FISHES ARE NOTHING ELSE THAN FISHES. 87 



which nature conducts us from one to the other. 

 We cannot here state the conclusive reasoning of 

 the great French naturalist regarding the distinc- 

 tion of the groups in question. We shall merely 

 state his conclusion to be, that if there is a resem- 

 blance between the organs of fishes and those of the 

 other great groups of the animal kingdom, it is only 

 in so far as the functions of such organs are similar; 

 that if we assert either that fishes are mollusca, of 

 an ameliorated or higher grade, or that they repre- 

 sent a commencing or foetal state of reptiles, we can 

 do so only in an abstract or metaphysical accepta- 

 tion, and that even with such restriction, we by no 

 means convey an accurate notion of their organic 

 structure ; that we cannot regard them either as 

 links of an imaginary chain of successive forms (of 

 which none could serve as the germ of another, 

 since none is capable of a solitary or isolated exist- 

 ence), or of that other chain, not less fanciful, of 

 simultaneous and transitionary forms, which has 

 no reality but in the fond imagination of certain 

 naturalists, more poetical than observant. They 

 pertain in truth, and solely, to the actual chain of 

 co-existent beings of beings necessary to each 

 other, and which by their mutual action maintain 

 the resplendent order and harmony of created 

 things. 



