276 



CHAPTER IX. 



ON THE GENETIC VIEW OF NATURE. 



1. 

 Statics 

 and dyna- 

 mics of liv- 

 ing fonns. 



Whilst the great influence of such leaders in scientific 

 thought as Cuvier, De Candolle, and Humboldt on the 

 Continent, and of Richard Owen in this country, was 

 mainly exerted in spreading the morphological view of 

 nature, describing on a large scale or in minuter detail 

 the typical recurring forms which natural objects or 

 natural scenery present to the eye of the unbiassed 

 observer, another school of naturalists was secretly busy 

 in following up the changes to which all the things of 

 nature seem continually subjected. They were as much 

 impressed with this restless movement of everything as 

 the others were with the continual recurrence of certain 

 definite forms — be they geometrical or artistic. The 

 general ideas which underlay their researches were not 

 new, — they were probably older and more familiar ^ than 



^ Cosmogonies of all sorts abound 

 in almost every literature, ancient or 

 modern, whereas Cosmograpliy, ac- 

 curate, painstaking, and reliable, is 

 of comparatively recent date. The 

 first attempt to give a purelj' 

 descriptive picture of nature as a 

 whole, beginning with the larger 

 features of the universe and ascend- 



ing through terrestrial, inanimate 

 and animate, phenomena to the 

 central and crowning phenomenon 

 of human life, was A. von Hum- 

 boldt's 'Kosmos'; and it is interest- 

 ing to note how averse the author 

 was to introduce genetic expositions. 

 In fact, it has been truly remarked 

 that Humboldt's influence went to 



