ZOOGENY. 419 



brain, the ear gives us to recognize its elevated rank 

 above the other senses. 



2486. The ear must stand in relation with the body's 

 limbs. 



2487. The ears first make their appearance in animals, 

 associated with a tolerable development of the limbs. 

 With the exception of a few instances, the ears first be- 

 come apparent in Fishes, being in them at least furnished 

 for the first time with true ossicles and semicircular canals. 

 The ear, like the limbs, with which it constantly main- 

 tains a parallel course, is very slowly perfected. In the 

 Fishes which have only fins (as instruments of locomotion) 

 it is wholly concealed within the cranial bones ; in the 

 Reptiles it emerges or is more exposed to view ; but for 

 the first time in Birds and Mammalia where, generally 

 speaking, the limbs also are first perfected, it attains its 

 completion ; in them only is the cochlea fully developed, 

 and an auditory meatus which opens externally. 



5. Nervous Sense. 



2488. In all lower organs, and even in the senses 

 which have hitherto been commented upon, the nervous 

 system was not the chief, but only the coordinate agent. 

 It has only by its conjunction with, assisted in elevating 

 the character of, other systems, so that their material 

 might be converted into spiritual processes. But the 

 nervous is also a self-substantial system, and must there- 

 fore attain likewise a free development. 



2489. With the highest organs of the nervous system, 

 the relation which has been hitherto maintained, must be 

 reversed. The inferior systems will now be the co- 

 ordinate agents. 



2490. The highest nervous organ can only possess 

 that function, which is originally peculiar to the nervous 

 system, i. e. the most delicate polarization, the light- 

 function. There is the Light-sense. 



2491. The eye is nothing but a nervous system repre- 

 sented in a state of purest organization, just as the ear 

 was the purest system of motion. 



