556 Classification of Animals. 



paedia. As might be expected, the station of man in the creation, 

 naturally engages the early attention of the author, and we are well 

 pleased to find, as it is so completely in accordance with our own feel- 

 ings, and the opinion we have long entertained, that he considers 

 him as altogether out of the category. This he does, not only from 

 arguments drawn from the nature of man considered as an intellec- 

 tual and also a spiritual and immortal being, which shew that his na- 

 tural affinities place him in a circle of higher intelligences, but from 

 those deduced from analytical investigation and inductive reasoning, 

 evidently proving the impossibility of placing him within the animal 

 circle, even when viewed simply as a zoological form ; the typical 

 circles of the only groups into which he could possibly enter, sup- 

 posing him to form a part of the animal world, viz. the Quadrumana 

 of Cuvier, the Primates of Linnaeus, being shewn in the analysis of 

 that group to be complete and perfect without him. In conclusion he 

 adds, " We have now shewn that, whether we regard man in his 

 higher or his lower qualities — whether as an immortal or as a mate- 

 rial being — the station that has been hitherto assigned to him in the 

 scale of creation is inconsistent both with innate feeling, and with 

 that logical induction upon which all true science reposes ; nor is this 

 the only inference to be drawn from the arguments here employed. 

 Had the essential distinction, or, in technical language, the specific 

 character of man not consisted in the immortality of his noblest part, 

 there would have been an immeasurable hiatus between the circles 

 of intelligent and unintelligent beings, which nothing that we can 

 conceive would lessen, even by supplying the slenderest filament 

 which might intimate their connection ; nay more, the higher ranks 

 of intelligence would appear to want that link which was to connect 

 spirit with matter, — corruption with incorruption. If man holds a 

 station in the series of unintelligent beings, he cannot enter into the 

 circle of those that are intelligent, because no being can occupy a 

 station in two distinct circles." 



The two kinds of organized matter, animal and vegetable, are 

 next brought under consideration, and, strange as it may seem to those 

 who have never directed their inquiries into subjects of this nature, 

 it evidently appears, from the researches of the most eminent natu- 

 ralists and physiologists,, that all attempts rigorously to define either 

 is impossible, as the union or amalgamation of the lower organized 

 forms of each, has been satisfactorily proved. This, however, is only 

 in accordance with what by naturalists is now considered almost in 

 the light of an axiom, viz. that no abrupt or absolute divisions exist 



