1856.] as Knowledge, Discipline, and Power. 191 



of Cuvier's own arguments and analyzing it ; and in the second place, 

 bringing other considerations to bear. 



Cuvier says — " It is readily intelligible that ungulate animals 

 must all be herbivorous, since they possess no means of seizing a 

 prey (1). We see very easily also, that the only use of their fore feet 

 being to support their bodies, they have no need of so strongly 

 formed a shoulder ; whence follows the absence of clavicles (2) and 

 acromion, and the narrowness of the scapula. No longer having any 

 need to turn their fore-arm, the radius will be united with the ulna, 

 or least articulated by a ginglymus and not arthrodially with the 

 humerus (^3). Their herbivorous diet will require teeth, with flat 

 crowns, to bruise up the grain and herbage ; these crowns must needs 

 be unequal, and to this end enamel must alternate with bony mat- 

 ter (4) ; such a kind of crown requiring horizontal movements for 

 trituration, the condyle of the jaw must not form so close a hinge as in 

 the carnivora ; it must be flattened ; and this entails a correspondingly 

 flattened temporal facet. The temporal fossa which will have to 

 receive only a small temporal muscle will be shallow and narrow(5)." 

 The various propositions are here marked with numbers, to 

 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 

 forelegs 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 pre- 

 sent 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. 

 Let us select another then ; on the table is a piece of carbonifer- 

 ous shale, bearing the impression of an animal long since extinct. 

 It is a mere impression of the external form, but this is amply 

 sufficient to enable us to be morally certain that if we had a living 

 specimen, we should find its jaws, if it had any, moving sideways 

 — that its hard skeleton formed a sheath outside its muscles — that 

 its nervous system was turned downwards when it walked — that the 

 heart was placed on the opposite side of the body — that if it 

 possessed special respiratory organs, they were gills, &c. &c. 



In fact we have in the outward form abundant material for the 



Vol. II. o 



