LINN^US AND NATURAL HISTORY I31 



that animals exhibit four types of organization, and his tvpcs 

 were substituted for the primary groups of Linna_'us. 



The Scale of Being. — In order to understand the bearing 

 of Cuvier's conclusions we must take note of certain views 

 regarding the animal kingdom tliat were generally accepted 

 at the time of his writing. Between Linnaeus and Cuvier 

 there had emerged the idea that all animals, from the lowest 

 to the highest, form a graduated series. This grouping of 

 animals into a linear arrangement was called exposing the 

 Scale of Being, or the Scale of Nature (Seal a Naturce). 

 Buffon, Lamarck, and Bonnet were among the chief ex- 

 ponents of this idea. 



That Lamarck's connection with it was temporary has 

 been generally overlooked. It is the usual statement in the 

 histories of natural science, as in the Encyclopcedia Britannica, 

 in the History of Carus, and in Thomson's Science oj Lije, 

 that the idea of the scale of nature found its fullest expression 

 in Lamarck. Thomson says: "His classification (1801-1812) 

 represents the climax of the attempt_to__arrange the groups 

 of animals in linear order from lower to higjher, in what was 

 called a scala natiirce^^~J^7Tj^). Even so careful a \\Titer as 

 Richard Hertwig has expressed the matter in a similar form. 

 Now, while Lamarck at first adopted a linear classification, 

 it is only a partial reading of his works that will support the 

 conclusion that he held to it. Inhh System e des Animaux 

 sans Vevtehres, published in 1801, he arranged animals in 

 this way; but to do credit to his discernment, it should be 

 observed that he was the first to employ a genealogical tree 

 and to break up the serial arrangement of animal forms. \n 

 1809, in the second volume of his PJiilosopJiic Zoologicjiic, 

 as Packard has pointed out, he arranged animals according 

 to their relationships, in the form of a trunk with divergent 

 branches. This was no vague suggestion on his ])art, Init 

 an actual pictorial representation of the relationship between 



