80 MEMOIRS OF 



sequently, sufficient for all their wants ; that their action 

 and re-action may exist in every place, and at every mo- 

 ment, as necessary for this permanency ; that it may be 

 the same with the parts of each being ; the very mainte- 

 nance of this order teaches us. Lastly, that in this innu- 

 merable multitude of different beings, each, taken apart, 

 may find some which resemble it more than others, by 

 their internal and external forms ; that it may be the same 

 with these, relative to a third set ; and that, consequently, 

 we may be able to group near each being, a certain num- 

 ber of other beings which approach it in different degrees ; 

 must necessarily be the case. But, that we ought to ap- 

 ply to the resemblances of these simultaneous beings, that 

 which is true concerning the relation of successive pheno- 

 mena and events ; that the forms of these beings necessa- 

 rily constitute a series or a chain, so that the eye may gra- 

 dually pass from one to the other, without finding any gap, 

 any hiatus ; in short, the existence of a continued and re- 

 gular scale in the forms of beings, from the stone to the 

 man ; this is what our three concessions by no means 

 prove ; this is what is not true, whatever eloquence may 

 have been used in tracing the imaginary picture. The 

 philosophers who have supported this system of a scale of 

 beings, at each interruption which is pointed out to them, 

 pretend, that if a step is \vanting, it is hidden in some cor- 

 ner of the globe, where a fortunate traveller may one day 

 discover it. Nevertheless, all regions, all seas, have been 

 explored : the number of species collected increases every 

 day ; there are, perhaps, a hundred-fold more than when 

 these paradoxical opinions began to be established, and 

 none of the spaces are filled up ; all the interruptions re- 

 main ; there is nothing intermediate between birds and 

 other classes ; there is nothing between vertebrated ani- 

 mals and those which have no vertebrae. The distinctions 

 of true naturalists remain in all their force ; the laws of 

 the co-existence of organs, those of their reciprocal exclu- 

 sion, remain unshaken. Each organized being has in 

 concordance all that is necessary for its subsistence ; each 

 great change, in one organ, produces a change in others. 

 A bird is a bird in all and every part ; it is the same with a 

 fish or an insect. We cannot even conceive a being which, 



