1873.] F. Stoliczka— On the Passalidce. 117 



and effects, and had taught modern naturalists to regard classification as true 

 only when it is hased upon those affinities which result from community of evo- 

 lution. A true classification therefore on this view is to he regarded as the final 

 result of the science, and is to be patiently worked out by studying the causes 

 that have determined it. Dr. Kaup's system sweeps away all this, and seeks 

 to impose in its stead, an arbitrary Procrustean plan of creation, fanciful 

 and mystical to the last degree. It is allowable and even beneficial in the 

 early days of a Science to adopt an artificial classification of objects, since 

 any arrangement is better than none. But to seek to impose such a system 

 on the Zoology of the present clay, and to sort and manipulate species and 

 genera to make them succumb to an a priori hypothesis, appears to be an 

 attempt to set up as a leading principle of science the maxim " Si les faits 

 ne s 1 accordant pas avec ma tlieorie, tant pis pour les faits." 



Dr. Stoliczka, in reply, expressed his astonishment at Mr. Blan- 

 ford's unjustifiable remarks. He said that that was not the way to 

 treat mental productions. Dr. Kaup was an old naturalist of very high 

 standing, and his system, as proposed, was by no means a fanciful one ; 

 it was based upon those characters of organisation which make the animal 

 what it is — and that was no fancy. Philosophic systems had from time imme- 

 morial occupied the greatest minds, and not fancies. Dr. Kaup had not only 

 not thrown out a suggestion of a fanciful arrangement, but he had given his sys- 

 tem a definite form, he had established rules, he considered that he had found 

 the law according to which nature works in development, and that only accor- 

 ding to this could the animals exist. He had given a fair test to his system 

 in working out one group of animals in the most minutely detailed manner, 

 and he asked the scientific world for an opinion, whether he had succeeded 

 in this or not ; he wished to be disproved, if wrong. Now, how unfair 

 it would be, if all this mental work were to be rejected with phrases. 

 We required first of all facts, not words or ideas. Dr. Kaup's defini? 

 tions of genera and species were not made up in the first instance according 

 to a fanciful scheme, they were drawn from the animals themselves. Careful 

 observations and facts were the ground on which we must in the first instance 

 meet Kaup. Philosophic treatment of the facts must follow, in order to so 

 meet the genial naturalist. 



Dr. Stoliczka said he had taken up the study of the Passalidce, because 

 he wished to test Kaup's conclusions on his own materials, and because he 

 thought it a priori almost impossible that a really natural classification would 

 be obtainable in the way suggested by Kaup. After devoting some time to 

 this subject — certainly only with scanty materials — he must express his 

 grave doubts as to the validity of the system in the form at present proposed 

 by Kaup ; but he would be sorry to have spoken, if he had said that the sys- 

 tem was really invalidated by his researches. He was not prepared to say that. 



