NATURAL SCIENCES OP PHILADELPHIA. 361 



species receive the stamp of scientific approval in the recognition of superior 

 groups, instead of that which is constant and fixed, which is more or less indi- 

 cative of modes of life, which is the expression in the imago of those categories 

 of thought that we designate genera and families? I cannot perceive why it 

 should be preferred, when I recall the wonderful fertility in structural inven- 

 tion which characterizes every natural family, and the logical connections 

 t^jat exist between all those groups of species composing its various genera. 

 If the specific conception is the same in the preparatory states, and the struc- 

 ture of the various imagos that result is nearly identical, differing in some 

 trivial peculiarity, perhaps, to which we are unable to assign any significant 

 value, would it not be more scientific and convenient, more natural and phi- 

 losophic indeed, to regard such individuals as forming a distinct group in the 

 genus, to which they are evidently so intimately related, regardless of peculi- 

 arities of ornamentation? 



What would be thought of that system in anthropography which sep- 

 arated men of the same race upon a long or a short nose, a large or small 

 ear, thin or thick lips, or wide or narrow shoulders? I am not prepared to as- 

 sert, that a principle like this has been introduced into the system which re- 

 presents the present arrangement of this family, but when one recalls its com- 

 parative poverty in generic characters in the imago, or otherwise the extremely 

 close relationship indicated in the diagnoses of many of its genera, the proba- 

 bility of something similar to it having existence is at least suggested to the 

 mind. 



It would be well if entomologists would cultivate just and philosophic con- 

 ceptions respecting the nature of the various groups at present recognized in 

 our systems. No other department of Natural History offers, probably, equal 

 facilities for observation and determining with accuracy the limits of generic 

 and specific cycles. The mind, however, must be disabused of the fallacious 

 notion that the imago is the most important part of species ; that it is, indeed 

 the species, or that classification can be truly and properly made on this basis 

 alone. Perfect insects are easily arranged systematically upon a consideration 

 of their entire structure, its general agreements and special differences, but 

 there are considerations more important than these involved in the idea of 

 species. 



The " imago" is no more the species which it represents as an individual, 

 than the principal noun of a grammatical sentence is the idea which may be 

 conveyed to our mental perceptions. Each is necessary to the other, each in- 

 complete without the other, and when a hiatus exists in either case, we are 

 placed simply in a region of conjecture, respecting the significance connected 

 with the representative presented to us. We have an object, but no idea. The 

 noun and the imago may be well known to us, but until we have followed 

 them through all the collateral terms in which they exist as the materials of 

 thought, we cannot duly value the conceptions which may be connected with 

 them. 



The advocates of the Darwinian Theory of the origin of species would have 

 us believe that species is an abstraction ; that it represents nothing ideal; that 

 in nature nothing but individuals exist, and in these must we look for the cha- 

 racteristics of species. The entire superstructure of reasoning on which the 

 theory is built, is one that admits what is material in the specific group, pro- 

 bably because it is obvious to the senses of every one, but ignores the existence 

 of that which is immaterial, intellectual, spiritual in every true specific creation, 

 and which is to it as the soul to the material body of man ; that which dis- 

 tinguishes the vital machine from mechanical inventions or imitations, created 

 by the conceptions of the human mind. Nor does this belong to the imago 

 alone, but is written in vital characters in the various transitional forms which 

 belong to each species, in their organs, and their acts and manifestations of 

 life, and intelligence or instinct. It is this, the definite conception, that casts 



I860.] 25 



