396 



NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



PT. III. 



his *Regne Animal/ published in 1817, he made a new- 

 classification of the whole animal kingdom, dividing them 

 into four great branches. The vertebrata^ or animals with 

 back-bones ; the mollusca, or soft-bodied animals, such as 

 snails ; the arficulaia, or animals, such as crabs, spiders, bees, 

 and ants, whose bodies are composed of movable parts, 

 hardest outside, and jointed or articulated together; and 

 the radiata, or animals whose parts are arranged round an 

 axis, such as star-fish and polyps. These four branches 

 he divided again into classes, orders, families, genera, and 

 species, making a much more complete classification than 

 Linngeus had done, because it was founded more upon the 

 internal structure of animals. 



In this work he pointed out that the parts of an animal 

 are made to fit to each in such a wonderful manner, that 

 if only a few bones are placed in the hands of an ana- 

 tomist he ought to be able to tell you exactly what all the 

 other bones must be. You will remember that Hunter 

 had hinted at this when he showed how the teeth of each 

 species of animal are fitted to the kind of stomach into 

 which the food is to pass. But Cuvier proved that this is 

 true not only of the teeth but of every bone in the skeleton 

 of an animal. 



* Every organized being,' he says, ' forms a whole and 

 entire system . . . none of its parts can change without a 

 change of the others also. Thus, if the stomach of an 

 animal is made so as only to digest fresh flesh, his jaws 

 must be formed to devour the prey, his claws to seize and 

 tear it, his teeth to divide the flesh, and the whole system of 

 his organs of motion to follow and overtake it. Nature 

 must even have planted in his brain the necessary instinct to 

 hide himself and lay snares for his victim. These are the 



