492 



LETTER XXVI. 



THE HISTORY OF CONCHOLOGY FROM ARISTOTLE TO 

 CUVIER. 



THE foundations of Conchology were laid by Aristotle on 

 those broad and rational views which characterize all his 

 works on the Natural History of Animals, and which are 

 worthy of his own reputation as a philosopher, and of the 

 inquisitive and intelligent society to whom they were de- 

 livered. The structure and habits of the creatures embraced 

 in this section of natural science were the main objects of his 

 study, while their relations to the other animated entities by 

 which they are surrounded, and their own mutual affinities 

 were not forgotten, although undoubtedly the classification 

 of them appears to have been considered a matter of second- 

 ary importance, and such as it is, was rather forced upon him 

 than invented to give some degree of method and generaliza- 

 tion to the expression of the results of his inquiries. To 

 censure this Father for the incompleteness, or even his want 

 of a conchological system, is inconsiderately done, for it must 

 be obvious that no system can be otherwise than defective 

 and artificial until discovery has, in a long and lingering pro- 

 gress, collected together a large magazine of materials, among 

 which there shall at least be found a type of every modifica- 

 tion of structure exhibited in the class.* But in his age the 

 number of shells known was very confined, and to have ad- 

 vanced beyond the primary divisions of them into univalves, 

 bivalves, and turbinated kinds, could be of no possible uti- 

 lity, and might have been hurtful to a further progress, for 

 " the over early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into 

 arts and methods" is an error from which, as Bacon has justly 

 remarked, " sciences receive small or 110 augmentation." f 



* " Cependant coinme Aristote n'a pas juge necessaire de former un 

 cadre zoologique, quelques personnes ont pre'tendu que son ouvrage manquait 

 de methode. Assurement ces personnes n'avaient qu'un esprit tres super- 

 ficiel." CUVIER, Hist, des Sc. Nat. i. 147. 



f "Another error, of a diverse nature from all the former, is the over- 

 early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts arid methods ; from 

 which time commonly sciences receive small or no augmentation. But as 

 young men, when they knit and shape perfectly, do seldom grow to a further 



