OCTOBEB 18, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



501 



and specialized were really meant and 

 those words, pregnant with mischief, often 

 led their users astray as well as the stu- 

 dents to which they were addressed. 



PHILOSOPHICAL ZOOLOGY 



As knowledge of the various animal 

 groups increased and countless new spe- 

 cies were piling up, yearning arose to dis- 

 cover principles underlying the enormous 

 mass of accumulating details, and the ex- 

 cogitations of various naturalists resulted 

 in some curious speculation and expression 

 in elassificatory form. They called their 

 outpourings philosophy or philosophical 

 zoology, and philosophers they were called 

 by others. 



Some of the philosophers grouped ani- 

 mals according to supposed degrees of nerv- 

 ous sensibility ;^^ some according to the 

 relations of parts to a center or an axis;^° 

 some under groups supposed to correspond 

 with different systems of the body, as the 

 alimentary, the vascular, the respiratory, 

 the skeletal and the muscular,^^ and some 

 would accord to each of the senses definite 

 groups.^^ 



"Lamarck (1812) contended for three cate- 

 gories of animals: (1) apathetic animals and (2) 

 sensitive animals among the invertebrates, and 

 (3) intelligent animals, equivalent to the verte- 

 brates. 



^Blainville (1816) proposed to' divide the ani- 

 mal kingdom into three subkingdoms : ( 1 ) the 

 Artiomorphes, having a bilateral form, (2) the 

 Aetinomorphes, having a radiate form, and (3) 

 the Heteromorphes (mainly sponges and proto- 

 zoans), having an irregular form. 



^ Oken ( 1802-47 ) gave expression to his vary- 

 ing views in several differing classifications. In 

 one scheme (El. Physiophilosophy, 1847, 511 et 

 seq.) he claimed that there were five "circles" 

 corresponding with the " animal systems " : ( 1 ) 

 Intestinal animals (Protozoa and Radiates) ; (2) 

 Vascular, sexual animals (Mollusks) ; (3) Respi- 

 ratory, cutaneous animals (Articulates) ; (4) 

 Sareose animals (Vertebrates except mammals), 

 and ( 5 ) Aistheseozoa, or animals " with all . . . 

 organs of sense perfectly developed" (mammals). 



=^ Oken maintained ( 1802-47 ) : " that the ani- 

 mal classes are virtually nothing else than a rep- 



Equally, if not more extravagant, views 

 were entertained by many naturalists that 

 creative power delighted in the symmetry 

 of numbers and in circular arrangements. 

 It was contended that all groups of animals 

 represented analogous groups in successive- 

 ly diminishing circles; that in a perfect 

 system there were a definite number of 

 subkingdoms, an equal number of classes 

 in each subkingdom, of orders in each class 

 of suborders, of families, of genera, of 

 subgenera, etc. Some maintained that 

 three was the regnant number, others up- 

 held four, others seven, but the most nu- 

 merous and influential school contended 

 for five. Exactly what the philosophers 

 thought they meant, or what strange visions 

 they may have conjured up may never be 

 known. But for a time (1822^2) the 

 school of quinarians, as they were called, 

 claimed most of the naturalists of Britain. 

 The most zealous of the school (William 

 Swainson) was especially displeased with 

 the developmental hypothesis of Lamarck 

 and characterized the "speculations" of 

 the great Frenchman "not merely as 

 fanciful, but absolutely absurd." 



But it was the much-contemned hypoth- 

 esis of descent with modifications that was 

 destined at last to relieve biological science 

 of the wild and irrational speculations and 



resentation of the sense-organs, and that they 

 must be arranged in accordance with them. Thus, 

 strictly speaking, there are only five animal 

 classes: Dermatozoa (skin or touch animals), or 

 the Invertebrata ; Glossozoa (tongue animals), or 

 the fishes . . .; Rhinozoa (nose animals), or the 

 reptiles . . .; Otozoa (ear animals), or the birds; 

 Ophthalmozoa (eye animals), or the Thricozoa 

 (mammals). . . . But since all vegetative systems 

 are subordinate to the tegument or general sense 

 of feeling, the Dermatozoa divide into just as 

 many or corresponding divisions, which on ac- 

 count of the quantity of their contents, may be 

 for the sake of convenience also termed classes." 

 — Oken, El. Physiophilosophy, 1847, p. xi. For 

 the many other assumptions on similar and di- 

 vergent lines the reader must refer to the " Ele- 

 ments of Physiophilosophy" (1847). 



