54 78 Zoology : its present Phasis 



that grand utilitarian climax when a moment's thought thrown away 

 on anything but " the dollar" will be held as time lost, and the human 

 Gorilla everywhere, in imitation of model England and model America, 

 look only to the essentially useful to be known. And now, after half- 

 a-century's triumph, the theories (not the facts) of Cuvier are openly 

 canvassed and disputed. It is beginning to be admitted that had 

 Buffon's works been more deeply studied (and, let me add, more fairly 

 dealt with), France might long since have claimed for one of her sons 

 the merit of having discovered the transcendental in Zoology, or, at 

 the least, of dividing the claim with Germany ; nay, what is more, of 

 having produced a mind competent to grapple with the most difficult 

 of all questions, the Philosophy of Zoology, that question which Cu- 

 vier, in the height of his reputation, declined entertaining, and which, 

 when forced on scientific Western Europe by Etienne Geoffroy (St. 

 Hilaire), caused him so much uneasiness. This question revived, we 

 now purpose examining, aided by the vast discoveries of Cuvier and 

 his school, of whom DeBlainville was the most illustrious, and, above 

 all, by a profounder study of the " thoughts" of the author of the 

 ' Epochs of Nature.' 



To some it might seem that a new interpretation of Nature is all 

 that Philosophy requires, and all that merits being considered here. 

 But after the interpretation comes the application, — after the theory 

 comes the practice. If the theory or interpretation be profound and 

 unanswerable, it must, one would think, be universally received. Not 

 so. It must also be in accordance with the spirit of the age, or mould 

 that spirit to it. Even the laws of gravitation as established by New- 

 ton, the immutable laws of physics, admitting of no exception, are 

 received as truths only by the thinking part of mankind, not by the 

 mass.* Need we feel surprise at the rejection of the philosophic 

 thoughts of Buffon, unsupported, as they assuredly were, by any ma- 

 terial demonstration ? The discoveries of Cuvier, on the other hand, 

 were based on physical facts ; and many of his deductions from these 

 facts admitted of no sort of doubt. But it was far otherwise when he 

 propounded his views on the structure of the globe, how it had been 

 constructed by successive formations, how the animal kingdom ori- 

 ginated in successive creations, implying successive extinctions, 

 both miraculous in their nature, stupendous and beyond philosophy. 

 Such doctrines were sure to be assailed, and, I may add, sure to be 

 refuted. The refutation is still incomplete, but certain to come. But 



* With them an appeal must ever be made to the senses. ^ 



