324' Reply to Art. I. No. XFTII. 



blame must surely rest upon those who commence the attack, 

 and not upon those who act merely on the defensive. In the 

 present instance, it is not the Zoological Journal that is to be 

 condemned ; but the Linnean Transactions^ the Dictionnaire, 

 and the Bulletin des Sciences Naturelles. I know not, in fact, 

 how the cause of science is to be advanced, or her truths 

 maintained, if the voice of the accuser is alone to be heard, 

 and that of the accused is to be condemned to silence. Under 

 Mr. Swainson's new system of morality, our science will be 

 one of mere aggression on one part, and patient submission on 

 the other: — ubi tupulsas, ego vapulo tantum. The assassin 

 may stab our reputation in the dark, or the bravo may assault 

 it in the open day, and we must endure the injury and the 

 insult, lest our honest defence should expose us, in the eyes 

 of some mawkish sentimentalist, to the imputation of being 

 possessed of a litigious and controversial spirit ! Sir, I will 

 admit of no such insensate reasonings. The publication of 

 the papers referred to, which, in conjunction with my col- 

 leagues I was instrumental in introducing into the journal, 

 was not only justifiable but praiseworthy. Among them, — I 

 allude more particularly to the papers of Mr. MacLeay, — are 

 to be found, intermingled with the necessary defence of the 

 opinions of the author, some of the profoundest trains of 

 general reasoning, and some of the most lucid expositions of 

 the truths of science, that were ever brought before the scien- 

 tific public. 



3. I am accused of occupying myself a distinguished sta- 

 tion as a combatant (p. 98. note) ; as selecting two, among the 

 best known naturalists of France, as fit subjects for discourteous 

 treatment (p. 98.); as being the detractor of those naturalists 

 (p. 104.); of repeatedly insinuating accusations to the disad- 

 vantage of M. Lesson and other distinguished Parisian natur- 

 alists (p. 106.), &c. &c. &c. This charge is attempted to be 

 supported by a reference to three articles; the first two of which 

 are the papers which I have already mentioned as being pub- 

 lished by me in the Zoological Journal^ the third an article 

 contained in the eighth number of The Gardens and Menagerie 

 of the Zoological Society delineated. 



The last of these claims our first attention, not only as it is 

 that which is stated by the accuser himself as involving the 

 most serious " guilt " on my part ; but as it is the only 

 charge of the three on which he condescends to enter into 

 the details of the case, or to go beyond mere vague and un- 

 supported assertion. 



Your readers, Sir, have already been convinced, by Mr. 

 Bennett's letter in your last Number (p. 199.), of the un- 



