyse du Kandjur," by M. Léon Feer, in _Annales du Musée Gaimet_
(1881); Schott, _Ueber den Buddhismus in Hoch-Asien_; Gutzlaff,
_Geschichte des Chinesischen Reiches_; Hue and Gabet, _Souvenirs d'un
voyage dans la Tartarie, le Tibet, et la Chine_ (Paris, 1858);
Pallas's _Sammlung historischer Nachrichten über die Mongolischen
Völkerschaften_; Babu Sarat Chunder Das's "Contributions on the
Religion and History of Tibet," in the _Journal of the Bengal Asiatic
Society_, 1881; L. A. Waddell, _The Buddhism of Tibet_ (London, 1895);
A. H. Francke, _History of Western Tibet_ (London, 1907); A.
Grünwedel, _Mythologie des Buddhismus in Tibet und der Mongolei_
(Berlin, 1900). (T. W. R. D.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Watters's _Yuan Chwang_, edited by Rhys Davids and Bushell, i.
210, 356, 271.

[2] Published with facsimile and translation and notes in the
_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_ for 1879-1880, vol. xii.

[3] This statement representing the substantial and historical
position, is retained, in spite of the crises of March 1910, when the
Dalai Lama took refuge from the Chinese in India, and of 1904, when
the British expedition occupied Lhasa and the Dalai Lama fled to
China (see TIBET).

LAMALOU-LES-BAINS, a watering-place of southern France in the department of Hérault, 53½ m. W. of Montpellier by rail, in a valley of the southern Cévennes. Pop. (1906) 720. The waters, which are both hot and cold, are used in cases of rheumatism, sciatica, locomotor ataxy and nervous maladies.

LAMA-MIAO, or DOLON-NOR, a city of the province of Chih-li, China, 150 m. N. of Peking, in a barren sandy plain watered by the Urtingol, a tributary of the Shang-tu-ko. The town proper, almost exclusively occupied by Chinese, is about a mile in length by half a mile in breadth, has narrow and dirty streets, and contains a population of about 26,000. Unlike the ordinary Chinese town of the same rank, it is not walled. A busy trade is carried on between the Chinese and the Mongolians, who bring in their cattle, sheep, camels, hides and wool to barter for tea, tobacco, cotton and silk. At some distance from the Chinese town lies the Mongolian quarter, with two groups of lama temples and villages occupied by about 2300 priests. Dr Williamson (_Journeys in North China_, 1870) described the chief temple as a huge oblong building with an interior not unlike a Gothic church. Lama-miao is the seat of a manufactory of bronze idols and other articles of ritual, which find their way to all parts of Mongolia and Tibet. The craftsmen work in their own houses.

