28 MEMOIR OF BARON HAXLER. 



the whole of comparative anatomy, and throughout 

 the animal series down to the polypus. As com- 

 parative anatomy and physiology are two of the 

 most interesting departments of zoology, Haller's 

 claims to the attention of the naturalist are of a 

 high order ; and we shall stand excused for dwell- 

 ing somewhat more in detail on this portion of his 

 labours. 



His work the " Elementa" astonished at the time, 

 and still continues to astonish those learned men 

 who peruse it, by the excellence of its arrangement 

 the precision of its style the immense detail into 

 which the author enters on the structure of the 

 parts the profound discussion of all the opinions 

 previously delivered, as to their functions and uses 

 the exact and prodigiously numerous references 

 to all those passages in authors, where allusion is 

 made to the smallest matters connected with the 

 science, and the great improvement which it ef- 

 fected in physiology, by the substitution of induction 

 for hypothesis. Any attempt to give the most 

 curtailed account of this prodigious work, would 

 within our limits be absurd, and we must therefore 

 confine ourselves to a very few remarks. 



It should not be forgotten that physiology was a 

 very different science a hundred years ago from 

 what it is at the present time, and that it was then 

 much cumbered with scholastic learning and hypo- 

 thetical disquisition, to the neglect of real obser- 

 vation and experimental inquiry. Haller was one 

 of those who first and most powerfully contributed 



