that connect the Orders and Families of Birds. 515 



solely to the letter of his works, but unmindful of their spirit, 

 have palmed upon him a confined and restrictive cbde of arrange - 

 ment, as foreign from the enlarged views of his own enlightened 

 mind, as from the disposition of that Nature of which he was so 

 faithful an interpreter. What was intended to have been applied 

 to her works o i a general and expanded scale, they would apply 

 upon the minutest : they would make that system which they wish 

 to uphold, an universal and unalterable standard for the adjudica- 

 tion of every object that may be referred to it, however great or 

 however contracted may be its dimensions. They would preserve 

 this system, in short, as it came from their master's hands, un- 

 enlarged and undiminished ; admitting no increase to suit the 

 increasing knowledge of the times, no modification to embrace 

 the accumulating modifications of Nature. It is not therefore 

 to be wondered at, that the adversaries of this great man should 

 have rejected in toto a system, which either their interest or 

 inclination did not permit them to investigate, much less treat 

 with justice, and which, thus modelled to their hands, they found 

 unsuited to any practical purpose. 



But to arrive at a just knowledge of the question before us, 

 we must judge from the merits of the case itself, and not from 

 the partial views of either friends or opponents. It is to be re- 

 membered that there are three great stages in the progress of 

 natural science, after it has assumed somewhat of a definite form, 

 which are marked by decisive limits. The first is confined to the 

 investigation of the more extensive affinities that prevail among 

 the scattered productions of nature, and to the arrangement of 

 them according to these leading affinities. The second takes 

 place at that period when the materials of the naturalist become 

 too far multiplied to admit of being classed in the more extended 

 departments alone, and when his business is rather the investiga- 

 tion of differences than of affinities, and the subdivision of groups 



VOL. XIV. 3 X rather 



