634 
REYIEWS. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ZOOLOGY.^ 
f-J E ihat questioneth much, said Lord Bacon, shall learn much ; and it is 
undoubtedly true of all those inquiries which are made mth the object 
of discovering some certain fact or facts. If there is something sought for 
which can only be arrived at as the result of prolonged research, he who is 
engaged in the investigation will assuredly amass much information. Indeed, 
in all cases where the seeker for knowledge of an important kind questions 
much he shall learn much. In no instance can this be said with greater 
truth than in the search for the laws of Nature which rule the phenomena 
of organic life. To discover those laws of the great cosmic statute-book 
should be the highest aim of the philosophic naturalist, who should rather 
seek to interpret the mysteries of the organic realm, than to simply look for 
pleasure in the survey of Nature’s works. But it not unfrequently, nay, 
it but too generally, occurs, that the naturalist ceases to be a philosopher in 
becoming a lover of Nature. In his admiration of organic phenomena he 
gives way to the *pleasures of sensual enjoyment, and cultivates aesthetic 
feelings rather than power of analysis. Hence it is, that of the legion of 
naturahsts who are daily engaged in the examination of natural objects, but 
very few indeed have the faintest claim to be termed philosophic. Their 
labours display prolonged observation, and a due and even enthusiastic appre- 
ciation of the beautiful, but beyond this they do not go. Our so-called 
scientific journals teem with articles descriptive of the varied and novel 
forms of organic existence which present themselves on all sides to our 
notice ; but how seldom they contain anything approaching to profound 
generalization ! How little is achieved in their pages toward a solution 
of the complex scheme of organic life ? 
It does happen, however, now and then, that some naturalist-worker, with 
more lofty purpose than his fellows, strives to arrange and classify the 
materials which have for years lain in chaotic disorder on the lumber-shelves 
% “ Metamorphoses of Man and the Lower Animals.” By A. Be 
Quatrefages, Professor of Natural History in the Museum of Natural 
History at Paris. Translated by Henry Lawson, M.D. London : Hard- 
wicke. 1864. 
“ The Genetic Cycle in Organic Nature,” &c. By George Ogilvie, M.D., 
Professor of the Institutes of Medicine in the University of Aberdeen. 
Aberdeen ; A. Brown & Co. 1865. 
