

4840 Philosophy of Zoology. 



It was not to be expected that a mine of knowledge such as was 

 discovered and first worked by the great Cuvier should continue to be 

 explored by so many vigorous hands, and that all should go smoothly 

 with the labourers : difficulties soon appeared, and they increased so 

 rapidly in number and in strength as to cloud with anxiety for the 

 fate of his great discovery the mind of the immortal author of the 

 ' Ossemens Fossiles.' It seemed as if he were about to survive his own 

 vast reputation. So seemingly unimportant a question as the influence 

 of domestication over animal life embarrassed the great anatomist. 

 The anatomical element of inquiry having failed in establishing 

 specific distinctions in the various oxen which ornament the culti- 

 vated earth, Cuvier was forced to imagine them to be like the dog, of 

 one species; Goethe, the transcendentalist, starting from a higher 

 point of view, had arrived at the same conclusion. " The infinite 

 varieties of the domestic ox, 1 ' observed the sublime author of ' Faust,' 

 " are simply the gift to man of domesticity acting through millions of 

 years." Such also was Cuvier' s opinion, omitting the " millions of 

 years." What his real opinions were on the influence of time and 

 circumstances he never, so far as I know, communicated to any one. 

 The monumental records of Egypt, depicting man then as he is now, 

 after the lapse of at least 4000 years, were perfectly well known to him. 

 Still greater difficulties he prudently passed by without a passing 

 notice. And yet his great discovery laid the foundation of Geology, 

 Palaeontology, and a true history of life on the globe. Before him 

 these sciences could not be said to exist. 



Prior to this eventful scientific era the German school of philosophic 

 anatomists had made an advance towards the same object, but from 

 a different point of view. Anatomy was still the element of research 

 which they employed, but it was the Anatomy of the embryo. At the 

 head of this school was the justly-celebrated Goethe, poet, philosopher, 

 naturalist, mathematician ; his genius seemed universal. He it was 

 who first distinctly formuled the law of unity of the organization in all 

 that lives or has lived. The doctrine of " arrest of development" 

 came soon after into vogue, chiefly through Meckel and the German 

 schools of anatomists, — a doctrine based on a superficial and a some- 

 what incorrect application of facts, curious and important in them- 

 selves; to this at last were added the Teratologic of Etienne GeofTroy 

 (St. Uilaire) and the serial unity of De Blainville. 



Believing the transcendental in Anatomy to be the only instrument 

 of research at present known by which a correct basis can be laid for 

 the philosophy of Zoology, I have never ceased to study and teach it 



