492 Dr. Falconer on Cuvier's Laios of Correlation,^i^ 



present both the Placental and Marsupial classes of Mammalia* 

 {i. e. the former Placental, the latter Marsupial) . 



In all the sciences of observation, a great part of our know- 

 ledge, at an early stage, is, and must needs be, empirical. It is 

 the same in physics as in natural history. But the constant 

 effort of every philosophical mind is to extinguish the empirical 

 character of the phsenomena, and bring them within the range 

 of a rational explanation. Every successful effort of this kind 

 is regarded as so much fertile land reclaimed from the sterile 

 domain of the ocean ; and there is an irrepressible revulsion of 

 feeling on seeing the dykes breached for a fresh submergence. 

 In astronomy, Kepler^s laws of the planetary motions re- 

 mained for upwards of a century purely empirical; but at 

 length they were proved to be a necessary consequence of the 

 Newtonian system. Bode's law of the progression of the mag- 

 nitudes of the planetary orbits still remains empirical. In phy- 

 siology, animal heat, and the phsenomena of sensation and 

 voluntary motion, remained for many ages purely empirical. 

 The most untiring application was devoted to them until the 

 problems were, in a greater or less degree, rationally solved. 

 The name of Charles Bell is imperishably connected with one of 

 these solutions; for m.ankind has invariably received with a 

 grateful triumph every instance where the demonstration of a 

 great principle has superseded empirical darkness ; and such 

 was the feeling with which it recognized Cuvier^s announcement 

 and demonstration of the zoological laws of reciprocal relation 

 as furnishing a guide in the reconstruction of extinct vertebrate 

 forms. It is a rare spectacle to see empiricism chosen by pre- 

 ference. 



Considering the pre-eminent services of Cuvier and the esti- 

 mation in which they have hitherto been held, it might have 

 been expected that Professor Huxley, in placing himself in 

 collision with such an antagonist, would have taken every pains 

 to arrive at an accurate appreciation of the position which he 

 combated, and that he would have stated the case impartially ; 

 '^ modeste tamen et circumspecto judicio de tantis viris pro- 

 nuntiandum est.^' But we fail to detect the indications of 

 either. The case is only put in part, and the luminous ex- 

 position of the great anatomist is met by special pleading, and 

 technical or light objections, beside the real scope of the argu- 

 ment. The result is, that after the encounter the law of cor- 

 relation stands exactly as Cuvier found and left it, — inscribed by 

 nature in indelible characters on the organization of every living 

 and extinct vertebrate form, and wholly uninjured by its latest 

 assailant. 



<. » „ ,;r , r , T ..1., ?iiiii baa 



* Lydl, Manual, 5th edit. p. tilJ. 



