TKANSCENDENTAL ANATOMY. 399 



man then as he is now, after the lapse of at least four thousand 

 years, were perfectly well known to him. Still greater difficulties 

 he prudently passed by, without a passing notice. And yet his 

 great discovery laid the foundation of Geology, Palaeontology, 

 and a true history of life on the globe. Before him these sciences 

 could not be said to exist. 



" Prior to this eventful scientific era, the German school of 

 philosophic anatomists had made an advance towards the same 

 object, but from a different point of view. Anatomy was still 

 the element of research which they employed, but it was the 

 anatomy of the embryo. A.t the head of this school was the 

 justly-celebrated Goethe, poet, philosopher, naturalist, mathe- 

 matician ; his genius seemed universal. He it was who first 

 distinctly formuled the law of unity of the organization in all 

 that lives or has lived. The doctrine of 'arrest of development' 

 came soon after into vogue, chiefly through Meckel and the 

 German schools of anatomists, a doctrine based on a superficial 

 and a somewhat incorrect application of facts, curious and im- 

 portant in themselves ; to this at last were added tne Teratologie of 

 Etienne Geoffrey St. Hilaire and the serial unity of De Blainville. 



" Believing the transcendental in Anatomy to be the only 

 instrument of research at present known by which a correct basis 

 can be laid for the philosophy of Zoology, I have never ceased to 

 study and teach it since the period (1811) when it first became 

 known to me. To the writings of Vicq. d'Azyr I am indebted 

 for the first hints of its existence. Biassed in favour of descrip- 

 tive anatomy, I have ever objected to the too hasty adoption of 

 extreme transcendental views, holding it to be a true maxim in 

 science, as well as in social life, that the change in step or advance, 

 in order to be certain and trustworthy, must ever be made with 

 caution, and, if possible, supported by the demonstration of 

 physical materials ; or, in other words, the thought which genius 

 submits to the world as an idea must become a physical demon- 

 stration before the world can fairly be called on to admit its 

 truth. This is the view I take in the following Memoirs,* in 

 some of which it is my intention to apply the transcendental to 

 Natural History, as a preliminary to my inquiry into the natural 

 history of man. The true relation of species or race to genus or 

 natural family seemed to me to present a favourable mode of 

 testing the value of the transcendental, not with any idea of 

 testing its truth, that has been settled long ago, but of ascer- 

 taining its practical value as an instrument of research. The 

 true relation of race to natural family being first discovered, it 

 will then be time enough to apply the transcendental to the rela- 

 tion presumed to subsist between natural families, and, lastly, 



* Published in the Zoologist. Van Voorst. London. 



