MEMOIR OP ARISTOTLE. 
109 
nerally adopted. Soon after the commencement of 
the last century, the Swedish naturalist directed his 
attention to the subject, and distributed the whole 
animal kingdom into six classes — Mammalia, Birds, 
Reptiles, Fishes, Insects, and Worms ; in which dis- 
tribution, Lamarck observes, that he improved on 
Aristotle, first by using the more distinctive term 
Mammalia, and placing the Cetacea in that class ; 
and next by making a distinct class of Reptiles, and 
arranging them betwixt Birds and Fishes. If this 
alteration, which has been subsequently adopted by 
all other zoologists, be made, Aristotle’s arrange- 
ment of vertebrated animals agrees with that of the 
present day ; and in distributing all other animals 
into four classes, which Linnaeus distributes into 
two only, the Stagirite must be considered as having 
proceeded on the more philosophical principle, be- 
cause the species of those animals, taken collective- 
ly, are much more numerous and much more diver- 
sified in their form and structure than the species of 
vertebrated animals *. 
In Entomology, the claims of Aristotle as a great 
and original genius have been admitted by some of 
the most competent judges of modem times. Of 
the class Insecta, it has been affirmed, that Linnseus 
himself had not those precise ideas of its limits 
which the philosopher of Athens had adopted so 
many centuries before. The following Tabular View 
* Kidd’s Treatise on the Adaptation of External Na- 
ture to the Physical Condition of Man, p. 31 .9. 
