The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 written by Various
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Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862
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22 THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
* * * * *
VOLUME IX.
M DCCC LXII.
* * * * *
[Transcriber's note: Converted page numbers to issue numbers.]
CONTENTS. ISSUE.
A.C., The Experiences of the, 52.
Agnes of Sorrento, 51, 52, 53, 54.
American Civilization, 54.
Author of "Charles Auchester," The, 56.
Autobiographical Sketches of a Strength-Seeker, 51.
Childhood, Concerning the Sorrows of, 53.
Clough, Arthur Hugh, 54.
Cooper, James Fenimore, 52.
Ease in Work, 52.
Forester, The, 54.
Fremont's Hundred Days in Missouri, 51, 52, 53.
Fruits of Free Labor in the Smaller Islands
of the British West Indies, 53.
German Burns, The, 54.
Health of Our Girls, The, 56.
Hindrance, 55.
Horrors of San Domingo, The, 56.
Individuality, 54.
Jefferson and Slavery, 51.
John Lamar, 54.
Letter to a Young Contributor, 54.
Light Literature, 51.
Love and Skates, 51, 52.
Man under Sealed Orders, 55.
Methods of Study in Natural History, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56.
My Garden, 55.
Old Age, 51.
Our Artists in Italy, 52.
Pere Antoine's Date-Palm, 56.
Pilgrimage to Old Boston, 51.
Raft that no Man made, A, 53.
Richelieu, The Statesmanship of, 55.
Rifle, The Use of the, 53.
Saltpetre as a Source of Power, 55.
Sam Adams Regiments in the Town of Boston, The, 56.
Slavery, in its Principles, Development,
and Expedients, 55.
Snow, 52.
"Solid Operations in Virginia", 56.
South Breaker, The, 55, 56.
Spain, The Rehabilitation of, 53.
Spirits, 55.
Story of To-Day, A, 51, 52, 53.
Taxation, 53.
Then and Now in the Old Dominion, 54.
Walking, 56.
War and Literature, 56.
Weather in War, 55.
What shall We do with Them?, 54.
POETRY.
Astraea at the Capitol, 56.
At Port Royal, 1861, 52.
Battle-Hymn of the Republic, 52.
Birdofredum Sawin, Esq., to Mr. Hosea Biglow, 51, 53.
Compensation, 54.
Exodus, 54.
Lines written under a Portrait of Theodore
Winthrop, 55.
Lyrics of the Street, 55.
Mason and Slidell: A Yankee Idyl, 52.
Message of Jeff Davis in Secret Session, A, 54.
Midwinter, 52.
Mountain Pictures, 53, 54.
Order for a Picture, An, 56.
Out of the Body to God, 56.
Per Tenebras, Lumina, 51.
Sonnet, 56.
Southern Cross, The, 53.
Speech of Hon'ble Preserved Doe in Secret
Caucus, 55.
Strasburg Clock, The, 54.
Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line, 56.
Titmouse, The, 55.
True Heroine, The, 51.
Under the Snow, 55.
Volunteer, The, 55.
Voyage of the Good Ship Union, 53.
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
Arnold's Lectures on translating Homer, 51.
Book about Doctors, A, 54.
Botta's Discourse on the Life, Character,
and Policy of Count Cavour, 55.
Cloister and the Hearth, The, 52.
De Vere, Aubrey, Poems by, 54.
Dickens's Works, Household Edition, 55.
Harris's Insects Injurious to Vegetation, 55.
John Brent, 54.
Leigh Hunt, Correspondence of, 55.
Lessons in Life, 51.
Mueller's Lectures on the Science of Language, 51.
Newman's Homeric Translation in Theory and
in Practice, 51.
Pauli's Pictures of Old England, 55.
Record of an Obscure Man, 55.
Tragedy of Errors, 55.
Willmott's English Sacred Poetry, 52.
FOREIGN LITERATURE, 54, 55.
