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1862.] 4

’Methods

1862.]

of

Study in Natural History.

5

bone, or that of Ehrenberg, on the differ

ing of the Book ofNature?

ences of the nervous

book have more than one reading?

system, cover the

Lamarck attempted al so to use the faculties of animals as a groundwork for division among them. But our knowledge of the psyehology of animals is still too imperfect to justify any such use of it. His divisions into Apathetic, Sensitive, and Intelligent ani mals are entirely theoretical. He places, for instance, Fishes and Reptiles among same ground.

the Intelligent from

Crustacea

animals,

as

distinguished which he

and Insects,

But one

refers

to the second

would

be puzzled to say how the former

manifest

division.

more intelligence than the lat

ter, or why the latter should

be placed

Again, some of the animals that he calls Apa thetic have been proved by later inves tigators to show an affection and care for their young, seemingly quite inconsistent with the epithet he has applied to them. In fact, we know so little of the faculties of animals that any classiﬁcation based upon our present information about them among

the Sensitive

animals.

if

If

are not mere inven

these classiﬁcations tions,

and can that

they are not an attempt to clas the objects

sify for our own convenience

we study, then they are thoughts which, whether we detect them or not, are ex pressed in Nature,—then Nature is the work of thought, the production of intelli gence carried out according to plan, there fore premeditated, —and in our study of

natural objects we are approaching the thoughts of the Creator, reading His con ceptions, interpreting a system that is His and not ours.

All

from the simplicity

the divergence

and grandeur of this division mal kingdom distinguish

of

the ani

arises from an inability to

between

~cution of a plan.

a

plan and the exe

We allow

the details

to shut out the plan itself, which exists quite independent of special forms.

I

hope we shall ﬁnd a meaning in all these plans that will prove them to be the parts

of one great conception one Mind.

and the work of

must be very imperfect.

of Cuvier's great

Many modiﬁcations divisions

have

been

attempted.

for instance, have divided off and Articulates, insisting upon some special features of these for the structure, and mistaking more important and general character isties of their respective plans. All sub of such would-be sequent investigations naturalists,

a part of the Radiates

improvements show them to be retrograde movements, only proving more clearly

Cuvier detected in his four plans structural ideas on which the vast variety of animals is founded. This result is of greater importance than that

all the great

Upon it depends the question, whether all such classiﬁca tions represent merely individual impres sions and opinions of men, or whether there is really something in Nature that may at ﬁrst

appear.

presses upon us certain divisions among animals, certain aﬂinities, certain limita tions, founded

upon

essential

H.

Some

principles

of organization. ~Are our systems the in ventions of naturalists, or only their read

PnoCnnnmo

upon the view that there

between the way in which every individual student penetrates into Nature and the progress of science as a whole in the history of humanity, continue my sketch of the successive steps that have!ed to our present state of knowl edge. began with Aristotle, and show is a close analogy

I

I

ed that this great philosopher, though he prepared a digest of all the knowledge belonging to his time, yet did not feel the necessity of any system or of any scien.

differing from the common He pre of his day. sents his information as a man with his eyes open narrates in a familiar style what As civilization spread and sci he sees. ence had its representatives in other coun tries besides Greece, it became indispen tiﬁc language

mode of expression

sable

to have a common

guage, a technical

scientiﬁc

nomenclature,

lan

combin

ing many objects under common names, and enabling every naturalist to express