Prologue

Abstract

The term “invertebrate” is an incongruous one! Normally an object, a plant or an animal, is referred to by a positive characteristic - something it has or possesses, or something it is able to do, or the place it occurs in, its colour etc. Thus, it is strange to refer negatively to the majority of animals as those “without vertebrae”! Had almost all animals possessed vertebrae and a small minority had not, there might then have been a bit of a justification to the name. Also, the Protozoa and the Parazoa (sponges) are lumped with the invertebrates. This situation reflects three facts. First, Anthropocentric or Vertebrocentric attitudes. Quite naturally human being’s first pre-occupation was with himself and thea with the other mammals and then with the birds and after that the reptiles and so on “down” the line. Thus, we consider the lack in others of a characteristic or characteristics that we possess as a criterion or criteria for recognising them. Examples could be “non-French speaking peoples”, “non-Europeans”, “non-biologists” etc. This is precisely what we have done with the “in-vertebrates”.

You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, Sc. 2.