42 Mr. Shuckard on the Views of' Arrangement 



" opinions of others, which must be the result of the mens 

 ^^ conscia recta" / 



Would you think it possible, gentlemen, that this repetition 

 of my assumed identity with the system of Mr. Swainson 

 could be made in the face of this Latin phrase, and of the 

 prefixed advertisement? and you will scarcely believe me 

 when I tell you that their writer, at the end of the article, 

 says, very coolly, at the bottom of this same page*, ^' I have 

 '^ been led from its title to assign the merits of this volume 

 ^^ conjointly to Messrs. Swainson and Shuckard, and have 

 '' been treating them like the Siamese twins, as inseparable 

 '^ in fame ; but fairness compels me to add that the system 

 ^^ of classification is entirely Mr, Swainson^s, Mr. Shuckard 

 " has most ingenuously disavowed any share in this, the great 

 '^ feature of the work, and I am compelled to place the 

 " chaplet of laurel on the brows of Mr, Swainson alone, — 

 ^' palmam qui meruit fer at !" 



One would have supposed, if '^ fairness^' was to have any 

 influence in the matter, that the writer being fully aware, as 

 he here shows himself to have been, that I had no participation 

 whatever in Mr. Swainson's system of classification, it would 

 have " compelled" him to abstain from carrying on through 

 the whole of his article these imputations, which he with such 

 amusing naivete confesses he all the while knew to be un- 

 founded : and is it not rather surprising that, having been 

 driven thus to strangle these his unfortunate offspring from 

 despair of being able to maintain them, he should not at once 

 have quietly buried them out of the way, rather than leave 

 their remains exposed to testify against their parent and their 

 executioner ? It would be superfluous for me to make any re- 

 mark ; his own statement is sufficient to give your readers an 

 idea of \]\e fairness to be expected in such ' analytical notices.* 



No man has a right to complain of his own scientific views 

 being fairly discussed, but every man has a right to repulse 

 the attribution of views which he does not hold. My own 

 ideas of 'system' must be known to many entomologists; 

 for what I formerly said in my ' Essay on the Fossorial Hy- 

 menopterat/ and subsequently repeated in this journal as 



* Tlie Entomologist, p. 40. 



f Page 11. I conceive that when all the created species are fully ascer- 

 tained, the true system will be found to be neither circular, square, nor 

 oval, neither dichotomous, quinary, nor septenary, but a uniform meshwork 

 of organization, spread like a net over the universe. But what gaps remain 

 to be filled ! We are truly as yet scarcely upcm the threshold of the great 

 temple, and consequently still remote from the adytum where the veiled 

 statue reposes. We have not yet learnt our alphabet, for species are the 

 letters whereby the book of Nature must be read. London, 1 835. 



