The System of Nature. 1165 



central area, which I suppose occupied by man and those quadrumanous animals which 

 most nearly approach him ; and the exterior groups being limited by a series of con- 

 centric circles, each increasing in diameter as the animals, whose limit it circumscribes, 

 are supposed to recede in structure from the normal and central form of man." — p. 109. 



Such is the ground-work of Mr. Newman's System, and it appears 

 to us both original and true. We shall now attempt to analyze some 

 of its details. 



The first chapter is devoted, first, to a very just and very moderate 

 criticism of the difficulties inseparable from linear systems : secondly, 

 to a very short — too short — exposition of the author's own views of 

 classification : thirdly, to the immediate application of his views to 

 the grouping of placental animals. We think this multiplicity of 

 matters a defect, and that it would have been better to have devoted 

 an entire chapter to the explanation of the principles of classification. 

 At present, this part is too brief. Owing to this brevity we acquire 

 but an incomplete idea of the author's views : we cannot see whither 

 he would lead us : and for our own part we candidly admit we could 

 neither understand the fundamental views of our author as a whole, 

 nor their application in detail, until after the perusal of the sixth, se- 

 venth and ninth chapters ; but, we are bound to say, that when, after 

 reading these, we returned to the first chapter, we found the whole to 

 be perfectly clear and satisfactory : and we think Mr. Newman has 

 been peculiarly happy in the grouping of the placental animals. 



The object of the second chapter is to show that the marsupials 

 form a class distinguished from the placentals by their physiology, 

 their diversity or divisibility, and their antiquity ; and for the man- 

 ner in which he has accomplished this task, we cannot refrain from 

 praising the author: on all these points we entertained an opinion 

 precisely similar, before we had read his work. But while we praise 

 him, it is not for having formed a distinct class of the marsupials, for 

 Cuvier, as Mr. Newman shows, had indicated this, De Blainville had 

 proposed it, and Owen had established it ; it is not on account of his 

 pointing out their extraordinary diversity, for this had also been done; 

 it is not for his reminding us that marsupials were the most ancient 

 of the mammifers, for Buckland and Owen had established this be- 

 yond a doubt ; but we praise him, and that in the highest degree, for 

 having brought the opinions of these naturalists so clearly and so for- 

 cibly together, in confirmation of his own : and we praise him for his 

 lucid arrangement of these animals, in which he points out the rela- 

 tions which unite them, not only to the birds and the reptiles, but 

 also to the placentals : and he is equally happy when he shows, by 



