THE society's heritage FROM THE MACLEAYS. 599 



seems to me that nothing is thus added to our knowledge. ... I believe 

 that something more is included ; and that propinquity of descent — the only 

 known cause of the similarity of organic beings — is the bond, hidden as it is by 

 various degrees of moditication, which is partially revealed to us by our classifi- 

 cations" [Origin of Species, p. 413, I860]. 



The first group included the French school, led by Cuvier, and also other Con- 

 tinental zoologists. The second comprised the English zoologists who concerned 

 themselves with the pursuit of the natural system in the first half of the last 

 century, among w hom W. S. Madeay was pre-eminent. It included also Louis Agassiz, 

 a great teacher and an eminent naturalist, whose "Essay on Classification" was 

 published in England as a separate work in 1859, the year in which Dai-win's 

 "Origin of Species" was issued. 



After grouping his predecessors, Darwin presented his working-hypothesis 

 in the following words : — "All the foregoing rules and aids and diftieulties in classi- 

 fication are explained, if I do not greatly deceive myself, on the view that the 

 natural system is founded on descent witli modification ; that the characters which 

 naturalists consider as showing true affinity between any two or more species, are 

 those which have been inherited from a common parent, and, in so far, all true 

 classification is genealogical; that community of descent is the hidden bond which 

 naturalists have been unconsciously seeking, and not some unknown plan of crea- 

 tion, or the enunciation of general propositions, and the putting together anrt 



separating objects more or less alike On my view of characters 



being of real importance for classification, only in so far as they reveal descent, 

 we can clearly understand why analogical or adaptive characters, although of the 

 utmost importance to the welfare of the being, are almost valueless to the system- 

 atist. For animals, belonging to two most distinct lines of descent, may readily 

 become adapted to similar conditions, and thus assume a close external resemb- 

 lance; but such resemblances will not reveal — will rather tend to conceal their 

 blood-relationship to their proper lines of descent" [Origin of Species, pp. 421, 

 426] . 



Viewed in the light of these illuminating propositions, it is obvious that the 

 Circular and Quinary System did not fulfil the requirements of a working hypo- 

 thesis, such as was needed. It was an artificial system, the fruit of philosophical 

 speculation. "Within its limitations, and frt«m the particular standpoint from 

 which it was attempted, the Horae Entomologicae was thoughtfully and ably writ- 

 ten; and a stimulating contribution to the English scientific literature of the 

 time. The defects of tlie principles and of the system were the inherent scientific 

 weakness of the foundation on which they were based. They were the product of 

 a studied attempt to develop the Natural System under the influence of the 

 creation-hypothesis — in the belief that "the Natural System is the plan of creation 

 itself, the work of an all-wise all-powerful Deity." This assumed the operation 

 of causes outside the domain of science, involving the obscuration of both thd 

 need, and the possibility of finding a scientific meaning of natural affinity, and 

 all that it connotes. The author's conceptions of circular affinities, of quinary 

 groups, and of no true affinities unconnected with relations of analog^-, were 

 speculative ideas without a scientific basis; because, in the belief that devisers of 

 systems were merely endeavouring to translate the thoughts of the Creator into 

 human language, affinity and analogy could be interpreted only in terms of some- 

 thing supernatural and beyond the domain of science. 



