ON THE MORPHOLOGICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 255 



finally in 1817 to establish the four great classes the 

 vertebrate, the molluscous, the articulate, and radiated 

 types in the animal kingdom. His colleague had con- 

 tributed much to Cuvier's work, but had been increas- 

 ingly struck by what he termed the " unity of organic 

 composition," which he evermore looked upon as a key l 

 to the comprehension of nature: he searched for one 

 plan or type where Cuvier saw four types. In 1818 

 he published his principle in a celebrated work with 

 the title, ' Thdorie des Analogies, ou de Philosophie 

 Anatomique.' 2 It has been correctly stated that he 

 only gives more precise expression to a truth known 

 to Aristotle and proclaimed by Buffon, that the mystery 

 of organisation consists in " unity of plan combined with 42. 



Cuvier and 



variety of composition. Cuvier emphasised and studied Geoffrey, 

 the latter, his colleague the former. For an intimate 

 knowledge and description of natural objects the work 

 of distinguishing is all important; for a comprehension 

 of nature the connection of things, the unity of plan, 

 the filiation and relations of beings, the mutability of 

 species, will ever be the more important and fascinating. 

 The former was a purely scientific, the latter a philo- 



1 See Goethe's detailed Report, 

 loc. cit., Werke II. vol. vii. p. 173. 

 A very full account of this cele- 

 brated controversy is also given in 

 the posthumous work of Ducrotay 

 de Blainville, ' Cuvier et Geoffroy 

 Saint-Hilaire, Biographies scientif- 

 iques,' ed. Nicard, Paris, 1890, 

 pp. 357-378, which is specially in- 

 teresting, because Geoffrey's ideas 

 were there traced to Lamarck (p. 

 351), of whom Goethe takes no 

 notice. 



2 See the " Eloge Historique 

 d'Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire," 



par P. Flourens, in the third volume 

 of his ' Recueil des Eloges,' &c., 

 Paris, 1862, pp. 229-281. He quotes, 

 inter alia, a passage from Vicq- 

 d'Azyr : " La nature semble ope'rer 

 toujours d'apres un modele primitif 

 et ge'ne'ral dont elle ne s'dcarte qu' 

 a regret, et dont on rencontre par- 

 tout des traces. ... On observe 

 partout ces deux characteres que la 

 nature semble avoir imprimis a tous 

 les etres, celui de la Constance dans 

 le type et celui de la varie'te' dans 

 les modifications," &c. (p. 276). 



