Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon].

  • Robert Chambers
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    248/408 page 240
    honour of its principal author, announces that, whether we take the whole animal kingdom, or any definite division of it, we shall find that we are examining a group of beings which is capable of being arranged along a series of close affinities, wn a circular form,—that is to say, starting from any one portion of the group, when it is properly arranged, we can proceed from one to another by minute gradations, till at length, having run through the whole, we return to the point whence we set out. All natural groups of animals are, therefore, in the language of Mr. Macleay, circular ; and the possibility of throwing any supposed group into a circular arrangement is held as a decisive test of its being a real or natural one. It is of course to be understood that each circle is composed of a set of inferior circles: for example, a set of tribe circles composes an order; a set of order circles, again, forms a class; and so on. Of each group, the com- ponent circles are invariably five in number: thus, in the animal kingdom, there are five sub-kingdoms, —the vertebrata, annulosa,* radiata, acrita,t} mol- lusca. Take, again, one of these sub-kingdoms, * Corresponding to the articulata of Cuvier. t A new sub-kingdom, made out of part of the radiata of Cuvier.
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