At this very time the four vertebral cranial bones
recognized by Owen are the same Oken has described. But
notwithstanding the generous tribute of Mr. Agassiz to his great
merits, the writer who assigns special colors to the persons in the
Trinity, (red, blue, and green,) and then allots to Satan a
constituent of one of these, (yellow,) has drifted away from the
solid anchorage of observation into the shoreless waste of the inane,
if not amidst the dark abysses of the profane.
If the widest range of mental vision, joined, too, with great
learning, could make a successful student of Nature, Lord Bacon
should have stood by the side of Linnaeus. But open the "Sylva
Sylvarum" anywhere and see what Bacon was as a naturalist. "It was
observed in the _Great Plague_ of the last yeare, that there were
scene in divers _Ditches_ and low _Grounds_ about _London_, many
_Toads_ that had _Tailes_, two or three inches long, at the least:
Whereas _Toads_ (usually) have no Tailes at all. Which argueth a
great disposition to _Putrefaction_ in the _Soile_ and _Aire_." This
in that "great birth of time," the "Instauration of the Sciences"!
The systematizing or coordinating power is worse than nothing,
unless it be supported by the other qualities already mentioned.
Darwin had it, and something of what is called genius with it; but
where is now the "Zooenomia"?
And what is erudition without the power to correct errors by
appealing to Nature, to arrange methodically, to use wisely? It
would be a shame to mention any name in illustration of its
insignificance.
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