- Marie-Henri Ducrotay de Blainville. 203 
quence is at once set aside. The animal kingdom is divided 
into determinate, circumscribed groups, widely separated, 
without connection, without intermediate links. 
To M. Cuvier succeeds M. de Blainville; and with him 
we again restore the series of beings, but, this time at least, 
more developed, more complete, approaching more nearly to 
being everywhere demonstrated ; and, what is the last stage 
of advancement in this department, essentiallyconnected with 
the doctrine of final causes, a doctrine every day becoming 
better understood and more respected. 
This chain of associated beings, adapting themselves to 
each other, visibly implies a determinate design, a plan fol- 
lowed, an end foreseen. 
Final causes are the highest philosophical expression of 
our sciences, and the most moderate. 
There is a pleasure of a superior order in discovering. and 
contemplating this wonderful assemblage of so many diverse 
ressorts combined in such just proportions. The spectacle of 
an Infinite Wisdom imparts tranquillity to the human mind, 
“Tt is not a small matter,” said Leibnitz, “to be content 
with God and the universe.”’ 
In 1882, science received a terrible blow ; Cuvier was car- 
ried off in a few days. 
The managers of the Museum thought it their duty to 
transfer M..de Blainville to the chair in which the modern 
Aristotle had immortalized himself. 
From this time forward, in the character of a vigilant and 
almost jealous guardian, M. de Blainville pitched his tent 
beside the collections, purchased by half a century of enlight- 
ened labour. A tent indeed it might be called—an abode 
worthy of our philosophers of the Middle Ages—where he re- 
produced both their lengthened meditations and inexhaustible 
enthusiasm. 
Spending his life in a gloomy cabinet, and entrenching 
himself there in the depth of a vast easy-chair, surrounded 
by a triple rampart formed by a confused assemblage of 
books, original drawings, anatomical preparations, and ill- 
secured microscopes, if at any time a studious pupil was ad- 
mitted, he had more than one obstacle to surmount in order 
