10 Mr. W. S. Macleay on the Comparative Anatomy 



ledge of these several truths by the observation of Nature alone ; 

 so I first saw their dependence upon each other, their general 

 application, and their necessary derivation, from the practice of 

 studying the method in which animal structures vary. How far 

 shadowy and unconnected notions on the above subjects may 

 affect the claims of the Horce Entomologica to public attention I 

 shall not pretend to determine ; but it is my duty, on the other 

 hand, to say, that I was surprised on looking lately among the 

 notes and explanations of the plates (page 181), at the end of a 

 work published at Moscow in 1808 by Professor Fischer, and 

 entitled ^^TahulcB Si/noptica Zoognosia. in usum Audit orum edit a," 

 to find the following remarks : " L'auteur trouve dans la Nature 

 organis6e une opposition remarkable qui pourroit ^tre exprimee 

 par deux cercles en mouvement, qui se touchent ou qui se croisent 

 en deux endroits. 



Pmntes Polyped Anima^ux 



Les 



magis patescunt." — Tah. Aff. Anirn. p. 37. Such are the words of a naturalist con- 

 summately versed in the observation of facts, as well as in the speculations of philo- 

 sophy ; but whose learned work is a singular example of the consequences of mistaking 

 relations of analogy for those of affinity, inasmuch as it presents us at the same time 

 with an inexhaustible mine of information, and an almost inextricable mass of con- 

 fusion. I ought in this place further to mention, that Hermann (p. 8.) cites the fol- 

 lowing words from Eusebius Nieremberg, Nat. Hist, lib.iii. c. 3. — " Scilicet per con- 

 textum Natura assurgit paulatim et sine saltu velut continue procedit tram^. Nullus 



hiatus 



