He concludes that one who
could see living forms as a whole and without preconceived opinions,
would classify animals according to the relations in which he found
himself standing towards them:--
"Those which he finds most necessary and useful to him will occupy the
first rank; thus he will give the precedence among the lower animals
to the dog and the horse; he will next concern himself with those
which without being domesticated, nevertheless occupy the same country
and climate as himself, as for example stags, hares, and all wild
animals; nor will it be till after he has familiarised himself with
all these that curiosity will lead him to inquire what inhabitants
there may be in foreign climates, such as elephants, dromedaries, &c.
The same will hold good for fishes, birds, insects, shells, and for
all nature's other productions; he will study them in proportion to
the profit which he can draw from them; he will consider them in that
order in which they enter into his daily life; he will arrange them in
his head according to this order, which is in fact that in which he
has become acquainted with them, and in which it concerns him to think
about them, This order--the most natural of all--is the one which I
have thought it well to follow in this volume. My classification has
no more mystery in it than the reader has just seen .
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