Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 9.pdf/14

1862.] in Natural

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

to law;

these animals, there arose serious discus

reference

sion and

tween

respecting

Linnaeus,

all of which led to

insight into the true relations among an imals. Linnaeus himself, in his last edi tion of the “ Systema Natures,” shows us important progress he had made since he ﬁrst announced his views; for he what

for the name of Quad rupedia that of .Mammalia, including among them the Whales, which he char there substitutes

acterizes

as air-breathing,

warm-blooded,

bringing forth living young which Thus the very they nurse with milk. deﬁciencies of his classiﬁcation stimulated naturalists to new criticism and investi gation into the true limits of classes, and led to the recognition of one most impor and

principle,—that

3

It

knowledge

and his classiﬁcations

to announce every new fact that chance to ﬁnd, and his ﬁrst paper *' they haste

specially devoted to the world the This was study. work, “ Le Rcgne

to

classiﬁcation

animals

groups, not on special charac ters, but on different plans of structure, prehensive

moulds, he called them, in which all ani

He tells us this in

mals had been cast. such admirable

according characters.

ly

a

a

His followers and pupils engaged at once in scrutiny of the differences and similarities among animals, which soon led to great increase in the number of class es: instead of six, there were present But till Cu nine, twelve, and more. vier's time there was no great principle of classiﬁcation. Facts were accumu lated and more or less systematized, but they

were

not

yet arranged

according

I

le

animal

regne

d'apres les principes que nous venous de en se débarrassant des préjugés établis sur les divisions anciennement ad

poser

mises, en n’ayant

égard

qn’h l’organisa

avons, ni

a

h

a

a

la nature des animaux, et non. leur grandeur, leur utilité, au plus pas an moins de connaissance que nous en tion et

toutes les autres circonstances

accessoires, on trouvera qn’il existe qua tre formes principales, quatre plans géné l’on pent s’exprimer ainsi, d'apres rang, lesquels tous les animaux semblent

avoir ulteri titre que les natura

été modelés, et dont les divisions eures, de quelque

listes les aient décorées, ne sont que des modiﬁcations développement

assez légeres, fondées sur ou l’addition

de quelques l’essence

Sur un nouveau rapprochement blir entre les Classes qni composeut Amt. Mus, Vol. XIX. Animal.

4m Regne

parties,

qui ne changent

rien

s

together

in his

si

at grouping animals

to certain common structural

words: “ Si l’on considere

must, to

dn plan.”



is

the thing to be stud The group of Quadrupeds was not the only defective one in this classiﬁca tion of Linntcus; his class of Worms, also, was most heterogeneous, for he includ ed among them Shell-Fishes, Slugs, Star Fishes, Sca-Urchins, and other animals that bear no relation whatever to the class of Worms. But whatever its defects, the classiﬁ cation of Linnaeus was the ﬁrst attempt structure, therefore,

gave

ripe fruit of years of followed by his great Animal.” He said that were united in their most com

own

ied.

threw

new light again on his anatomical inves tigations,—each science thus helping to fertilize the other. He was not one of those superﬁcial observers who are in

on internal structure,

but and that internal

be

of anatomy assisted him in his

classiﬁcations,

language that’ do justice to his thought, give

groups

are

to ﬁnding the true relations

animals, and how, ever after, his

founded, not on external appearance,

tant

such

tion of animals, to use his dissections with

/.

of clearer

the classiﬁcation

naturalists

upon the internal organiza

vestigations

le

contemporary

the principle was still wanting by which to generalize them and give meaning and vitality to the whole. was Cuvier who found the key. He him self tells us how he ﬁrst began, in his in

it

among

a

criticism

Ht’stmy.

it

Study

le

of;

Methods

1862.]