ZOOLOGICAL REMARKS. 25 



and defined the exterior : * I will investigate,' he said, ' the 

 interior ' : they ought to correspond : there must be inti- 

 mate relations between them : anatomical co-relations. 

 Seemingly, and without being aware of it, he had discovered 

 a new element of research descriptive anatomy ; not the 

 vague comparative anatomy of Perrault or Daubenton, but 

 minute descriptive anatomy worthy of Hunter and of him- 

 self. 



" Yet he was very young, and knew nothing of Hunter 

 and but little of Daubenton. Genius directed his steps, 

 that genius which, when it appears, and happily escapes 

 the crushing influences ' of established socialisms ' is sure 

 to form a new era. Like most of the great men of his day 

 (products of the French Revolution) he had outstripped 

 in his merest youth the age he lived in, and rapidly shot 

 beyond that which was to follow. 



" Cuvier's early pursuits were the rectification, by means 

 of anatomy, of the classifications of Buffon and Linne ; 

 but he quickly, as it were instinctively, passed beyond this 

 comparatively narrow field into one which has no limits. 

 Whilst pursuing his enquiries on the structure of the inver- 

 tebrate kingdom, he soon saw that the animal forms he 

 dissected differed specifically and generically from those 

 fossil forms which lay around him. Palissy, the potter, 

 had seen the same ; Buffon had announced the fact : they 

 were declared to be dreamers. Cuvier offered to mankind 

 the Ossemens Fossiles in proof that they were so, and from 

 that moment to the present day few have had the hardihood 

 to deny the proof : none but those who regard the New- 

 tonian demonstration as an idle unprofitable dream. 



" The importance thus given to Zoological studies and 

 pursuits by the application of the anatomical method in 



