Lamarck and the general aura of his ideas is somewhat ridiculed these days (if not during his time as well). The main concept of the Lamarckian hypothesis is that the ‘will’ of organisms is passed on to future generations. Funny as this may sound the evolutionarty context under which this idea is important displays an important shift from the popular ’strucuralism’ of the era (’a wing is made in a way that allows the bird to fly’) to a functionalistic principle in which evolution is governed by ‘function’ and subsequently adaptation. Under this perspective changes in the environment come first, ‘will’ of organisms follows and leads to evolution.

In a sense quite neat…