LAMAR, LUCIUS QUINTUS CINCINNATUS (1825-1893), American statesman and judge, was born at the old "Lamar Homestead," in Putnam county, Georgia, on the 17th of September 1825. His father, Lucius Q. C. Lamar (1797-1834), was an able lawyer, a judge of the superior court of Georgia, and the compiler of the _Laws of Georgia from 1810 to 1819_ (1821). In 1845 young Lamar graduated from Emory College (Oxford, Ga.), and in 1847 was admitted to the bar. In 1849 he removed to Oxford, Mississippi, and in 1850-1852 was adjunct professor of mathematics in the state university. In 1852 he removed to Covington, Ga., to practise law, and in 1853 was elected a member of the Georgia House of Representatives. In 1855 he returned to Mississippi, and two years later became a member of the National House of Representatives, where he served until December 1860, when he withdrew to become a candidate for election to the "secession" convention of Mississippi. He was elected to the convention, and drafted for it the Mississippi ordinance of secession. In the summer of 1860 he had accepted an appointment to the chair of ethics and metaphysics in the university of Mississippi, but, having been appointed a lieutenant-colonel in the Confederate Army in the spring of 1861, he resigned his professorship. The colonel of his regiment (Nineteenth Mississippi) was killed early in the battle of Williamsburg, on the 5th of May 1862, and the command then fell to Lamar, but in October he resigned from the army. In November 1862 he was appointed by President Jefferson Davis special commissioner of the Confederacy to Russia; but he did not proceed farther than Paris, and his mission was soon terminated by the refusal of the Confederate Senate to confirm his appointment. In 1866 he was again appointed to the chair of ethics and metaphysics in the university of Mississippi, and in the next year was transferred to the chair of law, but in 1870, Republicans having become trustees of the university upon the readmission of the state into the Union, he resigned. From 1873 to 1877 he was again a Democratic representative in Congress; from 1877 to 1885 he was a United States senator; from 1885 to January 1888 he was secretary of the interior; and from 1888 until his death at Macon, Ga., on the 23rd of January 1893, he was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. In Congress Lamar fought the silver and greenback craze and argued forcibly against the protective tariff; in the department of the interior he introduced various reforms; and on the Supreme Court bench his dissenting opinion in the _Neagle Case_ (based upon a denial that certain powers belonging to Congress, but not exercised, were by implication vested in the department of justice) is famous. But he is perhaps best known for the part he took after the Civil War in helping to effect a reconciliation between the North and the South. During the early secession movement he strove to arouse the white people of the South from their indifference, declaring that secession alone could save them from a doom similar to that of the former whites of San Domingo. He probably never changed his convictions as to the righteousness of the "lost cause"; but he accepted the result of the war as a final settlement of the differences leading to it, and strove to restore the South in the Union, and to effect the reunion of the nation in feeling as well as in government. This is in part seen from such speeches as his eulogy on Charles Sumner (27th of April 1874), his leadership in reorganizing the Democratic party of his own state, and his counsels of peace in the disputed presidential election of 1876.

See Edward Mayes, _Lucius Q. C. Lamar: His Life, Times and Speeches_
(Nashville, Tenn., 1896).

LAMARCK, JEAN BAPTISTE PIERRE ANTOINE DE MONET, CHEVALIER DE (1744-1829), French naturalist, was born on the 1st of August 1744, at Bazantin, a village of Picardy. He was an eleventh child; and his father, lord of the manor and of old family, but of limited means, having placed three sons in the army, destined this one for the church, and sent him to the Jesuits at Amiens, where he continued till his father's death. After this he would remain with the Jesuits no longer, and, not yet seventeen years of age, started for the seat of war at Bergen-op-Zoom, before which place one of his brothers had already been killed. Mounted on an old horse, with a boy from the village as attendant, and furnished by a lady with a letter of introduction to a colonel, he reached his destination on the evening before a battle. Next morning the colonel found that the new and very diminutive volunteer had posted himself in the front rank of a body of grenadiers, and could not be induced to quit the position. In the battle, the company which he had joined became exposed to the fire of the enemy's artillery, and in the confusion of retreat was forgotten. All the officers and subalterns were killed, and not more than fourteen men were left, when the oldest grenadiers seeing there were no more French in sight proposed to the young volunteer so soon become commandant to withdraw his men. This he refused to do without orders. These at last arrived; and for his bravery he was made an officer on the spot, and soon after was named to a lieutenancy.

After the peace, the regiment was sent to Monaco. There one of his comrades playfully lifted him by the head, and to this it was imputed that he was seized with disease of the glands of the neck, so severe as to put a stop to his military career. He went to Paris and began the study of medicine, supporting himself by working in a banker's office. He early became interested in meteorology and in physical and chemical speculations of a chimerical kind, but happily threw his main strength into botany, and in 1778 published his _Flore française_, a work in which by a dichotomous system of contrasting characters he enabled the student with facility to determine species. This work, which went through several editions and long kept the field, gained for its author immediate popularity as well as admission to the Academy of Sciences.

