14 INTRODUCTION. 
unity, we must read them in mass as being proportional varieties fashioned of original unity ; but the 
microscopic eye cannot encompass this entirety. The moth clung up against the dome of Constantinople’s 
mosque feels not the plenitude of that overvaulting form, and, not comprehending it, does not experience the 
want of it ; neither does the ant, who enters the Roman Coliseum and makes a long day’s journey over some 
fragment of its fallen state, appreciate the transcendancy of that structural entirety. Neither has comparative 
science as yet had sight of the skeleton archetype, but this science experiences the want, and the want, when 
felt, carves out for itself the discovery. We should, however, first of all inquire into the character of that 
form named vertebra, and whilst we are compelled to acknowledge it to be produced as part of a completer 
and more expressive form, we should come at once to the conclusion that the reason can never generalise upon 
an entire by any form of lesser proportions than itself, - And the vertebra, being known to stand as part 
of some fuller’ form, cannot be extended over all skeleton creation ; nor should the name “ vertebrated” 
block up the road to truth progressive by the rule of comparison, even though Lamarck has sanctified 
that name for the use of anatomy. Anatomical nomenclature, like the arbitrary rules for animal classification 
seems destined ever to undergo modification, according as science turns to the investigation of the form, the 
thing, the ens, the being, the ¢vovs, and the natural law, rather than to the choice of what names shall most 
properly and comprehensively characterise that which is manifest metamorphosis. The name is not the form, _ 
and the form is not itself persistently, even for individuals of one and the same species, much less for those of 
varlous species. 3 
The Animal Kingdom, viewed as a whole, is an ens comprised of such relationary qualities, both of form 
and function, that it is impossible to draw the line of natural separation between presumed class and species. 
Conceit may establish its fancied ce of classification as it chooses ; but rigorous reasoning annihilates the 
tottering fabric, and outsteps the barrier by which method would vainly strive to set the limits to 
inquiry. Cuvier classifies species according to fancied diversities ; but Geoffroy fuses all species mto one line 
of extended analogies, and Nature herself responds to this latter interpretation. The doctrine of analogy 
transcends all bounds; and even all that is truthful in method or classification is based upon the resemblance 
of form, whether contemplated in superficies or anatomically investigated. To Aristotle, the relationary 
and differential characters of animal beings, seemed, in the general notice, twofold. He distinguished two 
sorts of animals; the one which possessed blood, the other which was Jloodless.* This idea underwent 
modification through Linnzeus, who chose rather to designate the two sorts of animals as that possessed of 
red blood, and that which possessed white blood. + Again, Lamarck substituted another formula, and, 
according to the presence or absence of an endoskeleton fabric, distinguished animals into vertebrate and. 
invertebrate.{ The osseous skeleton had now become the subject of philosophical disputation ; on one side, 
the definition of skeleton species was attempted to be demonstrated; on the other, universal skeleton analogy 
was known to prevail; and, to this hour, the question, as to the precise limits of animal class or species, has 
proceeded no further than where Aristotle had left it ; but it is confessed, that all promise of discovery leads 
the way in front of the doctrine of a limitless analogy, and the consequent fusion of proximate species. 
* History of Animals, + Systema Nature. 
{ “Pour eviter toute equivoque, oul’emploi d’aucune consideration hypothetique, dans mon premier cours fait dans le Muséum, au 
printemps de 1794 (l’an 2 de la Republique); je divisai la totalité des animaux connus en deux coupes parfaitement distinctes, savoir : 
Les animaux  yertébres, et les animaux sans vertébres.”—Pdilosophie Zoologique, par T. B..P. A. Lamarck, tome i., p. 118. 
