REPORT ON ZOOLOGY. 145 



of worse arrangement than that of Aristotle, he afterwards passed 

 on to that of the higher classes*, carrying with him that reform 

 which the new principles he had adopted pointed out to be ne- 

 cessary. Cuvier's first memoir on the Invertehrata was offered 

 to the notice of the Natural History Society of Paris in 1795, 

 and the time should be remarked as commencing the sera of a most 

 important revolution in zoological science. His Tableau Elemen- 

 taire de V Hist. Nat. des Aninumx, containing a still further 

 development of his views, was only two years posterior to it. 

 This was followed by the Leqons d' Anatomie Comparee, pub- 

 lished in 1800 and 1805 ; a rich series of memoirs on the mollus- 

 cous animals, which appeared in the earlier volumes of the An- 

 nalesdu Museum; the Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles, of as 

 great service to zoology as geology, and much of which was also 

 firstpublished in that collection; and lastly, in 18l7,by the^^^we 

 Animal, in which it was attempted to arrange all known animals 

 according to their natural affinities, as deduced from a compara- 

 tive view of their M'hole organization. 



The above works, of some of which 1 shall have occasion to 

 speak further hereafter, were not only important in themselves, 

 but in the consequences to which they led. 



In the first place, it is worthy of remark, that since these ad- 

 mirable endeavours on the part of Cuvier to elucidate the true 

 relations of animals by reference to their internal as well as ex- 

 ternal structure, and to the modifications, not of one or two ar- 

 bitrarily selected organs, but of all the organs considered jointly, 

 naturalists have everywhere felt the necessity of guiding their 

 researches after the same manner, and building upon a similar 

 foundation. If zoology has made much progress, as undoubtedly 

 it has, since the publication of the first edition of the R^gne Ani- 

 mal; if more enlarged views have been acquired of the science 

 as a whole, and a more correct knowledge gained of some of its 

 subordinate branches ; if new forms of structure have been dis- 

 covered, and affinities brought to light, which at that time were 

 not even suspected to exist by its illustrious author ; this is great- 

 ly due to the assistance which the science has derived fi-om com- 

 parative anatomy : and it must never be forgotten, that it was 

 Cuvier principally who first taught us, in the works above alluded 

 to, how to bring this great and powerful instrument to bear 

 upon the researches of the naturalist. Yet it must not be sup- 

 posed from the intimate connexion which subsists between these 

 two sciences, that there is no line of distinction to be drawn 



• In the arrangement of the Mammalia, Cuvier was much assisted by Geof- 

 froy. Their joint labours in this department form the subject of a memoir pub- 

 lished in the Magasin Encyr.lopedique, torn. ii. p. 164. 

 1834. L 



