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
