HISTORY OF THE WORKS OP CUVIER. 165 



Bv proceeding thus from one part to another, we apprehend the reL^tions which 

 bind' each of them, first to tliat whicli follows, and then nearer and nearer to all 

 the others, even to the most remote, without the chain of relations being ever 

 at any part broken or detached. From each part, and even in appearance the 

 most insignificant part, we may therefore infer all the others, and the entire 

 animal itself. 



For example: that claw of the pangolin, found in the Palatinate, huge as it 

 is, demonstrates of itself a lost species; and from this claw alone we might infer, 

 as M. Cuvier well says, all the revolutions of the globe. In eflFect, this claw 

 necessaril}' gives ns a toe, and this toe a limb, and this limb a trunk, and this 

 trunk a cranium, a head, proportionate all with one another ; that js to say a 

 gigantic pangolin, consequently a lost species, consequently revolutions, subver- 

 sions experienced by the earth, and which have destroyed that species. But I 

 confine myself here to recalling those great laws on which I have dwelt at more 

 length elsewhere, and which astonish us less, perhaps, by their extent than by 

 the amount of evidence which they carry with them. 



