SUMMAR Y OF ' PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE* 283 



that equilibrium is duly preserved among them. Man 

 alone is the unquestionably dominant animal, but men 

 war among themselves, so that it may be safely said 

 the world will never be peopled to its utmost capacity." * 



In his fifth chapter Lamarck returns to the then 

 existing arrangement and classification of animals. 



" Naturalists having remarked that many species, and 

 some genera and even families present characters which 

 as it were isolate them, it has been imagined that 

 these approached or drew further from each other 

 according as their points of agreement or difference 

 seemed greater or less when set down as it were on a 

 chart or map. They regard the small well-marked series 

 which have been styled natural families, as groups 

 which should be placed between the isolated species 

 and their nearest neighbours so as to form a kind of 

 reticulation. This idea, which some of our modern 

 naturalists have held to be admirable, is evidently mis- 

 taken, and will be discarded on a profounder and more 

 extended knowledge of organization, and more espe- 

 cially when the distinction has been duly drawn between 

 what is due to the action of special conditions and to 

 general advance of organization." \ 



* Phil Zool.,' torn. i. p. 113. 



t This passage is rather obscure. I give it therefore in the 

 original : 



"Ainsi lea naluralistes ayant remarque que heaucoup d'especes, 

 certains genres, et meme quelques families paraissent dans ime sorte 

 d'isolement, quant a leurs caracteres, plusieurs se sont imagines que 

 les etres vivants, dans 1'un ou 1'autre regne, s'avoisinaient, ou s'eloignai- 

 ent eutre eux, relativement a leurs rapports naturels, dans une dispo- 

 sition seinblable aux differenta points d'une carte de ge'ographie ou 

 d'une mapperaonde. Us regardent les petites series bien prononcdes 

 qti'on a nominees families naturelles, coiniuo devaut 6tre disposces 



