76 EXPLANATIONS. 



The Edinburgh reviewer will observe that this 

 view of the animal kingdom leaves much of his 

 opposition in a very awkward predicament. He 

 has everywhere assumed that the genealogy of 

 the orders of each class was supposed to be en 

 suite, w^hich it certainly never was in my book. 

 In the early editions, the course of the supposed 

 development was spoken of with diffidence,* 

 because I had not then seen or conceived any 

 arrangement of the animal kingdom which an- 

 swered to that hypothesis, although I thought 

 proper to attempt to show that the quinarian 

 and circular classification, then or recently in 

 vogue, did not necessarily militate against it. In 

 the third edition, the present view was first hinted 

 at ; and in the fourth it was sketched, though 

 with liability to correction ; thus anticipating by 

 some months the publication of the criticism 

 now under notice. It is hardly necessary to 

 remark, that in all criticism, the actual subject 

 criticized must be brought forward for comment, 

 and nothing else ; otherwise the commentaries 



* " . , it does not appear that this gradation passes along one 

 line, on which every animal form can be, as it were, strung ; 

 there may be branching or double lines at some places," &c. — 

 Vestiges, \sl ed. p. 191. 



