368 Mr. Burnett's Ldter on 



I [To the Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Science.} '. 11 \mry:M 



• nbnuod t)rli v.- ,^,( ^i.,Ofr» Vritt 



My dear Sir, , 



I cannot conclude these outline illustrations of the highest 

 class of Brute animals, viz. the "Beasts," which were selected 

 for this first series of sketches on the Philosophy of System, 

 merely as affording some of the most notorious and familiar 

 examples of those curious inter-alliances to be found in every 

 grade of physical existence, and which so much distract all 

 arbitrary methods of arrangement, in which the object seems to 

 have too often been to divide, where it should only seek to dis- 

 tribute, and to separate where it should only labour to connect ; 

 "without endeavouring to direct your attention to some of the 

 advantages which result from pursuing an opposite course, 

 and to correct some misconceptions with regard to the diagrams 

 (published in No. VI.), which were merely introduced as con- 

 venient symbols illustrative of the connexions of the several 

 grades, not as absolute drafts of the plan on which the asso- 

 ciations in nature do exist; i.e., the hypothesis was never 

 entertained, that in nature the various groups and provinces 

 are found arranged in geometric circles ; but that the proper- 

 ties and powers, characteristic of the several existences, are 

 more or less predominant in the contiguous grades, so that no 

 one is essential and peculiar to one individual only, and the 

 triply intersecting circles seemed the simplest figures by which 

 to illustrate these mutual alliances, for by their means we 

 segregate and distribute at the same time that we connect. A 

 two-fold object is hence attained ; for it was designed to shew, 

 1st, why the various grades of nature, and of knowledge, can- 

 not be absolutely divided ; and, 2dly, how they ,B^ay,^e definitely 

 arranged without an absolute division. 



How constantly do we hear systematic writers complain, and 

 not without some apparent show of reason, that the varieties 

 of forms in nature so frequently return into themselves, and 

 the multiplicity of particulars are blended in such varied con- 

 nexion with each other, as to render futile their i^ipst ly;illiant 

 schemes of absolute and definite arrangement ! But are not 

 such schemes too often the unmeasured manufactures of the 

 closet ? and, like ready-made garments froni the commissariat 

 stores, poor nature is obliged to put them on, and blamed when 