OBITUARY, 51.
RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS, 52, 53, 54, 55.
* * * * *
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
* * * * *
VOL. IX.--JANUARY, 1862.--NO. LI.
* * * * *
METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY.
I.
It is my intention, in this series of papers, to give the history of the
progress in Natural History from the beginning,--to show how men first
approached Nature,--how the facts of Natural History have been
accumulated, and how those facts have been converted into science. In so
doing, I shall present the methods employed in Natural History on a wider
scale and with broader generalizations than if I limited myself to the
study as it exists to-day. The history of humanity, in its efforts to
understand the Creation, resembles the development of any individual mind
engaged in the same direction. It has its infancy, with the first
recognition of surrounding objects; and, indeed, the early observers seem
to us like children in their first attempts to understand the world in
which they live. But these efforts, that appear childish to us now, were
the first steps in that field of knowledge which is so extensive that all
our progress seems only to show us how much is left to do.
Aristotle is the representative of the learning of antiquity in Natural
Science. The great mind of Greece in his day, and a leader in all the
intellectual culture of his time, he was especially a naturalist, and his
work on Natural History is a record not only of his own investigations,
but of all preceding study in this department. It is evident that even
then much had been done, and, in allusion to certain peculiarities of the
human frame, which he does not describe in full, he refers his readers to
familiar works, saying, that illustrations in point may be found in
anatomical text-books.[1]
[1] See Aristotle's _Zooelogy_, Book I., Chapter xiv.
Strange that in Aristotle's day, two thousand years ago, such books should
have been in general use, and that in our time we are still in want of
elementary text-books of Natural History, having special reference to the
animals of our own country, and adapted to the use of schools. One fact in
Aristotle's "History of Animals" is very striking, and makes it difficult
for us to understand much of its contents. It never occurs to him that a
time may come when the Greek language--the language of all culture and
science in his time--would not be the language of all cultivated men. He
took, therefore, little pains to characterize the animals he alludes to,
otherwise than by their current names; and of his descriptions of their
habits and peculiarities, much is lost upon us from their local character
and expression. There is also a total absence of systematic form, of any
classification or framework to express the divisions of the animal kingdom
into larger or lesser groups. His only divisions are genera and species:
classes, orders, and families, as we understand them now, are quite
foreign to the Greek conception of the animal kingdom. Fishes and birds,
for instance, they considered as genera, and their different
representatives as species. They grouped together quadrupeds also in
contradistinction to animals with legs and wings, and they distinguished
those that bring forth living young from those that lay eggs. But though a
system of Nature was not familiar even to their great philosopher, and
Aristotle had not arrived at the idea of a classification on general
principles, he yet stimulated a search into the closer affinities among
animals by the differences he pointed out. He divided the animal kingdom
into two groups, which he called _Enaima_ and _Anaima_, or animals with
blood and animals without blood. We must remember, however, that by the
word _blood_ he designated only the red fluid circulating in the higher
animals; whereas a fluid akin to blood exists in all animals, variously
colored in some, but colorless in a large number of others.
After Aristotle, a long period elapsed without any addition to the
information he left us. Rome and the Middle Ages gave us nothing, and even
Pliny added hardly a fact to those that Aristotle recorded. And though the
great naturalists of the sixteenth century gave a new impulse to this
study, their investigations were chiefly directed towards a minute
acquaintance with the animals they had an opportunity of observing,
mingled with commentaries upon the ancients. Systematic Zooelogy was but
little advanced by their efforts.
We must come down to the last century, to Linnaeus, before we find the
history taken up where Aristotle had left it, and some of his suggestions
carried out with new vigor and vitality. Aristotle had distinguished only
between genera and species; Linnaeus took hold of this idea, and gave
special names to other groups, of different weight and value. Besides
species and genera, he gives us orders and classes,--considering classes
the most comprehensive, then orders, then genera, then species. He did
not, however, represent these groups as distinguished by their nature, but
only by their range; they were still to him, as genera and species had
been to Aristotle, only larger or smaller groups, not founded upon and
limited by different categories of structure. He divided the animal
kingdom into six classes, which I give here, as we shall have occasion to
compare them with other classifications:--_Mammalia_, _Birds_, _Reptiles_,
_Fishes_, _Insects_, _Worms_.
