THE MAGAZINE 



OF 



NATURAL HISTORY, 



JULY, 1828. 



Art. I. The Cuvierian, or Natural^ System of Zoology. 

 Essay 1. On the distincti've Characters of Vegetables and Animals, 

 and the leading Physiological Characters which serve as the Basis 

 for the Four Grand Divisions of the Animal Kingdom. By B. 



A HE excellence of the Cuvierian system of zoology, as ex- 

 plained in the work entitled Le Regne Animal, consists in its 

 being a natural system, founded on the organisation and the 

 essential resemblances of living beings. It presents us with a 

 chart of animal life, and shows us that all the varied forms and 

 modes under which sentient creatures exist, are referable to 

 four distinct forms, or models, and these forms are the found- 

 ation of the four grand divisions of the animal kingdom. Each 

 of these forms, or models, without changing its essential charac- 

 ters, admits of different modifications, corresponding with the 

 internal organisation, and thus a natural subdivision into classes 

 is established ; and on the same principle is made a farther 

 subdivision of each class, into orders, genera, and species. To 

 present the reader with a clear but concise view of this system, 

 it will be necessary to select and state, in the first instance, the 

 leading facts in animal physiology on which the grand divisions 

 are founded. 



The ancient division of organised living beings into animate, 

 or those which possess feeling and spontaneous motion, and 

 inanimate, or those which do not enjoy either of these faculties, 

 is, according to Cuvier, sufficiently established ; for, though 

 many plants draw back their leaves when touched, and always 

 direct them towards the light, and their roots towards mois- 

 ture, and though oscillations take place in the parts of some 

 vegetables, without any apparent external cause, yet these 

 motions bear too slight a resemblance to those of animals, to 

 afford proofs of perception or volition. The spontaneous mo- 



VoL. I. -- No. 2. H 



