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Show XVI PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. the system of common education, will become, perhaps, the principal one. By it, the stude~t is exerci.sed in that part ~f logic which is termed method, JUS~ as h: IS by ?eometry. m that of syllogism, because natural history IS the s~Ience wh~ch requires the most precise methods,. as geometry I~ that whiCh demands the most rigorous reasomng. Now this art of method once well acquired, may be applied with infinite advantage'to studies the most foreign to natural history. Every discussion which supposes a classification of facts, every research which demands a distribution of matters, is performed according to the same laws; and he who had cultivated this science merely fvr amusement, is surprised at the facilities it affords il!'im in disentangling an~ arr~nging all kin~s of affairs. . It is not less useful In sohtude. SuffiCiently extensiVe to satisfy the most powerful mind, sufficiently various and inte· resting to calm the most agitated soul, it sheds consolation in the bosom of the unhappy, and stills the angry waves of envy and hatred. Once elevated to the contemplation of that bar· mony of nature irresistibly regulated by Providence, how weak and trivial appear those causes which it has been pleased to leave dependent on the will of man! How astonishing to behold so many fine minds, consuming themselves so uselessly for their own happiness or that of others, in the pursuit of vain combinations, whose very traces a few years suffice to sweep away. I avow it-these ide~s have always been present to my mind, the companions of my labours; and if I have endeavoured by every means in my power to advance this peaceful study, it is because, in my opinion, it is more capable than any other of supplying that want of occupation, which has so largely con· tributed to the troubles of our age-but I must return to my subject. There yet remains the task of accounting for the principal changes I have effected in the latest received methods, and to acknowledge the amount of my obligations to thase natu· ralists, whose works have furnished or suggested a part of them. PREFACE TO TilE FIRST EDITION. xvii To anticipate a remark which will naturally present itself to many, I must observe that I have neither desired nor pretended to class animals so as to form one single line, or so as to mark their relative superiority. I even consider every attempt of this kind impracticable. Thus, I do not mean that the Mamm~lia or Bir~s which come last, arc the most imperfect of their class ; still less do I believe that the last of the Mammalia are more perfect than the first of the Birds, the last of the Mollusca more so than the first of the Annulata or of the Radiata, even restraining the meaning of this vague word perfect to that of most completely organized. I regard m! divisions and subdivisions as the merely graduated expressiOn of the resemolance of the beings which enter into each of them, and although in some we observe a sort of degradation or passage from one species to the other, which can- _ not be denied, this disposition is far from being general. The pretended chain of beings, as applied to the whole creation is ~ut an erroneous application of those partial observations: whJCh are only true when confined to the limits within which they were made-it has, in my opinion, proved more detrimental to the progress of natural history in modern times than it is easy to imagine. , . ~ It is in conformity with these views that I have established my fou~ general divisions, which have already been made known In a separate Memoir. I still think it expresses the real relations of animals more exactly than the old arrangement of Vertebrata and Invertebrata, for the simple reason that the former animals have a much greater resemblance t~ each ot~er .than to ~he latter, and that it was necessary to mark this difference In the extent of their relations. M. Virey, in an article of the "Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Histo~ re ~ ~t~reUe," had already discovered a part of the basis of th1s divislon, and principally that which reposes on the nerV? us system. , The p~r~icular approxi~ation of oviparous V ertebr~ta; inter se, origmated from the curious observations of M. Geoffroy on the composition of bony heads ; and from those I have VoL. 1.-(3) |