History of Conchology. 257 



bearing Elephant, and has distinguished Man alone with a reasonable 

 soul." * 



• The celebrated Pallas was another who at this period had ob- 

 tained a glimpse of the true relations of the mollusca as a class even 

 clearer than Mliller,y but he did not pursue the subject, and as his 

 slight incidental notice, though it might have originated inquiry in a 

 predisposed mind, was not otherwise of a nature to produce any effect, 

 so the pains of Geoffroy and Miiller were equally unproductive. The 

 authority of Linnaeus prevailed every where. The force of his genius 

 having swept away all previous systems, there was no other safety for 

 a naturalist, than to take refuge in the Linnsean ark, which floated 

 on the surface proud amid the ruins, — the systems of his contempo- 

 raries also sinking one after another in the waters of forgetfulness. 

 His disciples were distinguished by their enthusiasm in the pursuit 

 of nature, and their love of their master ; and the facility with which 

 they found their discoveries were registered, and the easy nature of 

 the discoveries which sufficed to give them a certain reputation, re- 

 quiring nought but zeal, opportunity, and a knowledge of the ' Sys- 

 tema' not difficult to be acquired, rivetted their attachments. In 

 England nothing was tolerated that was not according to the letter 

 of Linnaeus : his works were a code of laws which, like an act of 

 Parliament, was to be interpreted verbally, and the spirit of them 

 was unseen or overlooked. Under his reforming hand, Conchology 

 having passed " from confusion and incongruity to lucid order and sim- 

 plicity," the slightest attempt to alter this order was treated as an 

 attempt to replunge us into the chaos, whence he had brought us, 

 and further improvement or alteration was declared to be futile, since 

 the " beauties" of the Linnaean " must perpetuate its pre-eminence." 

 Were it shewn that, from the very subsidiary station the animal was 

 made to occupy in this system, there was a fear attention should be 

 drawn from the object most worthy of it, we were seriously told that 

 the animal, even could it be procured, which was doubtful, would 

 never present those " permanent and obvious points of distinction" 

 indispensable in the application of a system meant to be practical. 

 Wherein does the animal differ, it was asked in a tone of triumph, 

 signifying that reply was impossible, — " wherein does the animal 

 differ from an uushapen mass of lifeless matter when coiled up with- 

 in its shelly habitation ? And how are its natural shape ami appen- 

 dages to be examined, but by the knife of an anatomist?"^: Were 

 it proved, what indeed was most palpable, that species of opposite 



* See the Prcefatio to his Verm. Ter. et Fluv. Vol. i. 1773. 

 f Misc. Zool. p. 72, 73. Lug. Batav. 1778. 



\ Lin. Trans, vii. p. 177. 



