INTEODUCTION TO THE FIEST EDITION. XIX 



The necessity for this was first seen and admitted in France, 

 from whence it naturally was imported into England, where 

 Cuvier and his supposed views had become fashionable ; the 

 single geologist at the Board of Ordnance, MacCulloch, 

 was slowly replaced by a body of scientific men, each teach- 

 ing a different department of natural science : out of this 

 arose a school of practical geology, and various chairs in a 

 similar direction came to be founded in collegiate educational 

 institutions. The illustrious Sedgwick, to whom geology 

 unquestionably owes its present position in Britain, set an 

 example in Cambridge which cannot be too much praised 

 nor too closely followed. 



Thus originated the gradual introduction of zoological 

 science into the curriculum of study for university honours 

 demanded of all, I presume, who mean to follow out a pro- 

 fessional vocation in Prance : England slowly follows. The 

 little work I here present to the public contains the best 

 outline ever yet published of such studies ; from me it requires 

 no praise ; its intrinsic merits and the numerous editions it 

 has already passed through constitute its best recommenda- 

 tion to the English reader. 



E. K. 



may be, and has been, called an empirical method, by which I presume is 

 meant that the method is not strictly scientific. I have all my life been of 

 this opinion, but the method notwithstanding has led to results second only, 

 if second, to the Newtonian discoveries. 



