the condition of
various sorts of animals. The most eminent anatomists have shown that
before birth we for a time resemble a polypal animal, then for a time a
fish, next a reptile, till at last appear the characteristics of a
mammalia. This is a fact which bears strongly in favor of our view. The
genesis and development of the entire species seem to be here condensed
in the growth of the individual." But while setting forth this peculiar
view, Professor Cotta, with true German comprehensiveness, takes care to
give a fair statement of opposing doctrines, and evinces nothing like a
narrow dogmatism. The second volume, like the second volume of the
Cosmos, is that which will most interest and delight the general reader.
It contains thirty-two letters, mainly on the following subjects: the
view of nature in general; the religious view; the various forms of the
religious view; the aesthetic view; the inward connection of the aesthetic
enjoyment of nature with its artistic representation; the scientific
view as empirical science and natural philosophy; the relations of the
various views of nature to each other; the poetic comprehension of
nature among the Indians; the poetic comprehension of nature among the
Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans; the Christian contemplation of nature;
German poetry in the middle ages; Italian poetry; the poetic
comprehension of nature in modern times; the representation of nature by
painting, and its gradual appearance in the history of art; the
physiognomy of plants in connection with the physiognomy of nature in
general; description of several plant formations; general outlines of
the animal world; history of the physical view of the universe; natural
science among the Phenicians, the Greeks, at the time of the Ptolemies,
at the time of the Roman Empire, and in the middle ages; natural history
of modern times, Bacon, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton; the
mechanical doctrine of modern physics; the dynamic view of nature;
Fichte's doctrine, and the natural philosophy of Schelling and Hegel.
This volume, as will be easily understood, gives at once a history of
religion, philosophy, art, literature, and science, in their relations
to the outward universe. For instance, under the head of natural science
among the Greeks, we have among other things an account of the doctrine
of the Pythagoreans, Plato, and Aristotle; in treating the middle ages,
Professor Schaller speaks of the Scholastics, Thomas Aq