and future Prospects* 5183 



froy and Cuvier, Laplace and Ampere ! But the industrial will 

 have its day, and for the honour of mankind let us hope it may be as 

 brief as possible. Of impure origin, and suited only to the muddy 

 banks of the Thames, let us pray for its speedy extrusion from halls 

 which once echoed to the sublime language of Cuvier and Geoffroy, 

 Arago and Laplace. 



The aim and object of the various branches of knowledge now 

 cultivated under the names of Physiology, human and comparative, 

 Anatomy, human and comparative, Zoology, Palaeontology, Biology, 

 Morphology, Embryology, Transcendental Anatomy, is one and the 

 same, namely, the Philosophy of Zoology, — the right comprehension 

 and interpretation of the nature of animal beings, their relation to 

 each other and to the globe they inhabit, — their history, in fact, in 

 time and space. This fact has been long recognised and admitted, as 

 also the probability that, in the history of the mutations and transfor- 

 mations of the animal from its embryo to its adult condition, or from 

 its generic,* or perhaps even a still more highly generalized expres- 

 sion, to that specialized form, becoming, as it were, acclimatized 

 and specialized, it assumes a form recognised by man, and all that 

 lives lies the grand secret of philosophical anatomy : thus the great 

 questions of this sublime and mysterious history may certainly be 

 embraced — 1st, in the specification of beings; 2nd, the formation of 

 beings; 3rd, the diffusion of beings in space; 4th, their diffusion in 

 time. These truths have been long known and admitted, from the 

 time when Etienne Geoffroy (St. Hilaire) called the attention of the 

 Academy of France to the theories of the transcendental. Goethe 

 and Autenrieth had done this long before in Germany, but these great 

 men lived unhappily before their time, than which there can be no 

 greater misfortune. 



Buffon said that species are the only beings in nature; but of this 

 word "species" he made an abstraction: it was the fashion of the 

 day ; men were still fond of the metaphysics of the old school, and 

 Buffon was no anatomist. The idea of species is no doubt an abstrac- 

 tion and generalization, but one of the simplest, to which even the 

 lowest animals are equal. To arrive at a practical knowledge of 

 species, as distinct from the individual, is just as easy for the Bushman 

 as for the most learned professor of Natural History, and sometimes 

 much easier; but Science demands a definition, and zoological 

 science requires species to be defined; Cuvier's is known to all the 



• 



* Knox. 



