328 ON THE CLASSES OF THE 



has carried off the palm from all -who have hitherto at* 

 tempted to rival him on the same ground. But we are far 

 from being thus assured of his right to be compared as 

 a naturalist with others not blest with half his talents. 

 We learn only that he confined his views to one of the 

 most sublime, but at the same time most limited depart- 

 ments of Natural History. To be pre-eminent in the 

 science requires a much more extensive range of investi- 

 gation, — no other than that physiology which endeavours 

 to illustrate the system of affinities upon which organs, 

 functions and habits, every thing in brief appertaining to 

 organized matter, were designed by the Architect of the 

 universe. This study includes all the rest; and it is not 

 the least praise of Cuvier that he has tried to impress on 

 our minds a truth so important. 



M. Cuvier has been fortunate, inasmuch as his reputation 

 is extended over all Europe, and he is universally admitted 

 to be the first comparative anatomist in the world. But 

 there is another Frenchman, his brother professor, now 

 unhappily oppressed with age and sickness, whose name is 

 in England much less known, and, when known, is rarely 

 cited but in order to exemplify the objectionable tenets held 

 by some of a modern school of philosophers. His peculiar 

 and very singular opinions have never gained many converts 

 in his own country, and I believe none in this ; they are 

 indeed only to be understood by those who are already 

 supplied with the means of refuting them: so that, the mis- 

 chief they may have occasioned being comparatively null, 

 we may be permitted to assign due praise to the labours 

 of Lamarck, as being those of the first Zoologist France 

 has produced, as being those of a person whose merits in 

 Natural History bear much the same relation to those of 



