4 88 
Analyses of Books. 
August, 
doms are then dealt with, and the type (the cat) compared with 
each, and the agreements and differences carefully noted. No 
one could read carefully this earlier portion of the chapter with- 
out learning much concerning the whole of the Invertebrata. 
Fishes, Batrachia, reptiles, and birds are then compared with 
the cat : the same plan is still adhered to, but as the structure 
of the types described becomes more complex, so greater exten- 
sion of the comparisons is more and more fully worked out ; after 
each the matter is summed up in a useful tabular form ; at last 
the Carnivora are reached, and here the differences are still more 
minutely defined. The verdiCt as to the cat’s place in the animal 
kingdom can only be given in the author’s own words : — 
“ The cats are then Carnivora par excellence , and they carry 
out the type of their order to its higest known and most perfectly 
harmonious expression. Spontaneous activity and sensitiveness 
are the special characteristics of animal life, and with both these 
powers cats are largely endowed. It may be objected, however, 
that the activities and sense perceptions of certain other beasts 
are, in their own various ways, as highly developed as are those 
of the Felidce. It is certainly very true that it is only through 
the possession of perfeCtly-formed bones and muscles, of a deli- 
cate sense of hearing, or of far-reaching vision, that antelopes, 
hares, and such creatures, escape their carnivorous pursuers. 
But then they use their organisation only for escape. The 
organisation of the cat tribe may then be deemed superior, 
because it is not only excelled in itself, but because it is 
fitted to dominate the excellences of other beasts. Thus con- 
sidered, the Carnivora would rank first amongst mammals, and 
the cats would rank first amongst the Carnivora. Man, how- 
ever, is a mammal, and therefore to affirm this would be to affirm 
the inferiority of our own species. But man’s superiority is 
mental ; it resides in his intellect, not in his peculiarly formed 
great toe, hand, pelvis, or other corporeal peculiarity. Man is to 
be regarded in two lights — as a truly intellectual being, and as an 
animal with a certain organisation. Viewed in the first mode he 
stands quite apart from and outside the whole visible creation, 
and has simply no place whatever in any scheme of biological 
classification. Considered merely in his capacity as an animal, 
he has a very definite place in such a scheme, but it is by no 
means certain that his place is at the summit. Our powers of 
locomotion and sense perception are quite inferior to those of 
very many beasts ; and though our brain is large, both absolutely 
and relatively, yet such are the variations in this respeCt, pre- 
sented by animals of different groups, and by different animals 
of the same group, that the naturalist would be a bold one who 
should venture to affirm that a brain-classification of vertebrate 
animals — to say nothing of Invertebrata — would be a satisfactory 
one. The close bodily resemblance of the apes to man gives them 
no just claim to a rank above that of the Carnivora, since such 
