MEMOIR OF CUVIER. 125 



simple, -u-liich live only in tlie interior of other animals.* By a remarlvaLle sin- 

 gularity the hlood of these worms, with a eirculatory ap})aratus,t is red : a new 

 circumstance to show how inexact and vague was the denomination of animals 

 witli white blood, given till then, in a general manner, to animals without 

 vertebra'. 



By means of these admirable investigations M. Cuvier, it will bo seen, had 

 fixed the limits of the class of moUusks; he had determined that of the vermes 

 with red blood, he had completely separated both from that of iha zoophytes ; 

 finally, he had marked the true place of the zoophytes themselves, thenceforth 

 consigned to the extreme limit of the animal kingdom. But a principle which 

 he had employed in all these researches must needs lead him still further. This 

 principle is that of the subordination of organs or of characters. 



Method should not limit itself, in effect, to representing indistinctly the rela- 

 tions of structure ; it ought to mark, besides, the particular order of these relations 

 and the relative importance of each, and it is precisely to this end that the prin- 

 ciple of the subordination of organs serves. Bernard and Laurent de Jussieu 

 had already applied this principle, as fruitful as it is infallible, to botany, but 

 the zoologists had not yet ventured to make the ai)plication of it to their own 

 science, determined, no doubt, l)y the great number and complication of the 

 organs which constitute the animal body, and which, for the most part, are 

 wanting in vegetables. 



The principle of subordination of organs coidd only be introduced into zoology 

 when preceded by anatomy. The first step to be taken was to know the organs; 

 the determination of their relative importance could be only the second. Tliese 

 two steps accom])lislied, there remained only to found the characters on the 

 organs, and to subonlinate these characters one to the other, as the organs are 

 subordinated among themselves. Such was properly the object of the Animal 

 Kingdom distributed aecording to its organization, (Bcgne Animal, dx.,) that 

 great work in which the new zoological doctrine of the illustrious author is dis- 

 played as at length reproduced in all its entireness and co-ordinated in all its 

 parts. 



Dating from this work the art of methods has assumed a new face. Linnteus, 

 as is well known, had seen in this art only a means of distinguishing species. 

 M. Cuvier was the first who undertook to make method the very instrument of 

 the generalization of facts. JMethod, viewed in itself, is for him only the sub- 

 ordination of ])ropositions, of truths, of facts, one to another, according to the 

 order of their generality. Applied to the animal world, it is the sid)ordination 

 of groups among themselves, according to the relative importance of the organs 

 which constitute the distinctive characters of those groups. Now, the most 

 im|)ortant organs are also those which involve the most general resemblances. 

 Whence it follows that in fuimding the inferior groups on the subordinate organs, 

 and the superior groups on the dominating organs, the superior groups will 

 always necessarily comprise the inferior, or, in other terms, it will always be 

 practicalde to pass from one to the other by progressive proi)ositions, becoming 

 moi'e and more general in proportion as we ascend from the inferior grou])S 

 towards the superior. 



Meihod, therefore, pro)>erly considered, is but tlu; geuenilized (expression of 

 science; it is science itself, ])iit science reduced to its most simple exiiressions ; 

 it is still more : this linkini;- together of facts according to their analogies, this 

 linking together of analogies according to their <legree of comprehensiveness, is 

 not limited to the representation of known relations; it brings to light anuiltitudc 

 of new ndations, contained one in another ; it disengages them from one another ; 

 it thus gives new forces to the understanding for perceiving and discovering ; it 

 creates for the mind new processes of logic. 



* Namely tlie intcstiiml wurins. tluit class of zooijliytcs wliicli, for tlic most part, can only 

 live and projiaj^iite in the intiTior tif tlic hodics of otlicr auimals. 

 t U'unns with red liloiiil of (Jiivicr : anneliili's of Lamarck. 



