100 On the Classification of Animals 



the Hymenopters have little variety of form of body, and form 

 or size of wings, compared with the Neuropters, Lepidopters, 

 Honiopters, and even the Coieopters ; and the Goleopters, little 

 compared with the Orthopters. The fantastic shapes, in all cases, 

 occur in the inferior typical or the degradational groups. In 

 these, cephalization is of low grade, and as a consequence of this 

 relaxing of the system, or its inferior concentration, the forms run 

 off into varied extravagances. 



6. Classification hereby placed on a dynamical or sthenic basis. — 

 The laws of celaphalization, as is apparent from the explanations 

 which have been made, are based upon the idea that an animal 

 is centralized force ; and that the degree of concentration of this 

 force may be exhibited in the structure ; that, consequently, the 

 various grades of species or groups become apparent, to some 

 extent, through size and form, and their determination is thus, 

 in part, a matter of simple measurement. Dimensions or spatial 

 conditions have a relation to force in the animal kingdom as well 

 as in that of the celestial spheres. 



Kank or grade are thus brought to the rule and plummet, and 

 classification, thereby, has a dynamical basis. The distinctions 

 between groups have a dynamical or sthenic character, and all 

 subdivisions in classification, when thoroughly understood, will 

 have recognised sthenic relations. 



It must, however, be kept in mind that the element of size, 

 when used in the application of the principle, or as a mark of 

 superiority, is not absolute size. For it is one of the laws of 

 life that vegetative growth may enlarge a weak life-system to 

 gigantic dimensions. Thus, the life-system of an Entomostracan 

 takes great magnitude in a Limulus ; of a Tretradecapod, in a 

 female Bopyrus ; of an Edentate, in a Megathere ; of a Mutilate, 

 in a Whale. The body of a Crab has fifty times the dimensions of 

 that of an Insect; and its head probably 100 times that of the 

 head of an Insect, although an Insect is the superior species. 



Neither is mere muscular strength an indication of grade; for 

 there is force used in sustaining the structure which is greater 

 the higher the organism; and superior to this, there is sensorial 

 and other cephalic force. Were we to base our comparison 

 between the grade of life-system in a Crab and that of a Bee on 

 the ground of muscular strength, we should go far astray; and 

 still wider from the mark, were we to rely on the relative sizes 

 of the cephalic nervous masses; for this nervous mass in a com- 

 mon Crab {]\Iaia squinado of European seas) has twenty-five to 

 thirty times the bulk of that in a Bee. Man yields in size and 

 muscular strength not only to the higher Megasthenes, but to the 

 Whales, or lowest ; and the brain in the Elephant and the Whale 



