594 president's address. 



systems there is and can be only one. Finally, the former is the miserable resource 

 of the feeble mind of man, unable to comprehend in one view the innumerable 

 works of the creation; whereas the natural system is the plan of creation itself, 

 the work of an all-wise, all-powerful Deity." 



In his last paper "Annulosa of South Africa,"' before leaving England 

 (1838), he says (p. 52) : "It must not be supposed, however, that I offer this essay 

 as perfect and complete, or that I absurdly pretend, as some have most unjustly 

 laid to my charge, to have positively arrived at the Natural System. I merely 

 publish this paper on Cetoniidae as another, and perhaps closer approximation to 

 that Divine plan, which, every hour I have devoted to nature, whether in tropical 

 forests or in the museums of Eur(;pe, has shown to be the branch of natural 

 history most worthy of being studied by rational beings. But the truth is that 

 this divine plan is not one particular branch of natural history, but the study of 

 of every branch. It is the whole, of which it necessarily includes the knowledge 

 every branch of natural history is but a part, and which I shall ever regard with 

 gratitude, as having been the source of many moments of the purest pleasure 

 while my residence was in an unhealthy climate.'' 



Such views as these were entirely in keeping with the English Time-Spirit of 

 the day. They were fostered by some of the cun-ent English literature of the 

 time, notably a book entitled "The Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of 

 the Creator," written by John Ray (1628-1705). the "fatlier of modern zoology,'' 

 a divine as well as a naturalist. It was a very popular book a century ago. W. 

 S. Macleay quotes from it approvingly more than once in the Horae Entomolo- 

 g^eae (pp. 468, 488). Another treatise breathing the same pious spirit was the 

 "Reflections on the Study of Nature: translated from the Latin of the cele- 

 brated Linnaeus," by Dr. J. E. Smith, President of the Linnean Society, and 

 issued together with liis Inaugural Address to the Society, and some of his smaller 

 botanical papers, in one volume, entitled "Tracts relating to Natural History," in 

 1798. In due time there followed the "Bridgewater Treatises on the Power, 

 Wisdom, and Goodness of God as manifested in the Creation" (numerous vol- 

 umes by various authors), and Paley's "Natural Theology." 



The incentive to begin active work, with a view to publication, came (luite 

 simply. The tirst edition of Cuvier's "Regne Animal," in 4 vols., was published in 

 1817. while W. S. Macleay was officially resident in Paris. The entomological 

 portion of this important work was contributed by Latreille, who therein "applied 

 the name of Lamelli comes to an artificial division comprising all the insects which 

 compose the genera Luoarius and Scarahaeux^ as they were left by Linnaeus in his 

 last edition of the Systema Naturae." W. S. Macleay, therefore, decided to 

 revise the group, as his father's cabinet contained representatives of nearly 1800 

 species of the Linnean genus Searabaeics ; and, as an additional qualification for 

 undertaking the work, he had had the good fortune to visit almost every collection 

 of note in Europe, excepting those of Vienna and Berlin. The results of this 

 investigation were published, as a separate work, in London, Part i. in 1819. and 

 Part ii. in 1821. under the title of "Hora^ Entomologicae : or Essays on the 

 Annulose Animals, Part i., containing general Observations on the Geograpliy 

 Manners, and Natural .MTinities of the Insects whicli compose the Genus Sccira- 

 baeun of Linnaeus; to which are added a few incidental Remarks on the Genera 

 Lucanus and Hister of the same author. With an Appendix and Plates." A 

 second part was published two years after, in 1821, under the title "Part ii.: .Vn 



