12 The Science of Life. 



Chapter II. 

 Classification of Animals. 



Meaning of Classification Early Classifications Physiological Classi- 

 fication Aristotle Ray and Linnaus Lamarck Cuvier Recog- 

 nition of Embryological Basis Genealogical Trees Grades of 

 Classification Conception of Species. 



The word classification is apt to sound dull to many 

 ears, yet it is doubtful whether there is any exercise 

 Meaning more irresistible or more fascinating. Is 

 of ciassi- there anyone, until he has realized the fallacy 

 on< of it, who does not feel ill at ease until he 

 has classified his neighbours, as rich or poor, as ignor- 

 ant or cultured, as socialists or anarchists, and so on 

 through the list of groups which have at least some of 

 the distinctions of species ? 



Do we not see our children slowly working out their 

 taxonomy of herb, shrub, and tree; of beast, bird, and 

 creeping thing ; or better than these, unless the pleasure 

 of it be too ruthlessly denied them? Do they not in 

 some measure recapitulate the history of classifications, 

 advancing from the artificial to the natural, from the 

 utilitarian to the scientific? Are they not, in the Eden 

 of their youth, indulging in one of the earliest recorded 

 intellectual exercises, that of giving names to things? 

 Classification is but an attempt towards that order 

 without which there cannot be progress. 



The earliest classifications on record have for the 

 most part a utilitarian basis distinguishing the edible 

 Early and the nauseous, the useful and the harm- 



ciassifi- ful, and so on, in which there is the salt of 

 cations. common sense and the warrant of indisput- 

 able utility. Whatever merits the modern classification 

 of snakes may lay claim to, it can hardly dispense with 

 the primeval distinction between the venomous and the 

 innocent. 



But man cannot be utilitarian always, and classi- 

 fication became physiological. Animals were grouped 



