230 ESSAY ON CLASSIFICATION. 



symmetry in the system, and that they are by no means 

 studied from nature. 



To find out the natural characters of orders from the 

 study of those features which really exist in nature, I have 

 considered attentively the different systems of Zoology in 

 which orders are admitted and apparently considered with 

 more care than elsewhere, and in particular the Systema 

 NatuTce of Linnseus, who first introduced into Zoology this 

 kind of groups, and the works of Cuvier, in which orders 

 are frequently characterized with unusual precision, and 

 it appears to me that the leading idea prevailing every- 

 where respecting orders, where these groups are not 

 admitted at random, is that of a definite rank among 

 them the desire to determine the relative standing of 

 these divisions, to ascertain their relative superiority or 

 inferiority, as the name order, adopted to designate them, 

 itself implies. The first order in the first class of the 

 animal kingdom, according to the classification of Liii- 

 noeus, is called by him Primates, expressing no doubt his 

 conviction that these beings, among which Man is in- 

 cluded, rank uppermost in their class. Blainville uses 

 here and there the expression of " degrees of organization" 

 to designate orders. It is true Lamarck uses the same 

 expression to designate classes. We find, therefore, here 

 as everywhere, the same vagueness in the definition of 

 the different kinds of groups adopted in our systems. But 

 if we would give up an arbitrary use of these terms, and 

 assign to them a definite scientific meaning, it seems to 

 me most natural, and in accordance with the practice of 

 the most successful investigators of the animal kingdom, 

 to call such divisions as are characterized by different 

 degrees of complication of their structure within the 

 limits of the classes orders. As such I would consider, for 



