(1843); Adrien de Jussieu's Couérs Elmentaire d'Histoire Naturelle : Botanique (1844).

Mr. Lindley, in this as in all his works, urges strongly the superior value of natural as compared with artificial systems; his principles being, I think, nearly such as I have attempted to establish in the Philosophy of the Sciences, Book viii., Chapter ii. He states that the leading idea which has been kept in view in the compilation of his work is this maxim of Fries: "Singula sphæra (sectio) ideam quandam exponit, indeque ejus character notione simplici optime exprimitur;" and he is hence led to think that the true characters of all natural assemblages are extremely simple.

One of the leading features in Mr. Lindley's system is that he has thrown the Natural Orders into groups subordinate to the higher divisions of Classes and Sub-classes. He had already attempted this, in imitation of Agardh and Bartling, in his Nixus Plantarum (1833). The groups of Natural Orders were there called Nixus (tendencies); and they were denoted by names ending in ales; but these groups were further subordinated to Cohorts. Thus the first member of the arrangement was Class 1. EXOGENE. Sub-class 1. POLYPETALÆ. Cohort 1. ALBUMINOSE. Nixus 1. Ranales. Natural Orders included in this Nixus, Ranunculaceæ, Saraceniceæ, Papaveraceæ, &c. In the Vegetable Kingdom, the groups of Natural Orders are termed Alliances. In this work, the Sub-classes of the EXOGENS are four: 1. DICLINOUS; II. HYPOGYNOUS; III. PERIGYNOUS; IV. EPIGYNOUS; and the Alliances are subordinated to these without the intervention of Cohorts.

Mr. Lindley has also, in this as in other works, given English names for the Natural Orders. Thus for Nymphaceae, Ranunculaceæ, Tamaricacea, Zygophyllacea, Eleatrinacea, he substitutes Water-Lilies, Crowfoots, Tamarisks, Bean-Capers, and Water-Peppers; for Malvacea, Aurantiacea, Gentianacea, Primulacea, Urtiacea, Euphorbiacea, he employs Mallow-worts, Citron-worts, Gentian-worts, Prim-worts, Nettle-worts, Spurge-worts; and the terms Orchids, Hippurids, Amaryllids, Irids, Typhads, Arads, Cucurbits, are taken as English equivalents for Orchidacea, Haloragaceæ, Amaryllidaceæ, Iridaceae, Typhaceæ, Aracea, Cucurbitacea. All persons who wish success to the study of botany in England must rejoice to see it tend to assume this idiomatic shape.]

CHAPTER VI.

THE PROGRESS OF SYSTEMATIC ZOOLOGY.

HE history of Systematic Botany, as we have presented it, may be considered as a sufficient type of the general order of progression in the sciences of classification. It has appeared, in the survey which we have had to give, that this science, no less than those which we first considered, has been formed by a series of inductive processes, and has, in its history, Epochs at which, by such processes, decided advances were made. The important step in such cases is, the seizing upon some artificial mark which conforms to natural resemiblances;-some basis of arrangement and nomenclature by means of which true propositions of considerable generality can be enunciated. The advance of other classificatory sciences, as well as botany, must consist of such steps; and their course, like that of botany, must (if we attend only to the real additions made to knowledge,) be gradual and progressive, from the earliest times to the present.

To exemplify this continued and constant progression in the whole range of Zoology, would require vast knowledge and great labor; and is, perhaps, the less necessary, after we have dwelt so long on the history of Botany, considered in the same point of view. But there are a few observations respecting Zoology in general which we are led to make in consequence of statements recently promulgated; for these statements seem to represent the history of Zoology as having followed a course very different from that which we have just ascribed to the classificatory sciences in general. It is held by some naturalists, that not only the formation of a systematic classification in Zoology dates as far back as Aristotle; but that his classification is, in many respects, superior to some of the most admired and recent attempts of modern times.

If this were really the case, it would show that at least the idea of a Systematic Classification had been formed and developed long previous to the period to which we have assigned such a step; and it would be difficult to reconcile such an early maturity of Zoology with the conviction, which we have had impressed upon us by the other

parts of our history, that not only labor but time, not only one man of genius but several, and those succeeding each other, are requisite to the formation of any considerable science.

But, in reality, the statements to which we refer, respecting the scientific character of Aristotle's Zoological system, are altogether without foundation; and this science confirms the lessons taught us by all the others. The misstatements respecting Aristotle's doctrines are on this account so important, and are so curious in themselves, that I must dwell upon them a little.

1

Aristotle's nine Books On Animals are a work enumerating the differences of animals in almost all conceivable respects;-in the organs of sense, of motion, of nutrition, the interior anatomy, the exterior covering, the manner of life, growth, generation, and many other circumstances. These differences are very philosophically estimated. "The corresponding parts of animals," he says, "besides the differences of quality and circumstance, differ in being more or fewer, greater or smaller, and, speaking generally, in excess and defect. Thus some animals have crustaceous coverings, others hard shells; some have long beaks, some short; some have many wings, some have few; Some again have parts which others want, as crests and spurs." He then makes the following important remark: "Some animals have parts which correspond to those of others, not as being the same in species, nor by excess and defect, but by analogy; thus a claw is analogous to a thorn, and a nail to a hoof, and a hand to the nipper of a lobster, and a feather to a scale; for what a feather is in a bird, that is a scale in a fish."

