SYSTEM OF NATURE-, 
111 
These gradations may be brought into one point of view 
by a chart, in which the concentric circles are represented 
by parallel longitudinal lines. 
From observations scattered throughout the foregoing 
chapters, there also results the inference of a principle 
which I have hitherto forborne to make a prominent or 
essential feature of the scheme I am endeavouring to 
develope, lest I should become obscure and create confu¬ 
sion, through my inability to cope with the entire subject; 
but now that I have accomplished a sketch of my views of 
the grouping of the animal kingdom, it becomes necessary 
to explain this supposed principle. I allude to the fact 
that every natural group appears divisible into four minor 
groups, three of which are double, and surround the 
fourth, which is central and single. FiXamples may be 
given in the groups whose classification is considered in 
the previous pages. 
The placental animals, (p.13). 
( Glires* 
1 Cheiroptera 
_ Ferae 
Cete 
| Belluoe 
j Bruta 
Primates. 
* The saltant Glires, to use a homely expression, throw off the voli- 
tant bats : these are flying, fluttering mice , not flying hears or flying 
lions, as they must he if connected with the Ferae. The same acute 
perception which teaches the most uneducated person to recognise a bird, 
teaches him also that a bat is a flutter -mouse; and, so considered, its si¬ 
tuation in a system would be obvious to all: but, when placed by our 
greatest zoologists either in the Primates or Ferae, a learner must always 
hesitate before adopting either conclusion. In like manner, the Ferae 
appear to me very evidently to throw off a great and ponderous group of 
