CLASSIFICATION 458 



modified as to have lost all traces of its parentage, in this 

 case, its place in the natural system will be lost, as seems 

 to have occurred with some few existing organisms. All 

 the descendants of the genus F, along its whole line of 

 descent, are supposed to have been but little modified, and 

 they form a single genus. But this genus, though much 

 isolated, will still occupy its proper intermediate position. 

 The representation of the groups, as here given in the dia- 

 gram on a flat surface, is much too simple. The branches 

 ought to have diverged in all directions. If the names of 

 the groups had been simply written down in a linear series, 

 the representation would have been still less natural; and it 

 is notoriously not possible to represent in a series, on a flat 

 surface, the affinities which we discover in nature amongst 

 the beings of the same group. Thus, the natural system is 

 genealogical in its arrangement, like a pedigree : but the 

 amount of modification which the different groups have 

 undergone has to be expressed by ranking them under differ- 

 ent so-called genera, sub-families, families, sections, orders, 

 and classes. 



It may be worth while to illustrate this view of classifica- 

 tion, by taking the case of languages. If we possessed a 

 perfect pedigree of mankind, a genealogical arrangement of 

 the races of man would afford the best classification of the 

 various languages now spoken throughout the world; and if 

 all extinct languages, and all intermediate and slowly chang- 

 ing dialects, were to be included, such an arrangement would 

 be the only possible one. Yet it might be that some ancient 

 languages had altered very little and had given rise to few 

 new languages, whilst others had altered much owing to the 

 spreading, isolation, and state of civilisation of the several 

 co-descended races, and had thus given rise to many new 

 dialects and languages. The various degrees of difference 

 between the languages of the same stock, would have to be 

 expressed by groups subordinate to groups; but the proper 

 or even the only possible arrangement would still be genea- 

 logical ; and this would be strictly natural, as it would con- 

 nect together all languages, extinct and recent, by the closest 

 affinities, and would give the filiation and origin of each 

 tongue. 



