512 Mr. N. A. Vigors oji the Natural Affinities 



are engaged in similar researches with ourselves, must be to a 

 certain extent arbitrary and artificial. And every inquirer into 

 nature may cause the line of demarcation, that separates his con- 

 terminous groups, to infringe more or less on the limits of either, 

 according to his peculiar mode of viewing his subject. But con- 

 cerning these more minute distinctions I have felt little solicitous. 

 My chief object has been to seize upon the prominent features of 

 nature ; to fix my attention, as it were, upon the grand elevations 

 and projecting outlines of the prospect that lay before me ; to 

 select in short the typical eminences that pointed out most dis- 

 tinctively the natural bearings of my subject. In this research, 

 while it was one of my chief objects to ascertain the gradations 

 by which my groups, distinguished from each other at their typi- 

 cal heights, were connected together at their base, I have con- 

 sidered it a matter of minor importance to determine the exact 

 limits by which they may be supposed to be separated. 



In a pursuit of this kind, and conducted by such views, the only 

 earnest we can possess of having in any degree attained our object 

 is a strict and exclusive adherence to the laws and dictates of na- 

 ture. During the progress of the researches which have been 

 necessary for the purposes of this inquiry, such an adherence 

 therefore has been the criterion by which I estimated the value 

 of every inference that I was induced to draw, and every prin- 

 ciple that I ventured to inculcate. I have investigated each 

 group with reference alone to its place in nature, to its habits 

 and general economy. External character has been but of se- 

 condary moment as producing division, and essential only as it 

 appeared subservient to the before-mentioned paramount prin- 

 ciples ; that is, as far as it decidedly indicated some natural affi- 

 nity, or an adaptation to some natural purpose. In the progress 

 of such inquiries much important information has of course been 

 afforded me by the observations of those who have preceded me 



on 



