PROGRESS OF ZOOLOGY. 
343 
tion, putredini contrarium; but any way we do search, and 
not in vain, for at every step some discovery is made which 
affords encouragements for perseverance. But we may adopt 
the term “natural/* as applicable to zoology and botany, in 
an especial sense, not because they treat of natural objects, 
for all sciences do that, but because their subjects are almost 
wholly contemporaneous,and those that are not so may be made 
so by the aid of analogy ; so that even palaeontology may 
be studied at the Zoological Gardens, and recent species 
among the models of extinct forms in the Crystal Palace. 
What Margaret Fuller expected of the sculptor may be as 
well expected also of the zoologist: 
“ If he already sees what he must do. 
Well may he shade his eyes from the far-seeing view.” 
Student and professor are alike concerned in one effort, 
and that is the separation of the natural from the artificial, 
and the proven from the conjectural, in all inquiries and all 
accumulations of facts. At the very threshold of zoology 
we perceive that there are many stumbling-blocks, and if we 
escape those without damage, we next perceive that there is 
a sort of antagonism between man and nature, the one 
insisting on creating, if he cannot find, a system, the other 
insisting that every fact shall stand for itself, and every 
creature enjoy an independent sovereignty. No doubt the 
plants and animals that redeem the world from stony dead¬ 
ness are so many members of a system as truly mathematical 
as the law which governs the relationships of the planets, but 
man has not yet discovered what that system is; and until 
he has mastered the last little item of organography, he must 
perforce rely upon invention, and classify his knowledge by 
artificial rules. It is a wonderful testimony to man’s power 
of perception and analysis that since the second edition of 
Cuvier’s liegne Animal there have been scarcely any contribu¬ 
tions to the classification of animated nature of a character 
to influence deeply the aspects of the science. Even those 
of Professor Owen, who, pursuing the indications of analogy 
with the instinct of a poet, has only been able to rectify in 
some few particulars the deficiencies of Cuvier’s magnificent 
scheme. In fact it is no easier for Owen than it was for 
Cuvier or Linnaeus to define on what grounds a class, order, 
or genus, shall be formed. Nature has no classes, no orders, 
no genera; she fashions creatures to lead a certain life, and 
places them in the conditions requisite to their well-being, 
and with a defiant nonchalance says, 6C Group them as you 
please and all that we can do is to define apparent relation- 
