190 Mr. Huxley, on Natural History, [Feb. 15, 



type of the human mind, which everywhere looms upon us through 

 nature ? The reply of natural history is clearly in the negative. 

 She tells us that utilitarian adaptation to purpose is not the 

 greatest principle worked out in nature, and that its value, even as 

 an instrument of research, has been enormously overrated. 



How is it then, that not only in popular works, but in the 

 writings of men of deservedly high authority, we find the opposite 

 dogma — that the principle of adaptation of means to ends is the 

 great instrument of research in natural history — enunciated as an 

 axiom ? If we trace out the doctrine to its fountain head, we shall 

 find that it was primarily put forth by Cuvier — the prince of 

 modern naturalists. Is it to be supposed then that Cuvier did not 

 himself understand the methods by wliich he arrived at his great 

 results? that his master-mind misconceived its own processes? 

 This conclusion appears to be not a little presumptuous ; but if the 

 following arguments be justly reasoned out, it is correct. 



In the famous " Discours sur les Revolutions de la Surface du 

 Globe," after speaking of the difficulties in the way of the restora- 

 tion of vertebrate fossils, Cuvier goes on to say — 



" Happily, comparative anatomy possesses a principle whose just 

 development is sufficient to dissipate all difficulties ; it is that of the 

 correlation of forms in organized beings, by means of which every 

 kind of organized being might, strictly speaking, be recognised by 

 a fragment of any of its parts. 



" Every organized being constitutes a whole, a single and com- 

 plete system, whose parts mutually correspond, and concur, by 

 their reciprocal reaction, to the same definitive end. None of these 

 parts can be changed without affecting the others ; and consequently, 

 each taken separately indicates and gives all the rest." 



After this Cuvier gives his well-known examples of the correla- 

 tion of the parts of a carnivore, too long for extract ; and of which 

 therefore his summation merely will be given : — 



" In a word, the form of the tooth involves that of the condyle ; 

 that of the shoulder blade ; that of the claws : just as the equation of 

 a curve involves all its properties. And just as by taking each pro- 

 perty separately and making it the base of a separate equation, we 

 should obtain both the ordinary equation, and all other properties 

 whatsoever which it possesses ; so, in the same way, the claw, the 

 scapula, the condyle, the femur, and all the other bones taken 

 separately will give the tooth, or one another ; and by commencing 

 with any one, he who had a rational conception of the laws of the 

 organic economy, could reconstruct the whole animal." 



Thus far Cuvier : and thus far and no further, it seems that the 

 compilers, and copyers, andpopularizers, and id genus omne, proceed 

 in the study of him. And so it is handed down from book to book, 

 that all Cuvier's restorations of extinct animals were effected by 

 means of the principle of the physiological correlation of organs. 



Now let us examine this principle ; taking in the first place, one 



