OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 129 



dropterygii. The bimana and the earthworm have their red 

 blood in common ; the glutinous hag and the true placoids 

 have as certainly their internal cartilage in common ; and if 

 the fact of the red blood of the worm lowers in no degree the 

 rank of the bimana, then, on the same principle, the fact of 

 the internal cartilage of the glutinous hag cannot possibly de- 

 tract from the standing of the true placoid. In both cases 

 they are creatures that entirely differ, — the earthworms from 

 the bimana, and the cartilaginous worms from the placoids ; 

 and the classification which tags them together, whether it be 

 that of Aristotle or that of Cuvier, cannot be converted into 

 a sort of minus quantity, of force enough to detract from the 

 value and standing of the bimana in the one case, or of the 

 true placoids in the other. It is in no degree derogatory to 

 the human family that earthworms possess red blood ; it is 

 in no degree derogatory to the true placoids that the Suctorii 

 possess cartilaginous skeletons. 



Let the reader now mark the use which has been made, 

 by the author of the " Yestiges," of the name and authority 

 of Linnaeus. " Linnaeus," he states, " was so impressed by 

 the low character of many of this order (the Chondropterygii), 

 that he actually ranked them with worms." Now, what is 

 the fact here ? Simply that Linnaeus had no such general 

 order as the Chondropterygii in his eye at all. Though 

 chiefly remarkable as a naturalist for the artificialness of his 

 classifications, his estimate of the cartilaginous fishes was re- 

 markable — though carried too far in its extremes, and in 

 some degree founded in error — for an opposite quality. It 

 was an estimate formed, in the main, on a natural basis. 

 Instead of taking their cartilaginous skeleton into account, 

 he looked chiefly at their standing as animals ; and, struck 

 with that extent of front which they present, and with both 

 their superiority on the extreme right, and their inferiority 

 on the extreme left, to the ordinary fishes, he erected them 



I 



