THE SCALE OF BEINGS 23 



d* Insectologie (CEuvres, i., 1779) he gives a long table, headed 

 '' Idee d'une Echelle des etres naturels," and rather resem- 

 bling a ladder, on the rungs of which the following names 

 appear : 



MAN. Tube-worms. STONES. 



Orang-utan. Clothes-moths. Figured stones. 



Ape. INSECTS. Crystals. 



QUADRUPEDS. Gall insects. SALTS. 



Flying squirrel. Taenia. Vitriols. 



Bat. Polyps. METALS. 



Ostrich. Sea Nettles. HALF-METALS. 



BIRDS. Sensitive plant. SULPHURS. 



Aquatic birds. PLANTS. 



Amphibious birds. Lichens. Bitumens. 



Flying Fish. EARTHS. 



FISH. Moulds. Pure earth. 



Creeping fish. Fungi, Agarics. WATER. 



Eels. Truffles. AIR 



Water serpents. Corals, and Coralloids. 



SERPENTS. Lithophytes. FIRE. 



Slugs. Asbestos. 



Snails. Talcs, Gypsums. More subtile matter. 



SHELL FISH. Selenites, Slates. 



The nature of the transitional forms which he inserts 

 between his principal classes show very clearly his entire 

 lack of morphological insight the transitions are functional. 

 The positions assigned to clothes-moths and corals are very 

 curious ! The whole scheme, so fantastic in its details, was 

 largely influenced by Leibniz's continuity philosophy, and is 

 in no way an improvement on the older and saner Aristotelian 

 scheme. 



Robinet, in the fifth volume of his book De la nature 

 (1761-6), foreshadows the somewhat similar views of the 

 German transcendentalists. " All beings," he writes, " have 

 been conceived and formed on one single plan, of which they 

 are the endlessly graduated variations : this prototype is the 

 human form, the metamorphoses of which are to be considered 

 as so many steps towards the most excellent form of being." 1 



1 For a good historical account of the gradation theories see 

 Thienemann's paper in the Zoologische Annalen (Wurzburg) iii., pp. 185- 

 274, 1910, from which the quotation from Robinet is taken. 



C 



