202 FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE. 



Not even in speculation did he trace back all forms 

 of life to a simple prototype ; he thus narrowed 

 Lamarck's wide field of conjecture in Phylogeny. 



We find a full account of the famous discussion 

 of the year 1830, between St. Hilaire and Cuvier, 

 in Perrier's Philosophic Zoologique avant Darwin. 

 It is also frequently alluded to in the Histoire 

 Naturelle Generate, by the younger St. Hilaire. 



Linnaeus opened his Systema Nature? with the 

 statement that the true greatness of man consists 

 in his observing, reasoning, and forming conclu- 

 sions, but the main tendency of his own work was 

 to carry his conclusions only to the point of distin- 

 guishing between the separate forms of life, not to 

 the causes of these distinctions. Buffon held that 

 the first aim of science was to describe exactly, and 

 to determine particular facts, but that we must de- 

 vote ourselves to something higher ; namely, to com- 

 bine and generalize upon the facts, and to judge 

 particular causes in the light of the more general 

 causes of Nature. Thus, Linnaeus and Buffon were 

 the founders of two distinct schools. Linnaeus was 

 upheld by Cuvier and all the systematic writers ; 

 Buffon by Lamarck, Treviranus, Goethe, and St. Hil- 

 aire. Into this higher region of generalization, which 

 Goethe took up only to abandon, few naturalists 

 dared to stir. The followers of Linnaeus showed 

 themselves weakest where they attempted deduction, 

 and we have contrasted the soundness of Cuvier's 

 Comparative Anatomy with the worthlessness of his 



