THE HISTORY OF ANATOMICAL SCIENCE 285 
In the middle of the eighteenth century, the 
value of the artificial systems invented by Lin- 
naeus, as a 23art of his method of introducing order 
into the chaos of ‘ Natural History,' was so much 
felt, that his clear recognition of their essentially 
provisional character was ignored by the host of 
disciples ; who, as usual, appreciated most highly, 
and were most sedulous to Imitate, the weakest 
parts of their master’s teachings. The genius of 
Buffon strove against this tendency to substitute 
empty schematisms for science almost In vain. 
Botany became a cataloguing of ‘ hay ; ’ and zoo- 
logy, of skins and shells ; indeed, of straw, if I 
may revive a jest of my old friend Edward Forbes 
not without serious application even in his time 
to the effect that the pure systematic zoologist 
was unaware that the stuffed skins he named and 
arranged ever had contained anything but straw. 
Before long, however, better days began to 
dawn ; and the light came partly from the purely 
scientific anatomists, partly from men of more or 
less anatomical knowledge, in whom the artistic 
habit of visualising Ideas was superadded to that 
capacity for exact observation which Is the foun- 
dation of both art and science. 
Scientific observation tells us that living birds 
form a group or class of animals, through which a 
certain form of skeleton runs ; and that this kind 
of skeleton differs in certain well-defined cha- 
racters from that of mammals. On the other 
