54) Baron Cuvier's Lectures on the Natural Sciences. 



gical part of his doctrine, for he establishes no distinction be- 

 tween these two orders of phenomena, which we now think 

 widely separated. It is to be recollected here, that previously 

 to Aristotle the greatest confusion yjrevailed in science. It was 

 that wonderful man who first devised a classification of human 

 attainments, and gave an example of it in his works. 



God created the soul of the woi-ld by introducing into the 

 formless material substance the ideas which existed by them- 

 selves. From the mixture were formed the souls of organized 

 beings, which are in relation to the universal soul as the drops 

 attached to the side of a vessel are to the fluid contained in it, 

 the human souls were distributed in the different planets. Those 

 which had the earth for their habitation were there in a kind of 

 state of trial. The infernal gods were charged with providing 

 bodies for them, of which previously they had no need. 



Man has received three souls : the reasonable soul, the sen- 

 sitive or passionate soul, and the coarse or vegetative soul. 

 The reasonable soul resides in the highest part of the body, in 

 order to be nearer Heaven, from which it derives its origin : 

 The head, which is its place of abode, is rounded after the form 

 of the world. The passionate soul is placed in the breast, the 

 heart being its principal seat. By its impetuosity, it would tend 

 to prevail over the reasonable soul. To prevent this disorder, 

 their communications with each other have been rendered diffi- 

 cult, by the contraction of the neck. The coarse soul, occu- 

 pied with material objects, resides in the lower belly. These 

 two latter souls have each their moderator. The lungs, cooled 

 by the air which they receive, are placed near the heart. The 

 liver is placed in the neighbourhood of the stomach, the prin- 

 cipal seat of the coarse soul, and has near it the spleen, which 

 is destined to receive the impurities that hinder it from properly 

 performing its functions. 



After this singular system of physiology, comes what might 

 be called the zoological part of the treatise. Timfcus seeks the 

 cause of the diversity of the form of animals, and explains the 

 system of the Pythagoreans respecting metempsychosis. At 

 the first transformation, trifling and unjust men are changed 

 into women •, at the second, they are metamorphosed into ani- 



