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CHAPTER IX. 



SYSTEM. 



ALL science leads necessarily to a system ; and system signifies 

 here, not the proceeds of observation or a route followed by 

 analysis or synthesis in order to arrive at the knowledge of the 

 truth. System here means, a mode of classifying beings or 

 observed facts, a mode essentially in connection with the 

 science which treats of these beings or of these facts, and 

 often applicable to itself alone. 



A perfect system can only be really established a posteriori, 

 after the knowledge has been acquired of all the phenomena 

 which are to be classed. This is absolute. In practice, a 

 system can only be observed a priori , by reference to a certain 

 number of facts which it is destined afterwards to embrace ; it 

 is only true that the more facts we acquire, the more chance 

 has a system of being exact, without our ever having the right 

 of proclaiming it to be absolutely good ; it may be satisfactory, 

 and remain so for a long time, but one fine day a new fact may 

 prove it to be false. " I am of opinion," said Etienne Geoffrey, 

 " that a perfect system cannot exist ; it is a sort of philoso- 

 pher's stone, impossible to be discovered."* 



A science being given, it does not at all follow that there 

 already exists a proper method for classifying in a natural 

 series the phenomena which manifest themselves to us in this 

 branch of human knowledge. If we have not yet succeeded in 

 discovering a true anthropological system, if Camper, Prichard, 

 and Morton have' been foiled, it is because the science of man- 

 kind is still too new. 



Even in making an abstract of the difficulties always to be 



* See Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Vie d'E. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, p. 287. 



