16*4 On the Animals represented 



by Anacreon as facts, which had only been unveiled to him in a 

 kind of rapture, whilst, in the school of Socrates, to which Plato 

 and Aristotle contributed so much splendour, they had been 

 arranged into a general system. Truth, then, sometimes appears 

 to men of genius as in a dream, and they exhibit it previous to 

 its demonstration. 



The principle of the concatenation of forms had, we say, been 

 erected into a general system in the school of Socrates ; we may 

 at least suppose so, when we see this philosopher conceive the 

 principle of final causes, and maintain, that, in nature, every- 

 thing in its place contributes to the harmony of the whole, and 

 to the formation of the grand chain which ascends from the 

 rudest animals to God himself. 



This principle is the same with that of the conditions of ex- 

 istence, — or that of the suitableness of parts, and of their ar- 

 rangement in harmony with the part the animal has to fulfil in 

 nature; an important principle, as we have before observed, 

 whence results the possibility of certain resemblances, and the 

 impossibility of certain others, — a principle truly reasonable, 

 whence that of analogy of plan and composition is deduced with 

 an accuracy which demonstrates its justice. 



No principle so true and so general has yet been discovered 

 applicable to bodies destitute of life. Indeed, it is remarkable, 

 that in all epochs of history, the science of organized bodies has 

 been more advanced than that of unorganized. We conclude, 

 then, that the ancients had some theoretic perceptions, and some 

 just practical ideas on the law of nature, concerning the co-rela- 

 tiveness of forms, of which, in our times, Cuvier has made so 

 many beautifwl applications. 



That we may the better apprehend it, let us first examine 

 those imaginary beings, which, connecting themselves with the 

 ideas of mythology, may seem at first to recall nothing real, but 

 to be the product of an imagination, as fantastic as it is dis- 

 ordered. When we come to study these strange beings with 

 care, we recognise that they represent in each of the parts that 

 compose them, an exact imitation of nature, and a faithful re- 

 presentation of her laws. 