In 1781 and 1782, under the title of botanist to the king, an appointment obtained for him by Buffon, whose son accompanied him, he travelled through various countries of Europe, extending his knowledge of natural history; and on his return he began those elaborate contributions to botany on which his reputation in that science principally rests, namely, the _Dictionnaire de Botanique_ and the _Illustrations de Genres_, voluminous works contributed to the _Encyclopédie Méthodique_ (1785). In 1793, in consequence of changes in the organization of the natural history department at the Jardin du Roi, where he had held a botanical appointment since 1788, Lamarck was presented to a zoological chair, and called on to lecture on the _Insecta_ and _Vermes_ of Linnaeus, the animals for which he introduced the term _Invertebrata_. Thus driven, comparatively late in life, to devote his principal attention to zoology instead of botany, he had the misfortune soon after to suffer from impaired vision; and the malady resulted subsequently in total blindness. Yet his greatest zoological work, the _Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres_, was published from 1815 to 1822, with the assistance, in the last two volumes, of his eldest daughter and of P. A. Latreille (1762-1833). A volume of plates of the fossil shells of the neighbourhood of Paris was collected in 1823 from his memoirs in the _Annales des Muséums_. He died on the 18th of December 1829.

The character of Lamarck as a naturalist is remarkable alike for its excellences and its defects. His excellences were width of scope, fertility of ideas and a pre-eminent faculty of precise description, arising not only from a singularly terse style, but from a clear insight into both the distinctive features and the resemblances of forms. That part of his zoological work which constitutes his solid claim to the highest honour as a zoologist is to be found in his extensive and detailed labours in the departments of living and fossil _Invertebrata_. His endeavours at classification of the great groups were necessarily defective on account of the imperfect knowledge possessed in his time in regard to many of them, e.g. echinoderms, ascidians and intestinal worms; yet they are not without interest, particularly on account of the comprehensive attempt to unite in one great division as _Articulata_ all those groups that appeared to present a segmented construction. Moreover, Lamarck was the first to distinguish vertebrate from invertebrate animals by the presence of a vertebral column, and among the Invertebrata to found the groups _Crustacea_, _Arachnida_ and _Annelida_. In 1785 (_Hist. del' Acad._) he evinced his appreciation of the necessity of natural orders in botany by an attempt at the classification of plants, interesting, though crude and falling immeasurably short of the system which grew in the hands of his intimate friend A. L. de Jussieu. The problem of taxonomy has never been put more philosophically than he subsequently put it in his _Animaux sans vertèbres_: "What arrangement must be given to the general distribution of animals to make it conformable to the order of nature in the production of these beings?"

The most prominent defect in Lamarck must be admitted to have been want of control in speculation. Doubtless the speculative tendency furnished a powerful incentive to work, but it outran the legitimate deductions from observation, and led him into the production of volumes of worthless chemistry without experimental basis, as well as into spending much time on fruitless meteorological predictions. His _Annuaires Météorologiques_ were published yearly from 1800 to 1810, and were not discontinued until after an unnecessarily public and brutal tirade from Napoleon, administered on the occasion of being presented with one of his works on natural history.

To the general reader the name of Lamarck is chiefly interesting on account of his theory of the origin of life and of the diversities of animal forms. The idea, which appears to have been favoured by Buffon before him, that species were not through all time unalterable, and that the more complex might have been developed from pre-existent simpler forms, became with Lamarck a belief or, as he imagined, a demonstration. Spontaneous generation, he considered, might be easily conceived as resulting from such agencies as heat and electricity causing in small gelatinous bodies an utricular structure, and inducing a "singular tension," a kind of "éréthisme" or "orgasme"; and, having thus accounted for the first appearance of life, he explained the whole organization of animals and formation of different organs by four laws (introduction to his _Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres_, 1815):--

1. "Life by its proper forces tends continually to increase the volume
of every body possessing it, and to enlarge its parts, up to a limit
which it brings about.

2. "The production of a new organ in an animal body results from the
supervention of a new want (_besoin_) continuing to make itself felt,
and a new movement which this want gives birth to and encourages.

3. "The development of organs and their force of action are constantly
in ratio to the employment of these organs.

4. "All which has been acquired, laid down, or changed in the
organization of individuals in the course of their life is conserved
by generation and transmitted to the new individuals which proceed
from those which have undergone those changes."

