M A M M A L I A. 



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individual facts, and for this reason they are books of 

 reference rather than books of instruction. The 

 "Regne Animal? on the other hand, is a systematic 

 arrangement of principles, generalised with the 

 greatest skill, and often carrying the single glance so 

 tar that the reader is astonished at the volume of 

 light which he receives in comparison to the small 

 number of words by which that light is produced. 



In saying this, we do not mean to assert that the 

 system is perfect, even in the mammalia, which have 

 been more carefully examined, and are therefore 

 more easily classified according to their structures, 

 than any of the other classes. The arrangement has, 

 as we have already said, both breaks and doublings 

 in it ; and thus there are intervals to pass over and 

 returns to make which break its continuity ; so that 

 even in the arrangement of Cuvier, we cannot view 

 the mammalia as one continued class, proceeding 

 from man, subduing and improving the earth, to the 

 toothless whale careering through the wide ocean, 

 though these two may very properly be considered 

 as the extreme limits within which all the mammalia 

 are contained. 



A little reflection will, however, show us that this 

 is exactly what we ought to be prepared to expect. 

 The mammalia differ, and differ greatly, from all 

 the other productions of nature ; but they do not 

 stand independent of the rest at any one period, or 

 remain permanent in themselves for perhaps even 

 two consecutive moments, though time is required 

 before the changes which they are undergoing are 

 sufficiently great for coming within the range of our 

 observation. 



The discoveries which have been made by geologists, 

 and the investigation of those more powerful causes 

 which operate upon the mass of our globe, and in all 

 probability cause sea and land to alternate with each 

 other after long periods of time, come in to disturb 

 our generalisations, and occasion breaks in the system 

 which we have no means of filling up. When an old 

 land has performed its function, and become like an 

 old tree or an old animal, unfit for the further per- 

 formance of it, the hand of death passes over it, and 

 it is of course lifeless, plantless, streamless, worn into 

 sand, and literalh', in the language of the sacred 

 volume, " sowed with salt." Then of course it is fit 

 for burial, aod sinks down into the great laver of the 

 ocean, in order to be regenerated. By the same 

 action which gathers the exhausted land to its tomb 

 in one place, we may naturally suppose that, to 

 preserve the economy of the earth as a globe 

 covered with land and water, new land is raised up in 

 another place, and amid changes more mighty than 

 we can well comprehend, the stability of the planet 

 remains unshaken. 



But here we touch the extreme bourn of human 

 philosophy, and are unable to tell either whence the 

 plants and the animals of the new land come, or how 

 they differ from those of the old one. Whether amid 

 those mighty revolutions which shake and wrench 

 the solid globe to its centre, yet without in the least 

 disturbing the stability of that which remains as true 

 to the solar influence, the major axis and the orbital of 

 motion, as when all is tranquil; whether amid these, 

 the Spirit" again " moveth on the face of the wa- 

 ters," and they " bring forth abundantly," so that the 

 new land rises up planted and peopled, and ready for 

 setting forth the wisdom and the power of the 

 Creator in the life and enjoyment of its creature?, vie 



cannot we even dare not conjecture. We have 

 evidence, however, that very large portions of the now- 

 existing land upon our globe have, in the olden time, 

 been very differently planted and peopled from what 

 they are now, and not only so, but that there is a series 

 of changes, in both of which we can tell the suc- 

 cession in the order of time, though we cannot form 

 a guess at the length of time as applicable to any one 

 of them. 



The result of all this necessarily is, that our exist- 

 ing mammalia, which we are called upon to classify, 

 form a fragment, or rather perhaps a number of frag- 

 ments, each of which has belonged to a former state 

 of things ; and this result ought to satisfy us that we 

 spend our time in vain if we attempt to make any 

 thing like a perfect system of any one of the king- 

 doms of nature. After these preliminary remarks, 

 we shall proceed to give an outline of the system of 

 Cuvier. 



The successive divisions established by those natu- 

 ralists who knew but little of the difficulties arising 

 from the fragmental nature of the living mammalia, 

 were orders, genera, and species, which last admitted 

 of varieties ; and they made the transition from the 

 class to the order, from the order to the genus, and 

 from the genus to the species, all of the same nature 

 and extent as if they had been uniform throughout 

 the whole class. Cuvier has retained those established 

 names as expressive of his principal divisions ; but we 

 must not suppose that one who was so capable of 

 proceeding according to the organisation, as ex- 

 pressive of the habits and use, and who was warped 

 by no theoretical notion before the facts, could have 

 failed to perceive those irregularities to which we 

 have alluded irregularities which will perhaps one 

 day require a breaking down of class, order, genus, 

 and species into two or more parts, differing less than 

 those do from each other, and thus enabling the 

 system to take one more step toward perfection. 

 Cuvier himself has in effect done this ; for though he, 

 at least setting far more value upon the enunciation 

 of truths than the enumeration of names is never 

 dogmatical in fixing what shall constitute these minor 

 differences, yet he does not hesitate to group those 

 formerly described genera which have too general 

 a similarity of structure for admitting of palpable 

 generic differences, or to separate those between 

 which the structural differences are too great for 

 their standing properly in the same genus. 



These are apparently minor points, but it must not, 

 be supposed that they are unimportant ones. What, 

 is the use of a generic name, and an enumeration of 

 generic characters, if those characters do not apply 

 to every species contained in the genus; at least in all 

 those points over which climatal and other accidental 

 causes have no controul ? On the other hand, what 

 is the use of two generic names, and two enumerations 

 of generic characters, if the animals are alike in all 

 those permanent points of their characters over which 

 climate and other external causes have little or no 

 controul ? 



It is the adaptation of the characters to every ani- 

 mal to which the name applies, and the restriction of 

 it to those animals, as well as the restriction of those 

 animals to it, which constitutes the merit of any name 

 given to a group of animals, whether that group 

 happen to consist of few or of many ; and this is best 

 obtained, and indeed can alone be obtained, by not 

 founding t!ic distinctions upon particular organs, but 

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