FUNDAMENTAL RELATIONS OF ANIMALS. 7 



no room for the question of its superiority or inferiority 

 in comparison to others within, the limits of the class, 

 orders being groups subordinate to one another in their 

 class. Yet, even in this case, the question of the standing 

 of Articulata, as a type among the other great branches of 

 the animal kingdom, would be open to our investigations ; 

 but it would assume another aspect from that which it now 

 presents, as the comparison of Articulata with the other 

 types would then be limited to the Lobster, and would 

 lead to a very different result from that at which we may 

 arrive, now that this type includes such a large number 

 of most extensively diversified representatives, belonging 

 even to different classes. That such speculations are not 

 idle must be apparent to any one who is aware, that, dur- 

 ing every period in the history of our globe in past geolo- 

 gical ages, 1 the general relations, the numeric proportions, 

 and the relative importance of all the types of the animal 

 kingdom, have been ever changing, until their present 

 relations were established. Here, then, the individuals of 

 one species, as observed while living, simultaneously ex- 

 hibit characters, w T hich, to be expressed satisfactorily and 

 in conformity to what nature tells us, would require the 

 establishment, not only of a distinct species, but also of a 



1 A series of classifications of ani- rate knowledge of the relative stand- 

 mals and plants, exhibiting each a ing of all animals and plants, which, 

 natural system of the types known at present, can only be inferred from 

 to have existed simultaneously dur- the perusal even of those palaeonto- 

 ing the several successive geological logical works in which fossil remains 

 periods, considered singly and with- are illustrated according to their as- 

 out reference to the types of other sociation in different geological form- 

 ages, would show in a strong light ations ; for, in all these works, the 

 the different relations in which the remains of past ages are uniformly 

 classes, the orders, the families, and referred to a system established upon 

 even the genera and species, have the study of the animals now living, 

 stood to one another during each thus lessening the impression of their 

 epoch. Such classifications would peculiar combination for the periods 

 illustrate, ia the most impressive under consideration, 

 manner, the importance of an accu- 



