4)80 Dr. Falconer on Cuvier's Laws of Correlationy 



avoid repetition ; and it is easy to show that not one is really 

 based on a necessary physiological law : — 



"(1.) Why should not ungulate animals be carrion -feeders ? 

 or even, if living animals were their prey^ surely a horse could 

 run down and destroy other animals with at least as much ease 

 as a wolf. 



" (2, 3.) But what purpose, save support, is subserved by the 

 fore-legs of the Dog and Wolf ? how large are their clavicles ? 

 how much power have they of rotating the fore-arm ? (4, 5.) The 

 Sloth is purely herbivorous, but its teeth present no trace of any 

 such alternation of substance. 



"Again, what difference exists in structure of tooth, in the 

 shape of the condyle of the jaw, and in that of the temporal fossa, 

 between the herbivorous and carnivorous Bears ? If Bears were 

 only known to exist in the fossil state, would any anatomist 

 venture to conclude from the skull and teeth alone, that the 

 white bear is naturally carnivorous, while the brown bear is 

 naturally frugivorous ? Assuredly not ; and thus, in the case of 

 Cuvier's own selection, we see that his arguments are absolutely 

 devoid of conclusive force.^^ 



Our first remark is, where and by whom has the principle of 

 the "utilitarian^ adaptation to purpose" been used as an instru- 

 ment of research ? Mr. Huxley avers that its value as such has 

 been enormously overrated ! If so, by whom has it been ever 

 used ? From the prevalence of adaptations and mechanisms in 

 nature, suited to the production of certain ends, we reason up 

 to the agency of an all-wise, powerful and benevolent Designer. 

 But the inference is a product, not an instrument of the research ; 

 and to call it the latter, is simply a misuse of terms. 



The same objection applies to what Mr. Huxley designates 

 as "the opposite dogma — that the principle of adaptation of 

 means to ends is the great instrument of research in natural 

 history.'^ The generalization in this case also is a result, not an 

 instrument f of the research. 



Mr. Huxley contrasts the two as opposite dogmas. Wherein, 

 we would ask, lies the opposition ? Hot and cold, dry and moist, 

 sweet and sour, are in ordinary language opposites; and in 

 medicine, theorists speak of the opposite dogmas of the humoral 

 and mechanical, the chemical and vital pathologies. They are 

 obviously opposed, because the one is inconsistent with, and of a 

 contrary nature to, the other. But there is nothing of like 

 opposition and incompatibility in the two dogmas or principles 

 as enunciated by Mr. Huxley. So far from such being the case, 

 the first is merely a more advanced stage of the second. In the 



* The employment of the term in this sense is by Mr. Huxley. 



