THE society's HERITAGE TROM THE MACLEATS. 595 



attempt to ascertain the Rank and Situation which the celebrated Egyptian In- 

 sect, Scarabaeus sacer, holds among' Organised Beings." 



These two contributions to knowledge, in some respects perhaps his most 

 important ones, were something more than merely entomological treatises, as the 

 Title and Sub-titles might be taken to indicate. The arrangement of the Lamelli- 

 ccii-n Insects in the first part was the result of rigid analysis, whereby the author 

 arrived at some new principles of classification. These, in the second part, were 

 applied to an arrangement of the entire animal kingdom, chiefly deduced trom 

 synthetical investigation, and confined, moreover, to the larger and more important 

 groups, as pointed out by Jen>Tis. But in the course of his synthetical investiga- 

 tion, the author finds occasion to discuss the great problems of Philosophy, as they 

 present themselves to the philosophical Theist. 



W. S. Maeleay's new principles of classification were incidentally treated of, 

 but not formulated by him. This was afterwards done by the Eev. L. Jenyns, 

 in a valuable "Report on the Recent Progiess and Present State of Zoology," 

 covering the period from the publication of the fii'st edition of Cuvier's "Regne 

 Animal" (1817) to date, drawn up at the request of the Section for Natural His- 

 tory of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and included in 

 the "Report of the Fourth Meeting held at Edinburgh in 1834" [pp. 143-251. 

 especially pp. 152-155, et seq. (1835)]. The writer ably and fairly reviews W. S. 

 Maeleay's views on classification, gives references to the work of the new school 

 of English zoologists [including, besides Macleay, Kirby, Vigors, Swainson, Hors- 

 field. and .7. E. Gray], and enables the reader to understand the zoological Time- 

 Spirit of the period. He thus formally states Maeleay's new principles: — "Mr. 

 MacLeay [in the Hor. Ent.] announced some new principles connected with the 

 classification of animals, which, from the circumstance of their having led to a 

 peculiar school of zoologists in England it will be necessary to consider a little 

 more in detail. The most important of these principles* [Footnote — * It may be 

 observed that Mr. MacLeay has nowhere formally stated these principles as above. 

 They are only gathered from what he has written on the subject.] are: (1st) That 

 all natural gi'oups, of whatever denomination, return into themselves, forming 

 circles; (2ndly). That each of these circular groups is resolvable into exactly five 

 otliers; (Srdly), That these five gi'oups always admit of a binary arrange- 

 ment, two of them t'eing what he calls typical, the other three aberrant; (4thly) 

 That while proximate groups in any circle are connected by relations of affinity, 

 corresponding groups in two contiguous circles are connected by relations of 

 analogy. Mr. Macleay has also observed [Hor. Ent. p. 518] that, in almost e\-ery 

 group, one of the five minor gToup.s into which it is resolvable, bears a re- 

 semblance to all the rest; or, more strictly speaking, consists of types which re- 

 present those of each of the four other groups, together with a type peculiar to 

 itself." These views came to be known as the "Quinary System" or tlie "Circular 

 and Quinary System." 



Jen>T[s came to the conclusion that AV. S. iMadeay had pointed out more 

 exactly than others the difference between affinity and analogy in natural history; 

 and that he was also the first to establish by proof circular affinities. He then 

 proceeds: ""Whatever of error there may be in the rest of his views, whatever 

 modifications already have been, or may yet further be made in them, by tlie help 

 of the above principles he appeai-s to have approached nearer than any before 

 him to the true natural system, and (as has already been twice observed) [Kirby, 



