in new wonder and adoration of that Power, from whom, both in this world, and in that which is to come, all knowledge, and every other good and perfect gift are alone derived.

APPENDIX.

HAVING considered in the preceding pages the general opinions of Aristotle respecting the physiology and classification of animals, I propose in this Appendix to make a selection from his descriptions of some natural groups and individual species of animals, for the purpose of comparing them with the corresponding descriptions of Cuvier; confining myself, however, exclusively to the mammalia, which constitute the first class of vertebrated animals. And, as an introduction to that selection, I shall prefix a comparative view of the observations of the same two authors on some points connected with the general physiology of animals; presenting the whole in the form of two parallel columns, as the most convenient mode of exhibiting the comparison. In each column I shall endeavour to give a free but faithful translation of the original passages, followed by the original passages themselves a.

However extensive may have been the information of the ancients in that department of natural science which is now under consideration; and however capable a mind like that of Aristotle must have been of deducing general conclusions from a systematic examination of facts, sufficiently numerous and various, for the purpose of effecting a natural classification of animals, it could not reasonably be expected that, antecedently to the knowledge of the circulation of the blood, and of the true character of respiration, and also of

a In order to abridge as much as possible the number and length of the extracts, I have occasionally merely stated a conclusion drawn from several separate paragraphs. In such instances I must claim credit for having rightly understood, and fairly represented, the context.

the physiology of the absorbent and nervous systems, a natural classification could have been accomplished on principles so satisfactory as at the present day. And those individuals pay a very absurd homage to antiquity, who, on occasions like the present, would place the pretensions of the ancients upon an equality with those of the moderns : for the question does not regard the original powers of the mind, but the amount of accumulated knowledge on which those powers are to be exercised; and it would indeed be extraordinary, if, inverting the analogy of individuals, the world should not be wiser in its old age, than it was in its infancy.

In comparing, then, the zoology of Aristotle with that of the moderns, it has not been my intention to prove that the classification of the one is built upon equally clear and extensive demonstrations as that of the other; but to shew, as in harmony with the general object of this treatise, that, even in the very dawn of science, there is frequently sufficient light to guide the mind to at least an approximation to the truth -to a much nearer approximation, indeed, than could have been antecedently expected by those who are not accustomed to reflect philosophically on the uniformity of the laws of nature. Thus, as has been already mentioned, the advancement of science has shewn the existence of such a general coincidence and harmony of relation between the several component parts of an individual animal, that even a partial acquaintance with the details of its structure will frequently enable the inquirer to ascertain its true place in the scale of organization. And hence, although Aristotle knew nothing of the circulation of the blood, or of the general physiology of the nervous system, and even comparatively little of the osteology of animals, yet subsequent discoveries have scarcely disturbed the order of his arrangement. He placed the whale, for instance, in the same natural division with common quadrupeds, because he saw that like them it is viviparous, and suckles its young, and respires by lungs and not by gills; and with viviparous

quadrupeds it is still classed: the circulation of its blood, as well as the arrangement of its nervous system, being essentially the same as in that class of animals. And, notwithstanding the difference of its form, its osteology, which holds an analogy throughout with that of quadrupeds, is the same actually in a part where it would be least expected: for, with the remarkable exception of the sloth, all viviparous quadrupeds have exactly seven cervical vertebræ, and so has the whale; whereas fish, to the general form of which the whale closely approximates, having no neck, have no cervical vertebræ; and the deficiency of the neck in fish was recognised by Aristotle b.

GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY.

Aristotle.

In some animals there is a mutual resemblance in all their parts; as the eye of any one man resembles the eye of every other man and it is the same with respect to the constituent parts of horses, or of any other animals, which are said to be of the same species: for in individuals of the same species each part resembles its correspondent part as much as the whole resembles the whole.

Εχει δὲ τῶν ζῴων ἔνια μὲν πάντα τὰ μόρια ταὐτὰ ἀλλήλοις, ἔνια δ ἕτερα. ταὐτὰ δὲ τὰ μὲν εἴδει τῶν μορίων ἐστὶν, οἷον ἀνθρώπου ῥὶς καὶ ὀφθαλμὸς ἀνθρώπου ῥινὶ καὶ ὀφθαλμῷ, καὶ σαρκὶ σὰρξ καὶ ὀστῷ ὀστοῦν τὸν αὐτὸν δὲ τρόπον καὶ ἵππου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ζῴων, ὅσα τῷ εἴδει ταὐτὰ λέγομεν ἑαυτοῖς· ὁμοίως

ὁ Αὐχένα δ ̓ οὐδεὶς

Cuvier, tom. I.

Every organized body has its peculiar form; not only generally and exteriorly, but even in the detail of the structure of each of its parts; and all the individuals which agree in the detail of their structure are of the same species.

Chaque corps organisé a une forme propre, non-seulement en général et à l'extérieur, mais jusque dans le détail de la structure de chacune de ses parties, p. 16. et tous les êtres appartenans à l'une de ces formes constituent ce que l'on appelle une espèce. p. 19. ἔχει ἰχθύς. p. 40.