THE DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 517 



it was seen, before Newton, that the motions of the 

 planets must result from attraction ; and so before 

 Dufay and Franklin, it was held that electrical 

 actions must result from a fluid. Cuvier's merit 

 consisted, not in seeing that an animal cannot exist 

 without combining all the conditions of its exist- 

 ence ; but in perceiving that this truth may be 

 taken as a guide in our researches concerning ani- 

 mals ; that the mode of their existence may be 

 collected from one part of their structure, and then 

 applied to interpret or detect another part. He 

 went on the supposition not only that animal forms 

 have some plan, some purpose, but that they have 

 an intelligible plan, a discoverable purpose. He 

 proceeded in his investigations like the decipherer 

 of a manuscript, who makes out his alphabet from 

 one part of the context, and then applies it to read 

 the rest. The proof that his principle was some- 

 thing very different from an identical proposition, 

 is to be found in the fact, that it enabled him to 

 understand and arrange the structures of animals 

 with unprecedented clearness and completeness of 

 order ; and to restore the forms of the extinct ani- 

 mals which are found in the rocks of the earth, in 

 a manner which has been universally assented to 

 as irresistibly convincing. These results cannot 

 flow from a trifling or barren principle; and they 

 show us that if we are disposed to form such a 

 judgment of Cuvier's doctrine, it must be because 

 we do not fully apprehend its import. 



