Scientific Reviews. 37 



Revietv of the recent Discussion, before the Academy of Sciences 

 . in Paris, on the " Unity of Organization." Part 1. — Baron 

 . Cuvier's Views. 



The proposition, that the organization of the higher animals can 

 be reduced to an uniform type, supported by Mr. Geoffroy St. Hi- 

 lairej depends on the " theory of analogies," the " principal of con- 

 nexions," what the author calls the " elective affinities of the orga- 

 nic elements," and the " balancing of organs." 



The first of these principles constitutes the basis of the doctrines 

 of Aristotle, but having to depend, for its existence, rather upon 

 reflection than demonstration, it was not applied to practical pur- 

 poses, till regenerated by St. Hilaire, who asserted that it is not 

 always the organs in their totality, but the materials of which each 

 organ is composed, that may be reduced to identity. Consider- 

 ing that form was fugitive among animals, and therefore not a 

 true ground for analogy, the same zoologist made all his researches 

 bear upon the mutual, necessary, and consequently invariable de- 

 pendence of parts, — which he named the " principle of connex- 

 ions." The principle by which the materials of organization group 

 together to form an organ, he expressed by the term " elective 

 affinity of organic elements ;" and the law, in virtue of which no 

 normal or pathological organ can acquire an extraordinary deve- 

 lopement, without another in its system or its relations suffering 

 in the same ratio, is the " balancing of organs." It was upon the 

 extension of a lofty philosophy, founded upon mere anatomical 

 considerations, that Geoffroy St. Hilaire established his views of 

 the structure of the organs of respiration," and of the vertebral 

 column, and subsequently traced an unity in the most disorderly 

 and the most anomalous organization, that of monsters. 



M. St. Hilaire having given a favourable report to the Acade- 

 my of Sciences on a memoir of Messrs. Laurencet and Meyraut, 

 tending to prove, that the organization of the Crustacea, and more 

 especially that of the mollusca, offers nothing that is not in har- 

 mony with what is presented by the remainder of the animal king- 

 dom. Baron Cuvier took occasion to state that he had not changed 

 his opinion on the manner in which the animals in question should 

 be considered. Admitting the approximation of the mollusca to 

 the vertebrated animals, in number and diversity of parts, he con- 

 tinued to oppose the idea that their organization is composed in 

 the same manner, or arranged according to the same plan^ 



On entering more at length on the examination of these views, 

 M. Cuvier, in the first place, exposed the circumstances which 

 led to this discussion, and then stated his objection to the theory of 

 M. St. Hilaire. 



It appears that two young and ingenious observers, in studying the 

 respective position of the viscera of the Cephalopoda, have thought 

 that one might find between these viscera an arrangement like that 



