[105] Cuv. Hist. Sc. Nat. iii. 422.
[106] Ib. 437.
[107] Cuv. Hist. Sc. Nat. iii. 441.
But when an attempt was further made to identify the plan of another branch of the animal world, the mollusca, with that of the vertebrata, the radical opposition between such views and those of Cuvier, broke out into an animated controversy.
Two French anatomists, MM. Laurencet and Meyranx, presented to the Academy of Sciences, in 1830, a Memoir containing their views on the organization of molluscous animals; and on the sepia or cuttle-fish in particular, as one of the most complete examples of such animals. These creatures, indeed, though thus placed in the same division with shell-fish of the most defective organization and obscure structure, are far from being scantily organized. They have a brain,[108] often eyes, and these, in the animals of this class, (cephalopoda) are more complicated than in any vertebrates;[109] they have sometimes ears, salivary glands, multiple stomachs, a considerable liver, a bile, a complete double circulation, provided with auricles and ventricles; in short, their vital activity is vigorous, and their senses are distinct.
[108] Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire denies this. Principes de Phil. Zoologique discutés en 1830, p. 68.
[109] Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Principes de Phil. Zoologique discutés en 1830, p. 55.
But still, though this organization, in the abundance and diversity of its parts, approaches that of vertebrate animals, it had not been considered as composed in the same manner, or arranged in the same order, Cuvier had always maintained that the plan of molluscs is not a continuation of the plan of vertebrates. [485]
MM. Laurencet and Meyranx, on the contrary, conceived that the sepia might be reduced to the type of a vertebrate creature, by considering the back-bone of the latter bent double backwards, so as to bring the root of the tail to the nape of the neck; the parts thus brought into contact being supposed to coalesce. By this mode of conception, these anatomists held that the viscera were placed in the same connexion as in the vertebrate type, and the functions exercised in an analogous manner.
To decide on the reality of the analogy thus asserted, clearly belonged to the jurisdiction of the most eminent anatomists and physiologists. The Memoir was committed to Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Latreille, two eminent zoologists, in order to be reported on. Their report was extremely favorable; and went almost to the length of adopting the views of the authors.