Mr. W. S. Macleay on Laws regulating Insects and Fungi. 47 



animals must evidently be inferior to that experienced by the 

 comparative anatomist, who understands their respective struc- 

 tures. And again, the anatomist himself, on viewing a museum, 

 can scarcely be so much gratified by the sight, as that naturalist 

 who, not content with a bare and in some degree insulated know- 

 ledge of particular organizations, endeavours to comprehend how 

 these harmonize with the rest of the creation. It is in this 

 last mode alone, if I may so express myself, that the human 

 mind can take, as far as its imperfect nature will permit, a 

 view of the universe as it was originally designed. Nor ought 

 any person to be deterred from commencing so delightful a pur- 

 suit, either by the supposed difficulty of the investigation, or by 

 the extent of preparatory infonnation which it necessarily re- 

 quires : for truly has it been said, that he who questions his 

 abilities to arrange the dissimilar parts of an extensive plan, or 

 fears to be lost in a complicated system, may yet hope to adjust 

 a few pages without perplexity. 



Having such ideas both of the dignity of natural history and 

 of the importance and feasibility of a more extended research 

 into the natural system than has yet been made, we can scarcely 

 fail to be interested by a late work *, of which the perusal has 

 induced me to address this learned body. Although this work is 

 confined to a department of botany not very generally studied, its 

 author has evidently not been satisfied with the specific discrimi- 

 nation of the imperfectly organized subjects of his research, but 

 has earnestly sought to discover the relations which they bear to 

 each other. Keeping this object steadily in view, M. Fries has 

 been able to give so connected and symmetrical an outline of 

 what he considers to be the natural distribution of Fungi, as, at 



* Systema Mycologicum sistens Fungorum Ordines, Genera, Species, &c. quos ad 

 Normam Method! Naturalis determinavit, disposuit atque descripsit Elias Fries, &c. 

 vol. i. Gryphiswaldiae, 1821. 



least 



