348 CONCLUSION. 



we have fearlessly ventured to submit as the result 

 of our convictions, that we arrived at them after 

 researches originally made more amid the wild 

 scenery of Nature than among books, and that we 

 found them ever recurring where the maxims of our 

 present physiology are incompetent to explain the 

 phenomena which offer themselves; they do not 

 claim to be demonstrations, but tentamina to excite 

 attention, and to account for facts which otherwise 

 are inexplicable. In the progress of science, in the 

 accumulation of observation, we daily feel the neces- 

 sity of abandoning dicta and maxims, which, after 

 having been long trusted on authority, are gradually 

 undermined, and finish by being surrendered. 



Thus, neither the depth of view, nor the elo- 

 quence of Buffon, have been able to maintain many 

 of his conclusions ; they have failed to uphold his 

 *' Tableaux de la Nature," and his " Degenerations 

 des Animaux" has not fared better. If, in the 

 leading points we have discussed, we should not 

 carry with us the consent of scientific men, the 

 cause may be justly ascribed to our inability more 

 than to the doctrines here advocated ; and in abstruse 

 questions, such as those where systematic nomen- 

 clature and physiology are insufficient, we believe, 

 in order to come at sound probabilities, that we must 

 study also the earth's * surface, the phenomena of 

 its revolutions, its geographical history, and, finally, 

 apply an enlightened philological system to the 

 whole. Though every way humble and inadequate 

 to grapple with these desiderata with real strength, 



