BARON CUVIER. 14«5 



thing intermediate between birds and other 

 classes; there is nothing between vertebrated 

 animals 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 exclusion, remain un- 

 sliaken. Each organised being has in concord- 

 ance 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, having 

 certain wants, has not the power of satisfying 

 them ; a being which could have a part of its 

 organisation allied to another part, suited to a 

 different being, an intermediate being, in fact, 

 that which is called a passage. 



" Each being is made for itself, and in itself 

 is complete : it may resemble other beings, each 

 equally composed of what is fit for it, but none 

 can be composed with a view to another, nor to 

 join it to a third by affinity of form ; and that 

 which is true of the least plant, of the least 

 animal ; that which is true of the most perfect of 

 animals, man ; of the little world, as the ancient 

 philosophers called it, is necessarily not the less 



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