BARON CUVIER, 71 



another, that we consider them as more perfect, or superior 

 to another in the series of beings. He only could pretend 

 to do this, who would pursue the chimerical project of rang- 

 ing beings in one single line, — a project which ws have 

 long renounced. The more progress we have made in the 

 study of nature, the more we are convinced that this is one 

 of the falsest ideas that has ever resulted from the pursuit 

 of natural history ; the more we have been convinced of the 

 necessity of considering each being, each group of beings. 

 by itself, and the part it plays by its properties and organi- 

 zation, and not to make abstraction of any of its affinities^ 

 or any of the links which attach it, either to the beings near- 

 est to it, or the most distant from it. Once placed in this 

 point of viev/, difficulties vanish, all arranges itself for the 

 naturalist : but systematic methods only embrace the near- 

 est affinities ; and by placing a being only between two 

 others, they will always be wrong. The true method is, 

 to view each being in the midst of all others : it shows all 

 the radiations by which it is more or less closely linked with 

 that immense network which constitutes organized nature ; 

 and it is this only which can give us that great idea of na- 

 ture, which is true, and worthy of her and her iiuthor ; but 

 ten or twenty rays often wo aid not suffice to express these 

 innumerable affinities .... We shall therefore approach to 

 each other those whom nature has approximated, without 

 feeling obhged to put into our groups the beings she has 

 not placed there ; and making no scruple, after having de- 

 monstrated, for example, all the species which will admit of 

 being arranged in a well-defined genus, all the genera 

 which may be placed in a well-defined family, to leave om 

 one or several isolated species or genera, which are not at- 

 tached to others in a natural manner ; preferring the ho- 

 nest avowal of these irregularities, if w^e may be allowed to 

 call them so, to those errors which must arise from leaving 

 these species, and anomalous genera, in a series, the charac- 

 ters of which they do not embrace." 



The first great division of Fishes treated of by M. Cu- 

 vier, and with which the second volume commences, is that 

 of the Acanthopterygii, or fishes ^vith spinous rays' to their 

 fins ; and foremost amongst these, is the numerous family 

 of the Perches, or Percoides, which occupies the two sue- 