That this classification should have expressed all that was known in the
last century of the most general relations among animals only shows how
difficult it is to generalize on such a subject; nor should we expect to
find it an easy task, when we remember the vast number of species (about a
quarter of a million) already noticed by naturalists. Linnaeus succeeded,
however, in finding a common character on which to unite most of his
classes; but the Mammalia, that group to which we ourselves belong,
remained very imperfect. Indeed, in the earlier editions of his
classification, he does not apply the name of Mammalia to this class, but
calls the higher animals _Quadrupedia_, characterizing them as the animals
with four legs and covered with fur or hair, that bring forth living young
and nurse them with milk. In thus admitting external features as class
characters, he excluded many animals which by their mode of reproduction,
as well as by their respiration and circulation, belong to this class as
much as the Quadrupeds,--as, for instance, all the Cetaceans, (Whales,
Porpoises, and the like,) which, though they have not legs, nor are their
bodies covered with hair or fur, yet bring forth living young, nurse them
with milk, are warm-blooded and air-breathing. As more was learned of
these animals, there arose serious discussion and criticism among
contemporary naturalists respecting the classification of Linnaeus, all of
which led to a clearer insight into the true relations among animals.
Linnaeus himself, in his last edition of the "Systema Naturae," shows us
what important progress he had made since he first announced his views;
for he there substitutes for the name of _Quadrupedia_ that of _Mammalia_,
including among them the Whales, which he characterizes as air-breathing,
warm-blooded, and bringing forth living young which they nurse with milk.
Thus the very deficiencies of his classification stimulated naturalists to
new criticism and investigation into the true limits of classes, and led
to the recognition of one most important principle,--that such groups are
founded, not on external appearance, but on internal structure, and that
internal structure, therefore, is the thing to be studied. The group of
Quadrupeds was not the only defective one in this classification of
Linnaeus; his class of Worms, also, was most heterogeneous, for he included
among them Shell-Fishes, Slugs, Star-Fishes, Sea-Urchins, and other
animals that bear no relation whatever to the class of Worms.
But whatever its defects, the classification of Linnaeus was the first
attempt at grouping animals together according to certain common
structural characters. His followers and pupils engaged at once in a
scrutiny of the differences and similarities among animals, which soon led
to a great increase in the number of classes: instead of six, there were
presently nine, twelve, and more. But till Cuvier's time there was no
great principle of classification. Facts were accumulated and more or less
systematized, but they were not yet arranged according to law; the
principle was still wanting by which to generalize them and give meaning
and vitality to the whole. It was Cuvier who found the key. He himself
tells us how he first began, in his investigations upon the internal
organization of animals, to use his dissections with reference to finding
the true relations between animals, and how, ever after, his knowledge of
anatomy assisted him in his classifications, and his classifications threw
new light again on his anatomical investigations,--each science thus
helping to fertilize the other. He was not one of those superficial
observers who are in haste to announce every new fact that they chance to
find, and his first paper[2] specially devoted to classification gave to
the world the ripe fruit of years of study. This was followed by his great
work, "Le Regne Animal." He said that animals were united in their most
comprehensive groups, not on special characters, but on different _plans
of structure_,--moulds, he called them, in which all animals had been
cast. He tells us this in such admirable language that I must, to do
justice to his thought, give it in his own words:--
"Si l'on considere le regne animal d'apres les principes que nous
venons de poser en se debarrassant des prejuges etablis sur les
divisions anciennement admises, en n'ayant egard qu'a
l'organisation et a la nature des animaux, et non pas a leur
grandeur, a leur utilite, au plus ou moins de connaissance que
nous en avons, ni a toutes les autres circonstances accessoires,
on trouvera qu'il existe quatre formes principales, quatre plans
generaux, si l'on peut s'exprimer ainsi, d'apres lesquels tous les
animaux semblent avoir ete modeles, et dont les divisions
ulterieures, de quelque titre que les naturalistes les aient
decorees, ne sont que des modifications assez legeres, fondees sur
le developpement ou l'addition de quelques parties, qui ne
changent rien a l'essence du plan."
