the natural Distribution of- Insects and Fungi. 49 



induce us to grant to Bonnet the truth of his proposition, that 

 affinities are continuous, and yet to agree with his opponents 

 that the series of natural beings is not simple. This rule is, that 

 Helations of Analogy must he carefully distinguished from Rela- 

 tions of Affinity; for, as our author M. Fries most truly says, 

 " Quo magis in superficie acquieverunt natura scrutatores, eo ma~ 

 gis analoga cum affinihus commutctrunt ." 



The ideas of affinity and analogy are so distinct from each 

 other in the mind of every person acquainted with the first 

 principles of logic, that even while this distinction was not laid 

 down as an axiom in natural history, experienced naturalists 

 perceived that every correspondence of character did not neces- 

 sarily constitute an affinity. Thus the celebrated Pallas, in his 

 Elenchus Zoophytorum, has well observed that Bonnet, in order 

 to complete his linear scale of nature, was obliged to abandon 

 the true vinculum of affinity, and to resort to such superficial or 

 analogous characters as those which connect Vespertilio and Exo- 

 catus with birds. But the nature of the difference which exists in 

 natural history between affinity and analogy, was I believe first 

 discovered in studying Lamellicorn Insects ; and in the year 1819, 

 when I published that discovery, the fifth part of an acute philo- 

 sophical work, entitled Botanical Aphorisms*, appeared in Swe- 

 den, wherein the distinguished cryptogamist M. Agardh proves 

 by the following words, that he likewise had a slight glimpse of 

 the same truth : " Analogia quaedam et similitude in diversis serie- 

 bus vegetabilium interdum cernatur, quasi progressa esset na- 

 tura ad perfectionem per eosdem gradus sed divers^ viA.t" 



The 



* Jphorismi Botanici, quos venia Ampliss. Ord. Philos. Lund. Prseside Carolo Ad. 

 Agardh, &c. pro Gradu Philosophico, p. p. N. Kuhlgren, &c. p. v. Lundse, 18 19. 



+ In the same Uttle tract M. Agardh makes two other observations, which coincide 

 with what I have noticed in the Animal kingdom. The first is as follows : " Inter in- 

 feriores formas superiores sEepe efllorescunt, sed rudes et veluti experimenta : sic anti- 



VOL, XIV. H cipationes 



