APPENDIX. [205J 



of nature are right or wrong, but whether they do or do not accord with 

 Mr. MacLeay's principles. 



Now, Sir, I have ever avowed that my first connection with zoology, at 

 least as a practical student, took its rise from the perusal of Mr. Mac- 

 Leay's first work, the HorcB EntomologiccB. I was attracted by the 

 originality of his principles, by the depth of his philosophy, and by the 

 superior luminousness of the mode in which he elucidated the great truths 

 of nature. I sought, and had the happiness of attaining, Mr. MacLeay's 

 intimate friendship. I continued for some years in daily intercourse with 

 him, consulting him on the very principles now in question, from all which 

 advantages Mr. Swainson knows he was himself precluded: and my 

 arrangement of the groups of Ornithology, as published in the Linnean 

 Transactionsy and on which any public lectures which I may subsequently 

 have given were founded, was commenced and prosecuted under his 

 auspices. Nay, the very paper itself, which contained that arrangement, 

 went under his immediate revision, sheet by sheet, as it passed through 

 the press ; he having undertaken the official duty of superintending it, in 

 the place of his father, who, at the time, was secretary of the Linnean 

 Society. Here is proof — strong presumptive proof, at least, — that the 

 principles which I profess are not at variance with those of my friend. 



But we are not limited to this presumptive evidence. We have positive 

 proof,, the direct testimony of Mr. MacLeay himself, given as if in anticipa- 

 tion of the reference that would be made to his opinion, clearly demon- 

 strating that in one, at least, of the grand principles which it was his object 

 to establish, and that, perhaps, the most important, — the law, I mean, of 

 continuity existing in nature, as it relates to forms of matter, — my re- 

 searches in Ornithology have been conducted upon the same principles, 

 and my conclusions have been similar to his own. Referring to this con- 

 tinuity, he thus expresses himself: — "I think I have proved this in my 

 Analysis and Synthesis of Petalocerous Coleoptera : you, my dear Vigors, 

 have proved it in Birds." * 



I shall not throw away a moment upon the curious correspondence intro- 

 duced at page 485. Vol. IV. of Mr. Swainson's letter ; in which are some 

 passages that serve him as a foundation for his assertion that I have 

 meanly betrayed, or ignorantly misrepresented, Mr. MacLeay. Such a 

 mass of confusion prevails throughout the garbled quotations in that page, 

 that I confess myself at a loss to discover their drift, or their relevance 

 to the subject : but I conjecture that they refer to some observations of 

 mine as to the injudicious use of the terms natural and artificial systems, 

 I had stated in one of my lectures my wish that naturalists, in the use of 

 these terms, would confine themselves to their strict acceptation ; and 

 thus avoid the ambiguity that attends the indiscriminate application of 

 them to the arrangements of Natural History. I suggested, in accordance 

 with Mr. MacLeay (Zool. Jour.^ vol. iv. p. 404.), that there is hut one natural 

 system^ namely, the original plan of the creation ; and that the systematic 

 arrangements of man, however faithfully they may represent this one natural 

 system^ must themselves be artificial. Mr. Swainson, it appears, thinks 

 diiFerently. He pronounces the system, at least, of one naturalist, — the 

 quinary system, — to be the natural systeniy or rather, as he corrects him- 

 self in a note, to be part of the natural system. Here we are at issue; 

 probably Mr. Swainson may be right, and I wrong ; but let the difference 

 between us be understood. I say that any system proposed by man may 

 well represent the objects of nature, but still will artificially represent 

 them : Mr, Dollond's terrestrial globe, for instance, with all its zones, 

 meridian lines, &c., may be a faithful but still an artificial symbol of the 



* Letter on the Dying Struggle of the Dichotomous System, p. 22. 



