PRINCIPAL SYSTEMS OF ZOOLOGY 213 



the principles introduced by Linnasus in the systematic arrangement 

 of animals. Even his opponents labored under the influence of his 

 master spirit, and a critical comparison of the various systems which 

 were proposed for the arrangement of single classes or of the whole 

 animal kingdom shows that they were framed according to the same 

 principles, namely, under the impression that animals were to be 

 arranged together into classes, orders, genera, and species, according 

 to their more or less close external resemblance. No sooner, however, 

 had Cuvier presented to the scientific world his extensive researches 

 into the internal structure of the whole animal kingdom than natu- 

 ralists vied with one another in their attempts to remodel the whole 

 classification of animals, establishing new classes, new orders, new 

 genera, describing new species, and introducing all manner of in- 

 termediate divisions and subdivisions under the name of families, 

 tribes, sections, etc. Foremost in these attempts was Cuvier himself, 

 and next to him Lamarck. It has, however, often happened that the 

 divisions introduced by the latter under new names were only trans- 

 lations into a more systematic form of the results Cuvier had him- 

 self obtained from his dissections and pointed out in his Legons 

 sur Vanatomie comparee, as natural divisions, but without giving 

 them distinct names. Cuvier beautifully expresses the influence 

 which his anatomical investigations had upon Zoology, and how the 

 improvements in classification have contributed to advance com- 

 parative anatomy, when he says in the preface to the Regne animal," 

 page vi.: "Je dus done, et cette obligation me prit un temps con- 

 siderable, je dus faire marcher de front I'anatomie et la zoologie, les 

 dissections et le classement; chercher dans mes premieres remarques 

 sur I'organisation, des distributions meilleures; m'en servir pour ar- 

 river a des remarques nouvelles; employer encore ces remarques a 

 perfectionner les distributions; faire sortir enfin de cette feconda- 

 tion mutuelle des deux sciences Tune par I'autre, un systeme zo- 

 ologique propre a servir d'introducteur et de guide dans le champ 

 de I'anatomie, et un corps de doctrine anatomique propre a servir 

 de developpement et d'explication an systeme zoologique." ^^ 



^^ ["I had then, and this obligation took me considerable time, I had to make anatomy 

 and zoology, dissections and classification, move abreast of each other; to search in my 

 first observations on organization for better arrangements through which to arrive at 

 new observations, and to use again these observations to perfect the arrangements; 

 finally, to take from this mutual fertilization between the two sciences, the one by 



