MIRACLES OF SCIENCE 



It may be well to recall that it was Lamarck who 

 originated the terms vertebrate and invertebrate and 

 called attention to the all-importance of the spinal 

 column as a feature of animal morphology just at 

 the beginning of the nineteenth century; and that 

 Cuvier soon afterward divided the entire invertebrate 

 population of the globe into articulates, mollusks, 

 and radiates, familiar examples of these divisions 

 being insects, the oyster, and the star fish. This 

 classification was accepted for the better part of a 

 century, but in recent years students of the great 

 company of invertebrates have thought further sub- 

 divisions desirable, and it is now recognized that 

 animate beings have developed along at least seven 

 or eight divergent lines, though all springing from 

 the same primordial root. 



It is nowadays considered a broader view to think 

 of the great major groups of animals let us say 

 coelenterates, echinoderms, worms, arthropode, mol- 

 lusks, brachiopods, and vertebrates as being each 

 more or less perfect of its kind, rather to be likened 

 to the various branches of a spreading tree than to 

 be rated in serial order one above the other. 



In this view the distinction between Vertebrates 

 and Invertebrates loses a good deal of its early signifi- 

 cance. The total vertebrate population of the globe 

 is after all a mere handful contrasted with the myri- 

 ads of individuals, and scores of thousands of 

 species, of invertebrate forms. Nevertheless it is 

 natural from a human standpoint to regard the verte- 

 brates as the highest and finest branch of the tree; 

 though it is comprehensible that from the standpoint, 



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