It will not, however, be necessary, in order to understand Aristotle for our present purpose, that we should discuss his notion of Analogy. He proceeds to state his object, which is, as we have said, to describe the differences of animals in their structure and habits. He then observes, that for structure, we may take Man for our type, as being best known to us; and the remainder of the first Book is occupied with a description of man's body, beginning from the head, and proceeding to the extremities.

In the next Book, (from which are taken the principal passages in which his modern commentators detect his system,) he proceeds to compare the differences of parts in different animals, according to the order which he had observed in man. In the first chapter he speaks

1

1 Lib. i. c. i.

2 Lib. i. c. ii.

3 c. iii.

of the head and neck of animals; in the second, of the parts analogous to arms and hands; in the third, of the breast and paps, and so on; and thus he comes, in the seventh chapter, to the legs, feet, and toes: and in the eleventh, to the teeth, and so to other parts.

The construction of a classification consists in the selection of certain parts, as those which shall eminently and peculiarly determine the place of each species in our arrangement. It is clear, therefore, that such an enumeration of differences as we have described, supposing it complete, contains the materials of all possible classifications. But we can with no more propriety say that the author of such an enumeration of differences is the author of any classification which can be made by means of them, than we can say that a man who writes down the whole alphabet writes down the solution of a given riddle or the answer to a particular question.

Yet it is on no other ground than this enumeration, so far as I can discover, that Aristotle's "System" has been so decidedly spoken of,* and exhibited in the most formal tabular shape. The authors of this Systema Aristotelicum, have selected, I presume, the following passages from the work On Animals, as they might have selected any other; and by arranging them according to a subordination unknown to Aristotle himself, have made for him a scheme which undoubtedly bears a great resemblance to the most complete systems of modern times.

Book I., chap. v.-" Some animals are viviparous, some oviparous, some vermiparous. The viviparous are such as man, and the horse, and all those animals which have hair; and of aquatic animals, the whale kind, as the dolphin and cartilaginous fishes."

Book II., chap. vii.-"Of quadrupeds which have blood and are viviparous, some are (as to their extremities,) many-cloven, as the hands and feet of man. For some are many-toed, as the lion, the dog, the panther; some are bifid, and have hoofs instead of nails, as the sheep, the goat, the elephant, the hippopotamus; and some have undivided feet, as the solid-hoofed animals, the horse and ass. The swine kind share both characters."

Chap. ii." Animals have also great differences in the teeth, both when compared with each other and with man. For all quadrupeds which have blood and are viviparous, have teeth. And in the first place, some are ambidental, (having teeth in both jaws ;) and some

• Linnæan Transactions, vol. xvi. p. 24.

5

Β. Αμφόδοντα.

are not so, wanting the front teeth in the upper jaw. Some have neither front teeth nor horns, as the camel; some have tusks, as the boar, some have not. Some have serrated' teeth, as the lion, the panther, the dog; some have the teeth unvaried, as the horse and the ox; for the animals which vary their cutting-teeth have all serrated teeth. No animal has both tusks and horns; nor has any animal with serrated teeth either of those weapons. The greater part have the front teeth cutting, and those within broad."

These passages undoubtedly contain most of the differences on which the asserted Aristotelian classification rests; but the classification is formed by using the characters drawn from the teeth, in order to subdivide those taken from the feet; whereas in Aristotle these two sets of characters stand side by side, along with dozens of others; any selection of which, employed according to any arbitrary method of subordination, might with equal justice be called Aristotle's system.

Why, for instance, in order to form subdivisions of animals, should we not go on with Aristotle's continuation of the second of the above quoted passages, instead of capriciously leaping to the third? "Of these some have horns, some have none . . . Some have a fetlockjoint, some have none . . . Of those which have horns, some have them solid throughout, as the stag; others, for the most part, hollow . . . Some cast their horns, some do not." If it be replied, that we could not, by means of such characters, form a tenable zoological system; we again ask by what right we assume Aristotle to have made or attempted a systematic arrangement, when what he has written, taken in its natural order, does not admit of being construed into a system.

Again, what is the object of any classification? This, at least, among others. To enable the person who uses it to study and describe more conveniently the objects thus classified. If, therefore, Aristotle had formed or adopted any system of arrangement, we should see it in the order of the subjects in his work. Accordingly, so far as he has a system, he professes to make this use of it. At the beginning of the fifth Book, where he is proceeding to treat of the different modes of generation of animals, he says, "As we formerly made a Division of animals according to their kinds, we must now, in the same manner, give a general survey of their History (ewpíav). Except, indeed, that in the former case we made our commencement by a description

• Χαυλιόδοντα, * Καρχαρόδοντα. 8 Ανεπάλλακτα. ο Αστράγαλον.