126 MEMOIRS OF 



and even these, in some species, are reduced to 

 a dry and insensible hardness." 



In the whole of the chapter from which the 

 above passage is selected, there is a poetical 

 feeling, in which M. Cuvier rarely indidged 

 when treating of science, but with which we 

 find he could occasionally sport without injury 

 to his subject. In the next chapter he resumes 

 his more precise manner ; and the contrast is the 

 more striking, as this chapter may be almost 

 styled a collection of aphorisms. It speaks of 

 the exterior of fishes, and is succeeded by others 

 containing the osteology, myology, brain and 

 nerves, nutrition, reproduction, and a general 

 summing up and methodical distribution of this 

 class into its great divisions, its natural families, 

 &c. From the latter may be selected a passage 

 well calculated to prevent those who study 

 systems from falling into a very common error. 

 " Let it not be imagined, because we place 

 one genus or one family before another, that we 

 consider theai as more perfect, or superior to 

 another in the series of beings. He only could 

 pretend to do tliis, who would pursue the chi- 

 merical project of ranging beings in one single 

 line, — a project which we have long renounced. 

 The more progress we have made in the study 



