Page:Books from the Biodiversity Heritage Library (IA mobot31753002447982).pdf/7

 others by a complex but beautifully simple net-work of affinities interwoven, if I may so speak, with a similar net-work of more remote analogies, all of which are found to exist in every perfect circle and that these circles progressively diminish in magnitude from the highest to the lowest, until we arrive at the last link of the chain, Species. The primary circles are three, Animals, Vegetables and Inorganic matter. Animals being the Typical circle, Vegetables the sub-Typical and Inani- mate matter the Aberrant; which last is made up of three minor ones the endless modifications of Earth, Water and Air; each equally perfect, thus making together a series of five.

ANIMALS again divide themselves into three lesser groups viz. Vertebrate An- mals having an internal bony skeleton-Annulose animals (insects, crabs, &c:) having a hard crust or, as it were, an external skeleton-and Acreta or soft mol- luscous animals having neither proper bone nor crust.

VEGETABLES in like manner divide themselves into three primary groups viz. Dicotyledons or Exogens,-plants increasing in size by the addition of layers of new wood to the surface, or from without. Monocotyledons or Endogens, plants increasing in size by additions from within, the arborious forms of which have at first a hard crust, increasing in thickness towards the centre by additions of woody fibre to its interior. And lastly, Acotyledons or Acrogens flowerless cellular plants. The third or Aberrant group of each of these kingdoms is again divisible into three perfect circles. The ACRETOUS circle of animals contains the Acreta proper-the Mollusca or slugs, snails, shell-fish, &c. and the Radiata or star-fish. The ACROGENOUS circle of vegetables in like manner naturally divides itself into Fungi or Mushrooms: Protophyta or Sea-weeds and Lichens: and Acrobryous or Psendocotyledonous plants including Ferns, Mosses, Hepaticæ, &e. The progressive blending between these circles in their own kingdoms is affinity. The more remote similarities or blending as it were of habits and properties often easily traceable between analogous circles of the two kingdoms is, the analogy mentioned as existing in every perfect circle.

Thus far the two kingdoms advance side by side and step by step together, presenting analogous groups in each. The Vertibrata represented by the Exo- gens-the Annulosa by the Endogens-the Acreta by the Protophta-the Ra- diata by the Fungi-and lastly the Mollusca by the Acrobrya or Psendocotyledonia.

But when we advance beyond this point and attempt to compare the Verti. brata and Exogens we are arrested at the first step. The former is clearly divid- ed by the hand of nature into three self-evident groups the typical, Mammals- subtypical, Birds-and the aberrant, cold-blooded Vertibrata including Reptiles- Fishes-and Amphibia, each of which form a perfect circle, thus again completing the quinary series of circles. Where in the exogenous or corresponding circle