LECTUEE I. 11 



reasoning resembles that of my old teacher "VTilbrand, in 

 Giesseuj who until his death, which took place about twenty 

 years ago, protested against the circulation of the blood. 

 " Which/' he asked, on examining a candidate for honours, 

 " is more preferable — the mental or the physical eye V Woe 

 to the candidate who replied " the bodily eye :" he was plucked 

 at once. Of necessity the candidate answered the mind's eye. 

 "Well, then," continued the professor, "mental inspection 

 must be superior to physical inspection ; if, therefore, you say 

 that you have, by the aid of the microscope, seen the circula- 

 tion of the blood with your bodily eye, and I tell you that I 

 have seen the impossibiHty of the circulation with my mind's 

 eye, it follows that I am right and you are wrong." In the 

 same way our philosophers observe with the mind's eye, and 

 when they call to their aid the imagination, which, according 

 to Carriere, " is a direct inspiration from above — which per- 

 ceives the divine thoughts in nature, and represents a transi- 

 tion of universal thoughts into the thought of the individual :" 

 when, I say, these imaginative philosophers, come forth as G od- 

 inspired prophets, we, ordinary mortals, must bow down our 

 heads, and confess that our results are only the fruit of human 

 labour, and not the emanations from a supreme being entirely 

 unknown to us. 



These idle speculations have had the effect of confusing and 

 perplexing even unprejudiced inquirers, so that we meet with 

 the most striking contradictions, and must take every possible 

 care that we do not fall into them ourselves. A kind of system 

 of double entry, much lauded formerly though with small suc- 

 cess, makes again its appearance under a different form. Thus 

 we find that the same naturalist declares in the same page, 

 that the physical differences between man and the ape are just 

 sufficient to constitute mankind a family which must be placed at 

 the head of the order of apes ; whilst, on the other hand, man's 

 intellectual faculties are so essentially distinct, that he must form 

 a separate kingdom, like the animal and vegetable kingdom.* 

 In order to show you the contradictions that arise in this 



* Quatrefages. — Editor. 



