154 



THE OSPREY. 



Walker, Halliday, Gray. Gould, and many 

 others, we already see those who will become 

 worthy successors to such veterans among us as 

 were 'first in the race:' who have more or less 

 contributed to lay the foundation-stone of philo- 

 sophic classification, or who have already 'won, 

 and passed away.' And if we refrain from 

 mentioning others whose talents are no less 

 promising', it is only because they are wisely 

 employed in that preparatory study which is 

 essential to the real advancement of our favour- 

 ite science, and to the acquisition of any fame 

 that is to be permanent". 



Swainson's claim was really justified by the 

 facts, even if his prevision was not. All the 

 eminent naturalists named by him did really 

 accept it, or at least experiment and toy with it 

 for a time, but sooner or later all dropped it. 



American naturalists did not copy their 

 British brethren in even temporary adoption 

 of the theory with two exceptions. Those ex- 

 ceptions, however, were notable; they were S. 

 S. Haldemau and John Cassin, excellent natu- 

 ralists; they toyed with it for a time but soon 

 abandoned it. The continental naturalists left 

 the theory severely alone, for we must not con- 

 found with it the quinary schemesof Oken, Kaup 

 and a few others. While theirs were almost as 

 fantastic; they were one or two deg'rees less so. 



In after years, the system was little noticed. 

 The great naturalist of the middle of the cen- 

 tury, Professor Agassiz, in a history of classifi- 

 cation in his "Contributions to the Natural 

 History of the United States" li. 219), was one 

 that did refer to it. Swainson's summary of 

 MacLeay'ssystemof circularclassification given 

 in his "Treatise" (pp. 201-205) is quoted and the 

 concluding paragraph of that summary is here 

 reproduced with the terse judgment pronounced 

 by Agassiz. 



MacLeay's views on the classes of Vertebrates 

 are taken as illustrative. Its classes are five and 

 describe a circle. Swainson argues "does that 

 form a circle of itself? Yes; because it is inti- 

 mated that the Reptiles (Reptilia) pass into the 

 Birds, (Aves,) these again into the Quadrupeds, 

 (Mammalia,) Quadrupeds unite with the Fishes, 

 [Pisces,) these latter with the amphibious Rep- 

 tiles, and the Frogs bring us back again to 

 the Reptiles, the point from which we started. 

 Thus, the series of the vertebrated group is 

 marked out and shown to be circular; therefore, 

 it is a natural group. This is an instance where 

 the circular series can be traced"! Well did 

 Agassiz remark, "the writer that can see that 

 the Quadrupeds unite with the Fishes, and the 

 like, and yet says that Cuvier 'was totally un- 

 acquainted with the very first principles of the 

 natural system', hardly deserves to be studied 

 in our days". 



Agassiz, in his historical sketch, did indeed" 

 concede that "the great merit of the system of 

 McLeay [and Swainson], and in [his] opinion it 

 has noother claim to our consideration, consists 

 in having called prominently the attention of 

 naturalists to the difference between two kinds 

 of relationship, almost universally confounded 

 before; affinity and analogy". It appears to 

 me, however, that Swainson at least went 

 further than almost any other zoologist has 



done in confounding what are now known as 

 affinity and analogy, and juggled with those 

 terms to the confusion of himself as well as the 

 subjects he treated of. 



The basis of these views had been appreciated 

 long before. The fact that different types of 

 animals might have representatives fitted to 

 fulfil analogous functions had long been recog- 

 nized. Among the many expressions to this 

 end is one of Latreille's: "La Nature en general 

 a un certain nombre de modelesqu'elle reproduit 

 avec des modifications, dans tons les classes, et 

 meme dans les ordres". (H. N. xi, 51.) 



It has been already declared that Swainson's 

 own words have been given for his propositions 

 iti order to avoid the charge of misrepresenta- 

 tion as well as of want of clearness. Doubtless 

 many a student of his works has read again and 

 again paragraphs of his writings to obtain an 

 idea of his meaning and some may have attrib- 

 uted their want of comprehension to their own 

 dulness. The unintelligibility is. however, 

 innate in the Quinary System. There is no 

 objective reality but only subjective hallucina- 

 tion. The system was the result of a yearning 

 for something r more than mere lists of species. 

 In the laudable search for laws governing 

 animated nature, accidents of observation and 

 false analogies occurred to the originator and 

 led to his concept of circularity and quinarian- 

 ism and that same yearning- led to the eager 

 adoption of his views by others. It does not 

 seem to have occurred to them to inquire what 

 they meant and how animals were arranged in 

 circles. They seem, indeed, to have imagined 

 something like a Creator or God who had an 

 ideal pattern set up, worked his ideas into such 

 circles, and manifested his creative designs by 

 repeating the same ideas in circle within circle 

 — up to the ninth power! Ridiculous as such a 

 conception is, how else can we explain its devel- 

 opment? Some of these circles within circles 

 were declared to be complete — "perfect" was 

 the word — and no forethought of the immense 

 additions that paleontology was to yield oc- 

 curred to them. (Swainson. be it said, especially 

 taught that the extinct forms were to be con- 

 sidered with the existing in the same system.) 

 The yearning after some generalization covering" 

 the animal kingdom was a natural instinct and 

 was destined in later years to be administered 

 to by the discovery of the laws of Evolution and 

 the demonstration of one of its processes by 

 another distinguished Englishman. Evolution, 

 indeed, had been to some extent appreciated 

 long before the days of MacLeay and Swainson, 

 but its possibilities were admitted by very few 

 and it was looked upon by many good men with 

 abhorrence, and among them was the "philo- 

 sophic Swainson". 



The philosopher had no respect for the hypo- 

 thesis of development and rejected it without 

 ceremony. In reference to Lamarck, he did 

 "justice to his memory", but urged that "we 

 must reprobate those atheistical theories which 

 he has introduced in his writings — theories 

 which are inconsistent with his own words, and 

 which are too ridiculous even to be repeated". 

 In a later and more matured allusion to the 

 "various theories Lamarck formed on many of 



