RISE AND PROGRESS OF ZOOLOGY. 91 



of families, genera, &c. merely reposed upon the 

 arbitrary opinion of their founders. Nay, so destitute 

 was zoology of any fundamental law, applicable alike 

 to all its various departments, that the question was 

 not yet settled, as to the rule of natural progression ; 

 was it linear? was it compound? or was it so inter- 

 woven, like the meshes of a net, as to defy all un- 

 ravelment ? The idea of a simple scale in nature 

 had long been discussed, and finally abandoned. 

 But while these lofty speculations engaged not the 

 attention of M. Cuvier, his fellow-labourer, M. 

 Lamarck, must have long pondered upon them, for 

 he it was who first intimated the existence of a 

 double series, which, setting out in opposite directions 

 from a given point, met together at another. Nearly 

 at the same time, Professor Fischer, a celebrated 

 zoologist of Russia, unacquainted, apparently, with 

 the opinion of Lamarck, perceived the tendency of 

 these two series to form a circle of their own, and 

 announced the fact in 1808. But these obscure in- 

 timations, unsupported by demonstration, can only be 

 said to have been verified by analysis when the first 

 part of the celebrated Horce Entomologies was given 

 to the world, in 1819, — a work which, for its originality 

 and profound research, has never yet, in this science 

 at least, been equalled. Whether its accomplished 

 author derived the first idea of that circular progres- 

 sion of affinities which he establishes, from the idea 

 of Lamarck, is unknown, and hardly worth enquiring 

 into ; but it seems certain that he was unacquainted 

 with the opinion of M. Fischer, just alluded to.* 



* Linn. Trans, vol. xvi. p. 10. 



