8 CLASSIFICATION OF 



BRISSON divides animated nature into nine classes; 

 quadrupeds, cetaceous animals, birds, reptiles, cartilagi- 

 nous fishes, spinous fishes, testaceous animals, insects, and 

 worms. He then distributes quadrupeds into eighteen 

 orders, and takes his distinctions from the number arid 

 conformation of their teeth. His arrangement was an 

 attempt to improve on that of Linnaeus ; but, though not 

 destitute of ingenuity, it never was generally adopted. 



To give any adequate idea of BUFFON'S system, if in- 

 deed that can be called a system which affects to soar 

 above and to ridicule all methodical arrangement, would 

 be impossible. This philosophical painter of nature, con- 

 scious of his brilliant mental energies, gives to individual 

 descriptions a luminous appearance which must ever de- 

 light and instruct ; but by disregarding method, his 

 labours as a whole exhibit rather a beautiful chaos than a 

 well-executed structure. His general distribution of 

 quadrupeds into domestic, wild, and foreign, is so vague 

 and inadequate, that we cannot properly rank him among 

 systematic writers ; though, in the requisites of elegant 

 composition and elaborate inquiry, he is superior, per- 

 haps, to all other naturalists. The following is the 

 apology which he makes for spurning at what he considers 

 as the trammels of system : " Nature,*' he says, " pro- 

 ceeds from one species to another by such imperceptible 

 degrees, that we are often tempted to link many of them 

 together as belonging to the same family. We ought 

 not, however, to forget, that these families or genera are 

 created by ourselves, in order to assist the understanding: 

 and that, if we cannot comprehend the real connections 

 of natural objects, it is our own fault, and no defect in 

 nature ; which knows nothing of those pretended families, 

 and which, in fact, has only made individuals. An indi- 

 vidual is a detached being, which has nothing in common 

 with other beings, except it resembles or rather diifers 

 from them, All the similar individuals which exist upon 

 this earth, are considered as composing the species of 

 these individuals. It is not, however, the collective 



