at the Surface of the Terrestrial Globe, 39ft 



first time a sort of privileged being ruled over nature, and 

 advanced to greater perfection by divesting himself of the ani- 

 mal character w^hich connected him with other creatures, in 

 order to emancipate those intellectual and moral faculties, 

 which recall in him the image of his Creator. 



It evidently results from the whole of the facts, and from 

 their connection, that, notwithstanding the apparent inde- 

 pendence of these great epochs, notwithstanding the absence 

 of genealogical connection in the different species which cha- 

 racterize each of them, the order of their succession presents 

 a plan in which they are closely linked together. We see, in 

 fact, that to the reign of fishes succeeded the reign of reptiles ; 

 to the latter the reign of the mammifera ; and in the last 

 place only, the reign of man. But these three classes of ani- 

 mals exhibit in their succession a progressive gradation of or- 

 ganization, as we shall presently find. Abstracting all geolo- 

 gical ideas, and apart from all connection with the epoch of 

 their appearance on the earth, the class of fishes has always 

 been regarded by naturalists as inferior to the three other 

 classes of the vertebrata. The form of their body, the ab- 

 sence of distinction between the head and the other parts of 

 the body, the imperfection of their locomotive members, 

 which are only balancing organs, destined to maintain their 

 equilibrium, while the entire mass of the body contributes to 

 make them progress ; the existence of branchite in place of 

 lungs, as a respiratory organ ; the simple circulation of their 

 blood ; the remote relations of the sexes ; the small degree of 

 intensity of their sensations ; the imperfection of the organs 

 of sense ; the smallness of the brain ; and their obtuse intel- 

 lectual faculties — everything in their organization has assigned 

 them a rank which no one has proposed to elevate. But how- 

 ever inferior their organization, and though they occupy the 

 lowest rank in the class of the vertebrata, they ai-e so much 

 the more interesting to the observing naturalist ; for they are 

 the point of departure of a graduated series which commences 

 with them and by them, to terminate in man himself. 



I should transgress the limits I have traced out for myself, 

 were I to undertake to prove that the class of reptiles is in- 

 termediate between that of fishes and those of birds and the 



