608 TAXONOMY. 



344. 



These were the systems of the preceding century. But the whole 

 science of zoology, and consequently, therefore, entomology? was 

 involved in a great and advantageous revolution, promoted by the 

 general impulse towards a natural system, and which was especially 

 stimulated by anatomical studies. Blumenbach, by the publication of 

 his comparative anatomy, had conducted naturalists to this we may 

 almost say new field, and its elaboration was now commenced with zeal. 

 Hence was developed the zootomical tendency of zoology, and which 

 possessed in Cuvier its most distinguished and universally revered 

 representative. It took, lastly, a physiological direction, which did 

 not, like the former, merely regard form, but inspected the entire 

 essence of which form is merely the expression. The Litter con- 

 sequently reposes upon the zootomical, and without which it cannot 

 be brought to bear, but its tendency to secure us from one-sidedness, 

 to which the latter so easily leads, is its very greatest advantage. It is 

 also called the philosophical system, and justly, for the path it pursues 

 is more philosophical, in as far as it seeks to explain the composite 

 from the simple, and endeavours to refer the former back to this. But 

 its foundation being physiology, it justly merits its first name. Oken 

 and his system are the representatives of this method. 



345. 



The first new division of animals was proposed about this time by 

 Cuvier (George Leopold Christian Frederick Dagobert, born 1769 at 

 Miimpelgarde, in Alsatia, died at Paris in 1832), and actually executed 

 in his ' Traite Elementaire'. Insects are here still treated according to 

 the system of Linnaeus, but yet the subsequent divisions are indicated 

 in the grouping of the orders. The first of these divisions, namely, 

 the separation of insects into two equivalent classes, was executed 

 some years later in the Tables appended to his Comparative Anatomy, 

 where he separated those with distinct blood-vessels as Crustacea, but 

 left all the rest united as Insecta. 



In the interim, another French naturalist, who afterwards acquired 

 the highest fame in entomology, namely, P. A. Latreille (born 1762 

 at Brives) published a new division of insects*, which differs from 



* Precis dcs Curacteres fiem'riqiies ties I nscctrs. Drives, 17.%. ffvo. 



