MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 109 



nerally adopted. Soon after the commencement of 

 the last century, the Swedish naturalist directed his 

 attention to the suhject, and distributed the whole 

 animal kingdom into six classes Mammalia, Birds, 

 Reptiles, Fishes, Insects, and Worms ; in which dis- 

 tribution, Lamarck observes, that he improved on 

 Aristotle, first by using the more distinctive term 

 Mammalia, and placing the Cetacea in that class ; 

 and next by making a distinct class of Reptiles, and 

 arranging them betwixt Birds and Fishes. If this 

 alteration, which has been subsequently adopted by 

 all other zoologists, be made, Aristotle's arrange- 

 ment of vertebratcd animals agrees with that of the 

 present day ; and in distributing all other animals 

 into four classes, which Linnaeus distributes into 

 two only, the Stagirite must be considered as having 

 proceeded on the more philosophical principle, be- 

 cause the species of those animals, taken collective- 

 ly, are much more numerous and much more diver- 

 sified in their form and structure than the species of 

 vertebrated animals *. 



In Entomology, the claims of Aristotle as a great 

 and original genius have been admitted by some of 

 the most competent judges of modern times. Of 

 the class Insecta, it has been affirmed, that Linnaeus 

 himself had not those precise ideas of its limits 

 which the philosopher of Athens had adopted so 

 many centuries before. The following Tabular View 



* Kidd's Treatise on the Adaptation of External Na- 

 ture to the Physical Condition of Man, p. 319. 