The second law is often referred to as Lamarck's hypothesis of the evolution of organs in animals by appetence or longing, although he does not teach that the animal's desires affect its conformation directly, but that altered wants lead to altered habits, which result in the formation of new organs as well as in modification, growth or dwindling of those previously existing. Thus, he suggests that, ruminants being pursued by carnivora, their legs have grown slender; and, their legs being only fit for support, while their jaws are weak, they have made attack with the crown of the head, and the determination of fluids thither has led to the growth of horns. So also the stretching of the giraffe's neck to reach the foliage he supposes to have led to its elongation; and the kangaroo, sitting upright to support the young in its pouch, he imagines to have had its fore-limbs dwarfed by disuse, and its hind legs and tail exaggerated by using them in leaping. The fourth law expresses the inheritance of acquired characters, which is denied by August Weismann and his followers. For a more detailed account of Lamarck's place in the history of the doctrine of evolution, see EVOLUTION.

LA MARGHERITA, CLEMENTE SOLARO, COUNT DEL (1792-1869), Piedmontese statesman, was born at Mondovi. He studied law at Siena and Turin, but Piedmont was at that time under French domination, and being devoted to the house of Savoy he refused to take his degree, as this proceeding would have obliged him to recognize the authority of the usurper; after the restoration of the Sardinian kingdom, however, he graduated. In 1816 he entered the diplomatic service. Later he returned to Turin, and succeeded in gaining the confidence and esteem of King Charles Albert, who in 1835 appointed him minister of foreign affairs. A fervent Roman Catholic, devoted to the pope and to the Jesuits, friendly to Austria and firmly attached to the principles of autocracy, he strongly opposed every attempt at political innovation, and was in consequence bitterly hated by the liberals. When the popular agitation in favour of constitutional reform first broke out the king felt obliged to dispense with La Margherita's services, although he had conducted public affairs with considerable ability and absolute loyalty, even upholding the dignity of the kingdom in the face of the arrogant attitude of the cabinet of Vienna. He expounded his political creed and his policy as minister to Charles Albert (from February 1835 to October 1847) in his _Memorandum storico-politico_, published in 1851, a document of great interest for the study of the conditions of Piedmont and Italy at that time. In 1853 he was elected deputy for San Quirico, but he persisted in regarding his mandate as derived from the royal authority rather than as an emanation of the popular will. As leader of the Clerical Right in the parliament he strongly opposed Cavour's policy, which was eventually to lead to Italian unity, and on the establishment of the kingdom of Italy he retired from public life.

LA MARMORA, ALFONSO FERRERO (1804-1878), Italian general and statesman, was born at Turin on the 18th of November 1804. He entered the Sardinian army in 1823, and was a captain in March 1848, when he gained distinction and the rank of major at the siege of Peschiera. On the 5th of August 1848 he liberated Charles Albert, king of Sardinia, from the Milan revolutionaries, and in October was promoted general and appointed minister of war. After suppressing the revolt of Genoa in 1849, he again assumed in November 1849 the portfolio of war, which, save during the period of his command of the Crimean expedition, he retained until 1859. Having reconstructed the Piedmontese army, he took part in the war of 1859 against Austria; and in July of that year succeeded Cavour in the premiership. In 1860 he was sent to Berlin and St Petersburg to arrange for the recognition of the kingdom of Italy, and subsequently he held the offices of governor of Milan and royal lieutenant at Naples, until, in September 1864, he succeeded Minghetti as premier. In this capacity he modified the scope of the September Convention by a note in which he claimed for Italy full freedom of action in respect of national aspirations to the possession of Rome, a document of which Visconti Venosta afterwards took advantage when justifying the Italian occupation of Rome in 1870. In April 1866 La Marmora concluded an alliance with Prussia against Austria, and, on the outbreak of war in June, took command of an army corps, but was defeated at Custozza on the 23rd of June. Accused of treason by his fellow-countrymen, and of duplicity by the Prussians, he eventually published in defence of his tactics (1873) a series of documents entitled _Un po' più di luce sugli eventi dell' anno_ 1866 (More light on the events of 1866) a step which caused irritation in Germany, and exposed him to the charge of having violated state secrets. Meanwhile he had been sent to Paris in 1867 to oppose the French expedition to Rome, and in 1870, after the occupation of Rome by the Italians, had been appointed lieutenant-royal of the new capital. He died at Florence on the 5th of January 1878. La Marmora's writings include _Un episodio del risorgimento italiano_ (Florence, 1875); and _I segreti di stato nel governo constituzionale_ (Florence, 1877).

