436 Netc FubUcativns. 



M. D., Member of the College of Surgeons, LondoUj &c. 8vo, pp. 478. 

 Six Plates. John Churchill, Prince's Street, Soho, London. 



This work is designed to afford to the student of any de- 

 partment of botany and zoology, or physiology, such a com- 

 prehensive A'iew of the whole science of organized nature, and 

 especially of its general principles, as may render the pursuit 

 of any particular branch more interesting and profitable than 

 if carried on without such preliminary knowledge. It differs 

 from English elementary works on zoology and botany, in 

 combining an outline of these divisions of tho science (in 

 which every leading natural group is treated on the same 

 scale), with physiological details on the structure and life of 

 the various forms of plants and animals ; and it differs from 

 most works on physiology, in deriving the facts of that 

 science, on which generalizations are to be founded, from all 

 classes of organised beings, vegetable as A\ell as animal. 

 It is properly remarked by the author, that just as the physi- 

 cal philosopher seeks to combine as many similar phenomena 

 as he can discover, for the basis of his general principles, the 

 physiologist should employ the different classes of living beings 

 as so many groups of instances, by the analysis of v/hich he 

 mav insulate the phenomena vi ith more freedom from dis- 

 turbing causes, than in pursuing his researches by experi- 

 menting on one kind of organization alone. The laws of life 

 can only be searched for with a probability of success, by in- 

 vestigating their operations wherever presented to us ; and no 

 generalizations can be really valid, which are not applicable 

 to all classes of living beings. 



It is the author's object, then, in this volume, to give a con- 

 nected summary of what is at present known on the subjects 

 it embraces ; including " whatever general principles may be 

 regarded as firmly established, \\ith as many fixcts as may 

 serve to illustrate them, without distracting tlie attention by 

 profuseness of detail." He has not as yet contributed much to 

 the gigantic pile which the industry of observers has accumu- 

 lated, and which is at present being so rapidly increased ; but 

 he has attempted, not without success, to reduce it to forms of 

 greater beauty and harmony. " At every successive step in 

 generalization," he remarks, " are we able to comprehend new 

 relation ;■> between facts that previously seemed confiiied and 



