TRANSCENDENTAL ANATOMY. 397 



characters, or neglected them ; but as an anatomist he felt him- 

 self bound to view them as secondary, and of infinitely less 

 importance than the anatomical. Moreover, they were wholly 

 inapplicable, or nearly so, to the fossil world, at least to that 

 class, the Vertebrata, in which man is most interested. 



" If the theory I am about to propose be true, that the young, 

 namely, of every species, represents a generic animal, embracing 

 in its structure and natural history characters the possible of all 

 the species, past, present, and to come, belonging to the natural 

 family of which it forms a portion, then the natural history of 

 the fossil world might be guessed at, might be restored, but not 

 otherwise. The fossil horse was only a horse generically ; but 

 whether a horse properly so called, an ass, a zebra, a quagga, or 

 none of these, none can now for certain say : the fossil tiger was 

 no tiger, in all probability ; nor the bear a bear, appertaining to, 

 or to be classed with, any species now living. The exterior of 

 the fossil world is lost for ever ; all that is left of it being merely 

 the fabulous traditions of rude ages, peopling the world with 

 monsters,. which the discoveries of Cuvier in some measure corro- 

 borated. 



"When the anatomical method failed in Cuvier' s hands, as it 

 often did, the illustrious discoverer was thrown upoi^ the field of 

 hypothesis. The seeming fixity of species was the first stumbling- 

 block he encountered ; this led to his theory of successive crea- 

 tions, if that can be called a theory which removes the inquiry 

 at once from all further investigation. By anatomy it was not 

 easy, occasionally impossible, to distinguish species from each 

 other, which, when viewed as clothed with their external attri- 

 butes, are obviously and notoriously distinct. In this predica- 

 ment stood the lion and tiger, panther and leopard, horse, zebra, 

 ass, dog, wolf, fox, jackal, pig, ox, man. The theory of variety, 

 to a certain extent permanent, was next brought to bear on 

 these difficult questions ; the influence of domesticity was also 

 invoked, and even the fruitfulness of hybrid races was asserted ; 

 so that Natural History fast retrograded towards the silly hypo- 

 thesis ascribed to Aristotle, who is supposed to have conjectured 

 that the vast variety of animal forms with which Africa abounds 

 is due to the arid nature of the country, and its paucity of rivers 

 and springs, thus bringing together animals of many species and 

 genera ; hence the varied character of Afric's fauna. 



" The inadequacy of anatomy to distinguish species in every 

 case was fully admitted by Cuvier himself. I also admit this 

 practically, but with this reservation, that the minute anatomy 

 of even the osteology of every species differs in a certain degree, 

 however slight, from every other ; but such minute differences 

 are not of much importance in the establishment of important 

 principles, nor can they always be depended on. The nasal 