See G. Massani, _Il generale Alfonso La Marmora_ (Milan, 1880).

LAMARTINE, ALPHONSE MARIE LOUIS DE PRAT DE (1790-1869), French poet, historian and statesman, was born at Mâcon on the 21st of October 1790. The order of his surnames is a controversial matter, and they are sometimes reversed. The family of Lamartine was good, and the title of Prat was taken from an estate in Franche Comté. His father was imprisoned during the Terror, and only released owing to the events of the 9th Thermidor. Lamartine's early education was received from his mother. He was sent to school at Lyons in 1805, but not being happy there was transferred to the care of the Pères de la Foi at Belley, where he remained until 1809. For some time afterwards he lived at home, reading romantic and poetical literature, but in 1811 he set out for Italy, where he seems to have sojourned nearly two years. His family having been steady royalists, he entered the Gardes du corps at the return of the Bourbons, and during the Hundred Days he sought refuge first in Switzerland and then at Aix-en-Savoie, where he fell in love, with abundant results of the poetical kind. After Waterloo he returned to Paris. In 1818-1819 he revisited Switzerland, Savoy and Italy, the death of his beloved affording him new subjects for verse. After some difficulties he had his first book, the _Méditations, poétiques et religieuses_, published (1820). It was exceedingly popular, and helped him to make a position. He had left the army for some time; he now entered the diplomatic service and was appointed secretary to the embassy at Naples. On his way to his post he married, in 1823, at Geneva a young English lady, Marianne Birch, who had both money and beauty, and in the same year his _Nouvelles méditations poétiques_ appeared.

In 1824 he was transferred to Florence, where he remained five years. His _Last Canto of Childe Harold_ appeared in 1825, and he had to fight a duel (in which he was wounded) with an Italian officer, Colonel Pepe, in consequence of a phrase in it. Charles X., on whose coronation he wrote a poem, gave him the order of the Legion of Honour. The _Harmonies poétiques et religieuses_ appeared in 1829, when he had left Florence. Having refused an appointment in Paris under the Polignac ministry, he went on a special mission to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. In the same year he was elected to the Academy. Lamartine was in Switzerland, not in Paris, at the time of the Revolution of July, and, though he put forth a pamphlet on "Rational Policy," he did not at that crisis take any active part in politics, refusing, however, to continue his diplomatic services under the new government. In 1832 he set out with his wife and daughter for Palestine, having been unsuccessful in his candidature for a seat in the chamber. His daughter Julia died at Beirut, and before long he received the news of his election by a constituency (Bergues) in the department of the Nord. He returned through Turkey and Germany, and made his first speech shortly after the beginning of 1834. Thereafter he spoke constantly, and acquired considerable reputation as an orator,--bringing out, moreover, many books in prose and verse. His Eastern travels (_Voyage en Orient_) appeared in 1835, his _Chute d'un ange_ and _Jocelyn_ in 1837, and his _Recueillements_, the last remarkable volume of his poetry, in 1839. As the reign of Louis Philippe went on, Lamartine, who had previously been a liberal royalist, something after the fashion of Chateaubriand, became more and more democratic in his opinions. He set about his greatest prose work, the _Histoire des Girondins_, which at first appeared periodically, and was published as a whole in 1847. Like many other French histories, it was a pamphlet as well as a chronicle, and the subjects of Lamartine's pen became his models in politics.

