84 CLASSIFICATION OF MEDUSAE. 



It is not a vague generalization founded merely on book-reading, but an induction interpreted 

 by a naturalist combining tbe philosophic spirit with the requisite observing power, — equally 

 capable of, and practised in, minute specific research and speculative studies. The Ray 

 Society did great service to British science when it sent out a translation of the remarkable 

 essay alluded to under the able superintendence of Mr. Busk. This, I am sure, the most 

 severe critic upon Steenstrup who has yet appeared—my distinguished and learned friend 

 Dr. Carpenter — would be the first to admit, and it were greatly to be desired that some other 

 critics on the pubUcations of our Society had a tithe of his knowledge, reasoning power, and 

 gentlemanly spirit. 



In a review, " on the Development and Metamorphoses of Zoophytes,"* devoted chiefly 

 and most honorably to rendering justice to the untiring labours of Sir John Graham Dalyell, 

 the worthy representative of Spallanzani among living naturalists. Dr. Carpenter has oppbsed 

 in strong terms the views of Steenstrup, and, it seems to me, has not done justice — uninten- 

 tionally without doubt — to the labours and theory of the Danish naturalist. 



Thus the omission in limine of the name of Steenstrupf in the list (" Sars, Siebold, 



Loven, and Van Beneden") of principal practical continental observers of the phenomena upon 



which the theory of that author, and the new interpretation proposed by Dr. Carpenter, are 



based, is not right, since it conveys the impression to the reader that the Danish zoologist 



theorized on this subject from the researches of others only ; whereas, in reality, some of the 



most valuable observations on the polypiform transformations, were those made by Steenstrup 



himself, detailed in the second chapter of his Essay — that on the "development of the claviform 



polypes." In fact, so far as the subject of this Monograph is concerned, the observations 



referred to, and those of Dujardin (whose name has also been inadvertently omitted by the 



reviewer), are more important than any others in establishing the affinity of the naked-eyed 



Medusa with the Corynoid Polypes. Moreover, the discoveries and researches among the 



Entozoa, announced in the ' Essay on the Alternation of Generations,' are the fruits of its 



author's special observation, and among the strongest pillars of the edifice which he has built. 



Let not any one suppose, then, that Steenstrup ingeniously constructed a mere closet-theory. 



I doubt much whether any hjrpothesis or theory in natural history of any value in fostering the 



progress of the science — and may it not be said, too, of other sciences of observation ? — was 



ever eliminated, otherwise than as a dim dream, — dimmer to its author often, than even to other 



men, — by any one not a practical worker in the field where he would raise his speculations ; 



not merely an occasional visitor, but a day-labourer in science. Goethe has been cited as an 



objection, but Goethe himself would have rejected with indignation the reputation of being a 



discoverer of laws in natural history, without having undergone a severe apprenticeship of 



practical study. The great poet who so clearly enunciated the morphology of the vegetable 



individual (unaware of the previous and clear, though premature as to time, announcement of 



the law by Linnaeus), and attempted to work out a Uke idea in the vertebrate skeleton, warmly 



contended that the doctrines he put forth were not sudden inspirations and lucky guesses, but 



the results of long continued and laborious study. The names which shine brightest in our 



science for their elucidation of its philosophy from the time of Aristotle to that of Linnseus, 



* British and Foreign Medico- Chirurgical Review, No. I (1848). 

 f Loc. cit., p. 10. 



