Cuvier o^ a Naturalist. 347 



Examining in this manner the modifications which the animal 

 kingdom presents in the organs of circulation, respiration, and 

 sensation, instead of the six classes of Linnaeus, viz. quadrupeds, 

 birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, and worms, M. Cuvier established 

 four great types — vertebrate, molluscous, articulated, and radi- 

 ated animals, which he named embranchemens, and which he 

 divided into classes nearly equal in value to those which had 

 been established among vertebrate animals. 



Many of the inferior classes were thus raised to a place of 

 considerable importance ; but, from the time of Linnaeus, it had 

 been understood that neither size nor utility ought to have any 

 influence in scientific distributions ; and the soundness of the 

 reasons on which M. Cuvier acted has caused his views to be 

 generally adopted, scarcely a voice being heard in favour of the 

 old modes of classification. So limited, moreover, is our know- 

 ledge of the designs of the Author of nature, that animals which 

 appear of little importance in relation to ourselves, are perhaps 

 as necessary to the general plan of the Creator as those which 

 we place at the top of the scale of beings. 



To examine the division of the orders, families, genera, and 

 all the subordinate details, would lead us to exceed the limits 

 to which we are confined. Let it suffice to say, that the prin- 

 ciples on which these divisions are founded, 4vill necessarily re- 

 main unaffected by the changes which new observations will 

 render necessary, — that the basis of every zoological classification 

 are henceforth fixed, — and that their solidity will prove to fu- 

 ture naturalists better than any eulogium, the lofty genius of 

 the author of the Animal Kingdom. 



This work will doubtless undergo the fate of all other scien- 

 tific productions. The spirit in which it is conceived will alone 

 continue unchanged. There is no naturalist of the present day 



ever important it maybe, can lead, like this other, to the formartion of families 

 based upon their real nature, because there is none of them that does not in- 

 terfere with the natural relations. Besides, as it is the natural habit of 

 our minds that, in the course of time, the system comes to be considered as an 

 essential part of the science, this essential part is so reduced, when it derives 

 its characters from the modifications of an individual organ, that the works 

 which it originates are usually of little value ; whilst the natural method 

 founded on the analysis of all the organs, neglects none of them, and produces 

 valuable works only in which every theory may find the elements on which 

 it rests. 