At the revolution of February Lamartine was one of the first to declare for a provisional government, and became a member of it, with the post of minister for foreign affairs. He was elected for the new constituent assembly in ten different departments, and was chosen one of the five members of the Executive Committee. For a few months indeed Lamartine, from being a distinguished man of letters, an official of inferior rank in diplomacy, and an eloquent but unpractical speaker in parliament, became one of the foremost men in Europe. His inexperience in the routine work of government, the utterly unpractical nature of his colleagues, and the turbulence of the Parisian mob, proved fatal to his chances. He gave some proofs of statesmanlike ability, and his eloquence was repeatedly called into requisition to pacify the Parisians. But no one can permanently carry on the government of a great country by speeches from the balcony of a house in the capital, and Lamartine found himself in a dilemma. So long as he held aloof from Ledru-Rollin and the more radical of his colleagues, the disunion resulting weakened the government; as soon as he effected an approximation to them the middle classes fell off from him. The quelling of the insurrection of the 15th of May was his last successful act. A month later the renewal of active disturbances brought on the fighting of June, and Lamartine's influence was extinguished in favour of Cavaignac. Moreover, his chance of renewed political pre-eminence was gone. He had been tried and found wanting, having neither the virtues nor the vices of his situation. In January 1849, though he was nominated for the presidency, only a few thousand votes were given to him, and three months later he was not even elected to the Legislative Assembly.

The remaining story of Lamartine's life is somewhat melancholy. He had never been a rich man, nor had he been a saving one, and during his period of popularity and office he had incurred great expenses. He now set to work to repair his fortune by unremitting literary labour. He brought out in the _Presse_ (1849) a series of _Confidences_, and somewhat later a kind of autobiography, entitled _Raphael_. He wrote several historical works of more or less importance, the _History of the Revolution of 1848_, _The History of the Restoration_, _The History of Turkey_, _The History of Russia_, besides a large number of small biographical and miscellaneous works. In 1858 a subscription was opened for his benefit. Two years afterwards, following the example of Chateaubriand, he supervised an elaborate edition of his own works in forty-one volumes. This occupied five years, and while he was engaged on it his wife died (1863). He was now over seventy; his powers had deserted him, and even if they had not the public taste had entirely changed. His efforts had not succeeded in placing him in a position of independence; and at last, in 1867, the government of the Empire (from which he had perforce stood aloof, though he never considered it necessary to adopt the active protesting attitude of Edgar Quinet and Victor Hugo) came to his assistance, a vote of £20,000 being proposed in April of that year for his benefit by Émile Ollivier. This was creditable to both parties, for Lamartine, both as a distinguished man of letters and as a past servant of the state, had every claim to the bounty of his country. But he was reproached for accepting it by the extreme republicans and irreconcilables. He did not enjoy it long, dying on the 28th of February 1869.

As a statesman Lamartine was placed during his brief tenure of office
in a position from which it would have been almost impossible for any
man, who was not prepared and able to play the dictator, to emerge
with credit. At no time in history were unpractical crotchets so rife
in the heads of men as in 1848. But Lamartine could hardly have guided
the ship of state safely even in much calmer weather. He was amiable
and even estimable, the chief fault of his character being vanity and
an incurable tendency towards theatrical effect, which makes his
travels, memoirs and other personal records as well as his historical
works radically untrustworthy. Nor does it appear that he had any
settled political ideas. He did good by moderating the revolutionary
and destructive ardour of the Parisian populace in 1848; but he had
been perhaps more responsible than any other single person for
bringing about the events of that year by the vague and frothy
republican declamation of his _Histoire des Girondins_.

