168 



they are specifically dissimilar, it can only arise from 

 their near resemblance to each other, and not from their 

 positive coalescence. But, admitting that this universal 

 blending, throughout the animate world, does not inter- 

 fere with the gradual conformation of its several groups, 

 which therefore should be recognized ; we may perhaps 

 be told by the believers in the c Methode Mononomique/ 

 that they do not intend to ignore the arrangement which 

 Nature has so broadly laid down, but that, on the 

 contrary, they tacitly endorse it, their device having 

 reference to the names only. To this however it will be 

 sufficient to reply, that, if they deem it necessary (of 

 which I am by no means convinced) to accept the 

 natural genera of the organic creation at all, why not 

 acknowledge them ? and how can they be so well 

 acknowledged, either in principle or practice, as through 

 the medium of a binomial nomenclature? Such a 

 system is the only consistent one, on the hypothesis that 

 they do consider them of primary importance; it is 

 more in unison with our notions of what ought to be ; 

 more suggestive of what actually is ; more honest and 

 generous to those who have laboured (as describers), with 

 such care and diligence, before us. 



It will be perceived, from the above remarks, that, 

 although professedly criticizing the ' Methode Mono- 

 nomique/ into the analysis of which my subject has 

 unintentionally drawn me, it is the absurdity of ob- 

 jecting to genera because they are not rigidly defined 

 throughout, that I have been mainly striving to con- 



