26 INTRODUCTION. 
requires some explanation. By perfect animals we understand those 
that, in the number and importance of their functions, and in the 
complicated structure of their organs, make an approach to Man: 
whilst those are called ‘imperfect’ whose simple organisation, and 
less numerous functions, remove them from that perfection of which 
Man supplies the pattern. In this sense, as I conceive, the expres- 
sion may be well defended. ARISTOTLE says that m all other things 
we must proceed just as we do in the investigation of coins, com- 
paring them individually with those which are best known to us: 
but man is necessarily the best known to us of all animals!. Let it 
be added, that Man is in fact the center of organisation to which 
the animals, like rays, may be considered to converge—and so is the 
union of what is most perfect and most beautiful in them all?. 
Hence animals which have a resemblance to man are, not without 
reason, styled pertect. 
On the art of Classifying (Taxinomia). 
Such conceptions become still clearer by unfolding the art of 
Classifying. Classification and systematic division are indispensable 
in Natural History. How innumerable are the species of animals 
which are scattered over the surface of the earth! Each of these 
species has its country, its determinate form, its peculiar properties. 
How shall we attain to all this knowledge: how shall we turn 
to account the observations of earlier writers, how learn to what 
species they refer? how can we, in fine, communicate our own 
observations to others, unless we make use of a classification ? 
Classifications then are as old as the study of Natural History, and 
their difference is to be sought in their more or less scientific found- 
ation and plan.—By means of its systematic arrangement the study 
of Natural History obtains a more extensive influence upon our 
entire scientific cultivation, and im this respect it cannot be suffi- 
ciently recommended to young persons, in order that they may 
l"Qorep yap voulowara mpds Td adbrots Exacrov yrwpudtaroy Soxyudfovow, ovTw 5H 
kal év Tots d\Nos. ‘O 5° dvOpwiros Tov fHwv yywpymobratov nuly €& avdyKns éoTiv. 
2 See J. G. HERDER’S Jdeen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschen. Carlsruhe, 
1794. 1 Thl. s, r1oo—r08. 
