Marie-Henri Ducrotay de Blainville. 211 
ancient times, Alfred the Great in the middle ages, and 
M. de Lamarck in our own days. He overlooks nearly all 
other naturalists; and, in his prejudiced representations, he 
does not sufficiently recollect that history is a judge, and 
that the first duty of a judge is impartiality. 
Not less presumptuous as a diplomatist than as a histo- 
rian, he claims the first-ranks of philosophy for Lamarck, 
Gall, and Broussais, whom he calls the great philosophers of 
our age. Under such imperfect guidance, he ventures into 
uncertain paths, and avoids the only one that is sure—that, 
namely, which Bossuet has followed in his immortal treatise 
On the Knowledge of God and of One’s self. 
It is in vain to persist in this object, and a mere loss of 
time. The science of organization can never be the basis of 
philosophy; the domains are separate and distinct. What 
we now call philosophy, and what Descartes by a more 
precise term denominated metaphysics, has only one object, 
strictly circumscribed, namely, the study of the mind. 
As arational means of appreciating the progress of the 
human mind in the natural sciences, it is worthy of being 
remembered that M. de Blainville’s book had been preceded 
by one from Cuvier on the same subject—the slowly matured 
production of a calmer intellect. 
On comparing this work with the former, we involuntarily 
call to mind the famous verse— 
‘* Mon flegme est philosophe autant que votre bile.” 
A great interval separates the penetrating mind which 
discovers what is weak in the ideas of others, and the re- 
flecting mind which judges its own thoughts. Too impatient 
to submit his theories to a severe analysis, but too prudent 
to leave them exposed to attacks which might be attended 
with danger, M. de Blainville had recourse to stratagem ; 
he carried the war into the territories of his rivals, and 
forced them always to remain on the defensive by allowing 
them neither peace nor truce. 
The desire of success, that implacable tyrant, made him 
by turns the stubborn contradictor, and the attractive and 
fascinating professor ; and in the latter capacity success was 
certain. When taking upon him the part of an instructor. he 
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