584 Reviews. [ July, 
COMPARATIVE ANATOMY AND CLASSIFICATION.* 
Ons of the most striking qualities of the human mind is the perception 
of the order which pervades the universe ; and one of its most remark- 
able tendencies is to arrange and classify all visible objects and per- 
ceptible forces. It matters not whether the objects are vast and 
distant, as the heavenly bodies; near and appreciable to the touch, as 
the constituent parts of the earth or the living objects on its surface ; 
whether visible to the eye, as organic and inorganic beings of definite 
form and colour, or cognizable only through chemical or physical 
agencies, as gases, &c.; it is immaterial whether the forces be physical, 
as magnetism, electricity, light and heat, or vital, such as those which 
are especially manifested in plants and animals, or, lastly, even the phe- 
nomena of the human mind itself; the habit of man is always to deal 
with these various objects and powers in an orderly, systematic manner. 
And if this systematic or classificatory treatment were simply applied 
to such objects as minister to his own wants and desires, to plants, 
animals, useful or ornamental minerals and so forth, one might be 
disposed to regard this quality of the mind as an instinct analogous 
in some degree to the power of selection for utilitarian purposes pos- 
sessed by some of the lower animals. But we find the very reverse to 
be the case; namely, that individuals and races of men who appear to 
have no higher aim than to satisfy their bodily wants, care little about 
the order or arrangement of the things which surround them, whilst men 
of the highest intellects (those, indeed. who often think the least about 
the practical uses of the objects that engage their attention) have from 
time immemorial been employed in detecting relations in natural 
objects, and in drawing up systems of classifications to embrace all 
forms having characteristic features in common, whether in the or- 
ganic or inorganic realm of nature. 
That such systems of grouping or classification are chiefly, if not 
entirely, the creations of the human intellect, few will be disposed to 
doubt who have perused the past history of any branch of science, 
and it is obvious that like many other aids to education, they have 
been invented for the purpose of facilitating the acquisition of know- 
ledge. Were man acquainted, for instance, with the form, structure, 
and vital attributes of all living and fossil animals, he would not con- 
ceive of the animal kingdom as parcelled out into sub-langdoms, 
classes, orders, families, &c., but it would present itself to his mind as 
one perfect connected whole; and if for the convenience of reference, 
it pleased him to retain these old boundaries, it would only be as he 
now rules the meridians upon his maps; for they would no more have 
a real existence than have the lines of latitude and longtiude upon 
the surface of the globe. 
Another curious phenomenon in connection with this faculty of 
* «Lectures on the Elements of Comparative Anatomy,’ by Thomas Henry 
Huxley, F.R.S., Professor of Natural History, Royal School of Mines, &e; ‘On 
the Classification of Animals, and on the Vertebrate Skull” John Churehill & 
Sons, 1864. 