[2] Sur un nouveau rapprochement a etablir entre les Classes qui
composent le Regne Animal. _Ann. Mus._, Vol. XIX.
The value of this principle was soon tested by its application to facts
already known, and it was found that animals whose affinities had been
questionable before were now at once referred to their true relations with
other animals by ascertaining whether they were built on one or another of
these plans. Of such plans or structural conceptions Cuvier found in the
whole animal kingdom only four, which he called _Vertebrates_, _Mollusks_,
_Articulates_, and _Radiates_.
With this new principle as the basis of investigation, it was no longer
enough for the naturalist to know a certain amount of features
characteristic of a certain number of animals,--he must penetrate deep
enough into their organization to find the secret of their internal
structure. Till he can do this, he is like the traveller in a strange
city, who looks on the exterior of edifices entirely new to him, but knows
nothing of the plan of their internal architecture. To be able to read in
the finished structure the plan on which the whole is built is now
essential to every naturalist.
There have been many criticisms on this division of Cuvier's, and many
attempts to change it; but though some improvements have been made in the
details of his classification, all departures from its great fundamental
principle are errors, and do but lead us away from the recognition of the
true affinities among animals.
Each of these plans may be stated in the most general terms. In the
_Vertebrates_ there is a vertebral column terminating in a prominent head;
this column has an arch above and an arch below, forming a double internal
cavity. The parts are symmetrically arranged on either side of the
longitudinal axis of the body. In the _Mollusks_, also, the parts are
arranged according to a bilateral symmetry on either side of the body, but
the body has but one cavity, and is a soft, concentrated mass, without a
distinct individualization of parts. In the _Articulates_ there is but one
cavity, and the parts are here again arranged on either side of the
longitudinal axis, but in these animals the whole body is divided from end
to end into transverse rings or joints movable upon each other. In the
_Radiates_ we lose sight of the bilateral symmetry so prevalent in the
other three, except as a very subordinate element of structure; the plan
of this lowest type is an organic sphere, in which all parts bear definite
relations to a vertical axis.
It is not upon any special features, then, that these largest divisions of
the animal kingdom are based, but simply upon the general structural idea.
Striking as this statement was, it was coldly received at first by
contemporary naturalists: they could hardly grasp Cuvier's wide
generalizations, and perhaps there was also some jealousy of the grandeur
of his views. Whatever the cause, his principle of classification was not
fully appreciated; but it opened a new road for study, and gave us the
keynote to the natural affinities among animals. Lamarck, his
contemporary, not recognizing the truth of this principle, distributed the
animal kingdom into two great divisions, which he calls _Vertebrates_ and
_Invertebrates_. Ehrenberg also, at a later period, announced another
division under two heads,--those with a continuous solid nervous centre,
and those with merely scattered nervous swellings.[3]
[3] For more details upon the different systems of Zooelogy, see
Agassiz's Essay on Classification in his _Contributions to the
Natural History of the United States_, Vol. I.