More must be said of his literary position. Lamartine had the
advantage of coming at a time when the literary field, at least in the
departments of belles lettres, was almost empty. The feeble school of
descriptive writers, epic poets of the extreme decadence, fabulists
and miscellaneous verse-makers, which the Empire had nourished could
satisfy no one. Madame de Staël was dead; Chateaubriand, though alive,
was something of a classic, and had not effected a full revolution.
Lamartine did not himself go the complete length of the Romantic
revival, but he went far in that direction. He availed himself of the
reviving interest in legitimism and Catholicism which was represented
by Bonald and Joseph de Maistre, of the nature worship of Rousseau and
Bernardin de Saint Pierre, of the sentimentalism of Madame de Staël,
of the medievalism and the romance of Chateaubriand and Scott, of the
_maladie du siècle_ of Chateaubriand and Byron. Perhaps if his matter
be very closely analysed it will be found that he added hardly
anything of his own. But if the parts of the mixture were like other
things the mixture itself was not. It seemed indeed to the immediate
generation so original that tradition has it that the _Méditations_
were refused by a publisher because they were in none of the accepted
styles. They appeared when Lamartine was nearly thirty years old. The
best of them, and the best thing that Lamartine ever did, is the
famous _Lac_, describing his return to the little mountain tarn of Le
Bourget after the death of his mistress, with whom he had visited it
in other days. The verse is exquisitely harmonious, the sentiments
conventional but refined and delicate, the imagery well chosen and
gracefully expressed. There is an unquestionable want of vigour, but
to readers of that day the want of vigour was entirely compensated by
the presence of freshness and grace. Lamartine's chief misfortune in
poetry was not only that his note was a somewhat weak one, but that he
could strike but one. The four volumes of the _Méditations_, the
_Harmonies_ and the _Recueillements_, which contained the prime of his
verse, are perhaps the most monotonous reading to be found anywhere in
work of equal bulk by a poet of equal talent. They contain nothing but
meditative lyrical pieces, almost any one of which is typical of the
whole, though there is considerable variation of merit. The two
narrative poems which succeeded the early lyrics, _Jocelyn_ and the
_Chute d'un ange_, were, according to Lamartine's original plan, parts
of a vast "Epic of the Ages," some further fragments of which survive.
_Jocelyn_ had at one time more popularity in England than most French
verse. _La Chute d'un ange_, in which the Byronic influence is more
obvious than in any other of Lamartine's works, and in which some have
also seen that of Alfred de Vigny, is more ambitious in theme, and
less regulated by scrupulous conditions of delicacy in handling, than
most of its author's poetry. It does, however, little more than prove
that such audacities were not for him.

As a prose writer Lamartine was very fertile. His characteristics in
his prose fiction and descriptive work are not very different from
those of his poetry. He is always and everywhere sentimental, though
very frequently, as in his shorter prose tales (_The Stone Mason of
Saint-Point_, _Graziella_, &c.), he is graceful as well as
sentimental. In his histories the effect is worse. It has been hinted
that Lamartine's personal narratives are doubtfully trustworthy; with
regard to his Eastern travels some of the episodes were stigmatized as
mere inventions. In his histories proper the special motive for
embellishment disappears, but the habit of inaccuracy remains. As an
historian he belongs exclusively to the rhetorical school as
distinguished from the philosophical on the one hand and the
documentary on the other.

It is not surprising when these characteristics of Lamartine's work
are appreciated to find that his fame declined with singular rapidity
in France. As a poet he had lost his reputation many years before he
died. He was entirely eclipsed by the brilliant and vigorous school
who succeeded him with Victor Hugo at their head. His power of
initiative in poetry was very small, and the range of poetic ground
which he could cover strictly limited. He could only carry the
picturesque sentimentalism of Rousseau, Bernardin de Saint Pierre and
Chateaubriand a little farther, and clothe it in language and verse a
little less antiquated than that of Chênedollé and Millevoye. He has
been said to be a French Cowper, and the parallel holds good in
respect of versification and of his relative position to the more
daringly innovating school that followed, though not in respect of
individual peculiarities. Lamartine in short occupied a kind of
half-way house between the 18th century and the Romantic movement, and
he never got any farther. When Matthew Arnold questioned his
importance in conversation with Sainte-Beuve, the answer was, "He is
important to _us_," and it was a true answer; but the limitation is
obvious. In more recent years, however, efforts have been made by
Brunetière and others to remove it. The usual revolution of critical
as of other taste, the oblivion of personal and political
unpopularity, and above all the reaction against Hugo and the extreme
Romantics, have been the main agents in this. Lamartine has been
extolled as a pattern of combined passion and restraint, as a model of
nobility of sentiment, and as a harmonizer of pure French classicism
in taste and expression with much, if not all, the better part of
Romanticism itself. These oscillations of opinion are frequent, if not
universal, and it is only after more than one or two swings that the
pendulum remains at the perpendicular. The above remarks are an
attempt to correct extravagance in either direction. But it is
difficult to believe that Lamartine can ever permanently take rank
among the first order of poets.