59G president's address. 



Introd. to Eutom., "^'ol. iv., p. 359; and Swaiuson, Fu. Bor.-Ain., part 2, p. xlvi.] 

 been enabled to reconcile facts which upon no other plan can be reconciled."' 



Ten years later, H. E. Strickland communicated a ''Report on the Recent 

 Progress and Present State of Ornithology" at the Fourteenth Meeting of the 

 British Association held at York in 1844 [Fourteenth Report, pp. 17()-2'2l]. Tliis 

 also is a valuable report. It is of special interest, because it includes a critical 

 review of the Quinary Theory, and of the work of Vigors and Swaiuson as ex- 

 ponents of it. At the same time, it illustrates the insuperable difficulty of finding 

 a scientific meaning of affinity under the influence of the creation-hypothesis. 

 Strickland rejects the Quinary System "as a theory which the most careful in- 

 ductions and the most vuiprejudiced reasonings of subsequent naturalists have 



shown to have no claim to our adoption as a general law The point 



at issue is this, — whether or not it formed a part of the plan of Creative Wisdom, 

 when engaged in peopling the earth with living beings, that when arranged into 

 abstract groups conformably with their characters, they should follow any regular 

 geometrical or numerical law." After much interesting argument, too lengthy to 

 quote, he concludes that irregidarity and not synuuetry may be expected to char- 

 acterise the natural system; ami that this view is more consistent with the benevo- 

 lence of an all-wise Creator. 



Strickland, renewing Vigoi-s' paper on "The Natural Affinities that connect 

 the Orders and Families of Birds" [Trans. Linn. Soc, Vol. xiv.] says: "This 

 treatise abounds with original observations and philosophical references, but un- 

 fortunately they are apjilied in support of a tlieory which the most careful induc- 

 tions and the most unprejudiced reasonings of subsequent naturalists have shown 



to have no claim to our adoption as a general law The application 



by Mr. Vigors of these novel and singular doctrines to the class of birds contri- 

 buted in no small degree to the advancement of ornithological science; for, how- 

 ever erroneous a theory may be, yet the researches which are entered upon with 

 a view to its support or refutation invariably advance the cause of truth. Alchemy 

 was the parent of chemistry, astrology of astronomy, and quinarianisni has at least 

 been one of the foster-parents of philosophical zoology." 



Reviewing Swainson's "Classification of Birds" foi'ming part of Lardner's 

 Cyclopaedia (1830-37). Strickland says of Swainson's method, that it is "only a 

 modification of the quinary theory, originally propounded by IMacleay and further 

 developed by Vigors. In following Jlr. Swainsun into the details of his method, 

 we miss the philosophical spirit and logical though not always well-founded rea- 

 soning of the last two authoi-s. Firmly wedded to a theory, he is driven, in apply- 

 ing it to facts, to the most forced and fanciful conclusions. Compelled to show 

 that the components of every group assume a circular figure, that they amount in 

 the aggregate to a definite number, into which each of them is again subdivisible, 

 and that there is a system of nnalnr/ical representation between the corresponding 

 members of every circle, which forms the sole test of its conformity to the natural 

 arrangement, we need not wonder at the difficulties with which our author is beset; 

 and we may certainly admire the ingenuity with which he has grapi)led with the 

 Protean forms of nature, and forced them into an apparent coincidence with a pre- 

 determined system. I need not follow out the details of this Procrustean process, 

 having already treated of it elsewhere" [p. 17,5. Reprinted in ''Memoirs of Hugh 

 Edwin Strickland." By Sir William -Tardine (1848). This .also includes a Selec- 

 tion from Strickland's scientific writings] . 