But there was no real progress in either of these latter classifications,
so far as the primary divisions are concerned; for they correspond to the
old division of Aristotle, under the head of animals with or without
blood, the _Enaima_ and _Anaima_. This coincidence between systems based
on different foundations may teach us that every structural combination
includes certain inherent necessities which will bring animals together on
whatever set of features we try to classify them; so that the division of
Aristotle, founded on the circulating fluids, or that of Lamarck, on the
absence or presence of a backbone, or that of Ehrenberg, on the
differences of the nervous system, cover the same ground. Lamarck
attempted also to use the faculties of animals as a groundwork for
division among them. But our knowledge of the psychology of animals is
still too imperfect to justify any such use of it. His divisions into
Apathetic, Sensitive, and Intelligent animals are entirely theoretical. He
places, for instance, Fishes and Reptiles among the Intelligent animals,
as distinguished from Crustacea and Insects, which he refers to the second
division. But one would be puzzled to say how the former manifest more
intelligence than the latter, or why the latter should be placed among the
Sensitive animals. Again, some of the animals that he calls Apathetic have
been proved by later investigators 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 must be very
imperfect.
Many modifications of Cuvier's great divisions have been attempted. Some
naturalists, for instance, have divided off a part of the Radiates and
Articulates, insisting upon some special features of structure, and
mistaking these for the more important and general characteristics of
their respective plans. All subsequent investigations of such would-be
improvements show them to be retrograde movements, only proving more
clearly that Cuvier detected in his four plans all the great structural
ideas on which the vast variety of animals is founded. This result is of
greater importance than may at first appear. Upon it depends the question,
whether all such classifications represent merely individual impressions
and opinions of men, or whether there is really something in Nature that
presses upon us certain divisions among animals, certain affinities,
certain limitations, founded upon essential principles of organization.
Are our systems the inventions of naturalists, or only their reading of
the Book of Nature? and can that book have more than one reading? If these
classifications are not mere inventions, if they are not an attempt to
classify for our own convenience the objects we study, then they are
thoughts which, whether we detect them or not, are expressed in
Nature,--then Nature is the work of thought, the production of
intelligence carried out according to plan, therefore premeditated,--and
in our study of natural objects we are approaching the thoughts of the
Creator, reading His conceptions, interpreting a system that is His and
not ours.
All the divergence from the simplicity and grandeur of this division of
the animal kingdom arises from an inability to distinguish between a plan
and the execution, of a plan. 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 and the work of one Mind.
II.
Proceeding upon the view that there is a close analogy between the way in
which every individual student penetrates into Nature and the progress of
science as a whole in the history of humanity, I continue my sketch of the
successive steps that have led to our present state of knowledge. I began
with Aristotle, and showed 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 scientific language differing from the
common mode of expression of his day. He presents his information as a man
with his eyes open narrates in a familiar style what he sees. As
civilization spread and science had its representatives in other countries
besides Greece, it became indispensable to have a common scientific
language, a technical nomenclature, combining many objects under common
names, and enabling every naturalist to express the results of his
observations readily and simply in a manner intelligible to all other
students of Natural History.
Linnaeus devised such a system, and to him we owe a most simple and
comprehensive scientific mode of designating animals and plants. It may at
first seem no advantage to give up the common names of the vernacular and
adopt the unfamiliar ones, but a word of explanation will make the object
clear. Perceiving, for instance, the close relations between certain
members of the larger groups, Linnaeus gave to them names that should be
common to all, and which are called generic names,--as we speak of Ducks,
when we would designate in one word the Mallard, the Widgeon, the
Canvas-Back, etc.; but to these generic names he added qualifying
epithets, called specific names, to indicate the different kinds in each
group. For example, the Lion, the Tiger, the Panther, the Domestic Cat
constitute such a natural group, which Linnaeus called _Felis_, Cat,
indicating the whole genus; but the species he designates as _Felis
catus_, the Domestic Cat,--_Felis leo_, the Lion,--_Felis tigris_, the
Tiger,--_Felis panthera_, the Panther. So he called all the Dogs _Canis_;
but for the different kinds we have _Canis familiaris_, the Domestic
Dog,--_Canis lupus_, the Wolf,--_Canis vulpes_, the Fox, etc.
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