176 K. E. VON BAER. — PHILOSOPHICAL FRAGMENTS. 



Article VII. 



Fragments relating to Philosophical Zoology, Selected from the 

 Works o/K. E. von Baer. 



[The translator feels some apology necessary for the present 

 departure from the principle which ordinarily guides the Edi- 

 tors of the Scientific Memoirs ; — the principle, that is, of repro- 

 ducing the work translated in its entirety and completeness. 



There were two objections to pursuing this course with von 

 Bar's writings. In the first place they are voluminous, and in the 

 second, they are between twenty and thirty years old ; so that 

 they would have required notes and corrections as voluminous 

 as themselves to bring them, in matters of detail, up to a level 

 with the present state of our zoological knowledge. 



On the other hand it seemed a pity that works which embody 

 the deepest and soundest philosophy of zoology, and indeed of 

 biology generally, which has yet been given to the world, should 

 be longer unknown in this country*. The present selections 

 have therefore been made, and it is hoped that they embody all 

 the important points of von BaVs doctrines. The translator will 

 be more than gratified, if yet, during the lifetime of the vener- 

 able author, he should be the means of assisting to place in its 

 proper position the reputation of one who had in the completest 

 manner demonstrated the truth of the doctrine of Epigenesis 

 three years before the delivery of Cuvier's Leqons sur VHistoire 

 des Sciences Naturelles (in which he still advocates the Evolution 

 theory) ; and who had long recognized development as the sole 

 basis of zoological classification, while in France Cuvier and 

 Geoffrey St. Hilaire were embittering one another's lives with 

 endless mere anatomical discussions and replications, and while 

 in Germany the cautious study of nature was given up for the 

 spinning of Natur- Philosophies and other hypothetical cobwebs.] 



* Dr. Carpenter (Principles of General Physiology) is, so far as we know, 

 the only English physiologist who has publicly drawn attention to Von Bar's 

 philosophical writings. 



