5498 Zoology : its present Phasis 



and Cuvier put an end to the conjectural in Palaeontology and Geology, 

 properly so called : it cannot be again revived, at least for a lengthened 

 period. A cure for the nonsense of a * Plurality of Worlds' and 

 'More Worlds than One' may be found any day in the first chapters 

 of Comte. With Bichat and Cuvier closed the era of conjectural 

 physiology and unsound anatomy. It were a waste of time to discuss 

 such theories now, nor does it obscure in any way the grand reputa- 

 tion of Buffon, that he also committed himself to an hypothesis, a 

 system. It was the fashion of his day, and neither the vortices of 

 Descartes nor the hypotheses of Leibnitz and Maupertuis had been 

 fairly withdrawn from the field of Science. But the phasis which 

 zoological Science has now assumed (T mean, of course, in a scientific 

 point of view) does not admit of this : it returns, as we shall find pre- 

 sently, to the grand views of Buffon, but with other objects and 

 brighter prospects of success. That which we now seek for is, what 

 gives the form ; the materials of life are found everywhere, and they 

 undergo perpetual change, but the form remains, not for ever, but 

 until their extinction by a cause as yet undiscovered. It is this ten- 

 dency to specific form, originating in that which is either without 

 form or possessing another, in which is concealed the mystery of 

 life. An independent being which, for a certain time, maintains a 

 certain form, and is considered as a distinct species, suddenly dis- 

 appears, and seems to have been lost; soon it is discovered in another 

 locality under another form.* Who shall say how far this principle 

 extends ? The germ, as Buffon said, contains the mould of the future 

 being; the poverty of language did not enable him to express this 

 great truth in more suitable, more intelligible terms ; but that mould 

 contains more than the outline of the species — it includes that of the 

 family, the genus: how much more we know not. All that we know 

 is, that, in the existing order of things, as in the past, specific forms 

 exist which maintain their existence in space and time for an epoch ; 

 that these were preceded by others which followed exactly the same 

 course; these by others. Let us adhere to facts. If in the embryo of 

 the young and in its developments we find generic forms as well as 

 speci/ic, — the vestiges of the past also and an outline of the present 

 world, — it is surely consistent with legitimate philosophy to inquire 

 into the causes of such phenomena, and even to predict that these 

 forms include the future. They form part and parcel of the laws of life, 

 just as much as the phenomena of the movements of the planets form 

 a portion of and corroborate the truths of the laws of gravitation. 

 Bonnet mistook the laws of growth and nourishment, and he fancied 

 that the molecules contributing to the growth of a bone were inter- 

 calated amongst the original, which thus never changed, but grew 

 by a kind of intussusception. Experimenters, from Belchier and 

 Duhamel to Hunter and Troja, have shown that it is not so; not- 

 withstanding, the expression of Buffon remains substantially correct: 

 " The impress of the mould of each species is the thing the most un- 



* Van Beneden on the Taenia. 



