12 Some Remarlcs on Natural History, 



Ray, in writing or speaking to his friend Willoughby, to tell 

 him he had found Antirrhinum ^latine (the former being the 

 generic, and the latter the trivial name), is obliged to go 

 round to his point in this manner : — "I have found that 

 Linaria Elatine dicta folio acuminato ;^' and Haller, who 

 was one of the neatest and most skilful definers, if he had 

 communicated the same information, would have employed 

 this periphrasis : — "1 have gathered the Antirrhinum foliis 

 imis conjugatiSf super ioribus altamis, ad basin hamatis" 



But the knowledge of the instrument, however requisite, is 

 not the knowledge of the subject to which it is applied. No- 

 menclature is not the end, but the means, of our study; and 

 if I have offered an excuse for the attention which has been 

 paid to it in this country, I rejoice in any circumstance which 

 is likely to enlarge the boundaries of science, and throw open 

 still wider the temple of nature. The establishment of a 

 Magazine of Natural History cannot fail to promote this 

 object. 



Without disparaging other pursuits, the subject has some 

 advantages of a wider bearing than is generally acknowledged. 



In the first place, it is admirably adapted to develope and 

 strengthen the faculties of the mind; and this it does, not 

 only by the system and order which are necessary to be ob- 

 served, but by appealing to some of the higher powers with 

 which we are endowed. Mankind are evidently divided into 

 two great classes, those who particularise (composing the 

 bulk), and those who generalise. No man was ever great, 

 without possessing both faculties in an eminent degree ; yet 

 the greater part pass through life without ever discovering that 

 they have this power of abridging and condensing thought by 

 an operation of the mind alone. Even those who do possess 

 the faculty to some extent, are apt to suffer it to run so wild, 

 and to deal in such loose generalities, that they lose half its 

 benefits. Nothing is more likely to develope this peculiarity 

 of the intellect, or to keep it within legitimate bounds, than 

 the systematic study of nature. She furnishes such an infinity 

 of subjects, that no man could grasp the ten-thousandth part 

 who should attempt to become acquainted with all the indi- 

 viduals, and he would be left immeasurably behind another 

 who should employ generic and family distinctions. Nor can 

 the student of natural history make a step in generalisation 

 without a frequent recurrence to his particulars. He would 

 soon find himself lost amidst the mazes of similar and related 

 things, if he were not to examine and reexamine the indi- 

 viduals before him. Unlike many of the subjects of the pre- 

 sent day, which seem to owe their attraction to the almost 



