Lamarck was a synthetic philosopher.

He had been brought up in the encyclopaedic period of learning.

He had from his early manhood been deeply interested in physical subjects.

In middle age he probably lived a very retired life, did not mingle with his compeers or discuss his views with them.
So that when he came to publish them, he found not a single supporter.
His speculations were received in silence and not deemed worthy of discussion.
A very just and discriminating judge of Lamarck's work, Professor Cleland, thus refers to his writings on physics and chemistry: "The most prominent defect in Lamarck must be admitted, quite apart from all consideration of the famous hypothesis which bears his name, 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 in fruitless meteorological predictions." (_Encyc.