510 HISTORY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 



vertebrates have not; while these on the other hand 

 have several which are wanting in cephalopods." 



We shall see afterwards the general principles 

 which Cuvier himself considered as the best guides 

 in these reasonings. But I will first add a few 

 words on the disposition of the school now under 

 consideration, to reject all assumption of an end. 



2. That the parts of the bodies of animals are 

 made in order to discharge their respective offices, 

 is a conviction which we cannot believe to be other- 

 wise than an irremovable principle of the philo- 

 sophy of organization, when we see the manner in 

 which it has constantly forced itself upon the minds 

 of zoologists and anatomists in all ages ; not only 

 as an inference, but as a guide whose indications 

 they could not help following. I have already 

 noticed expressions of this conviction in some of 

 the principal persons who occur in the history of 

 physiology, as Galen and Harvey. I might add 

 many more, but I will content myself with adduc- 

 ing a contemporary of Geoffroy's, whose testimony 

 is the more remarkable, because he obviously shares 

 with his countryman in the common prejudice 

 against the use of final causes. "I consider," he 

 says, in speaking of the provisions for the repro- 

 duction of animals 16 , "with the great Bacon, the 

 philosophy of final causes as sterile ; but I have 

 elsewhere acknowledged that it was very difficult 



" Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du Morale de VHomme, 

 i. 299. 



