2 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



to Its kind"(^): an expression, which if taken in 

 its largest sense, as I think it will well bear in the 

 places referred to in the margin, may be understood 

 to signify the distribution of all created species, 

 not only into Families and Genera^ but also into 

 Orders, Classes, and Kingdoms ; and so into a 

 harmonious system, every member of which, al- 

 though it has a separate place and office assigned it, 

 is connected, by certain common marks and cha- 

 racters, with those which precede or follow it. 

 And the book of nature in this, as in all other 

 respects, speaks the same language with the book 

 of revelation; we see every where the traces of a 

 natural system, and both reason and observation 

 unite in declaring that such a system, with its re- 

 gular divisions and subdivisions, does exist. Now 

 if the glory of the Creator be, as it assuredly ought, 

 the great end of the labours of the naturalist ; then 

 the most effectual way to promote this great end, 

 is to aim at the elucidation of the genuine systema 

 et oeconomia naturce, that we may see natural ob- 

 jects, as much as possible, in the places which the 

 Divine Wisdom has assigned to them ; and learn, 

 every day, more and more of the natural juxta- 

 position of Species, Families, Genera, Orders, 

 Classes; and of their individual and collective 

 economy, &c. &c. It is true, in our present 

 degenerate state, fellen from original knowledge 



(h) Heb, irri^D^ The root HJO and its derivative ]^D 

 imply distribution and orderly arrangement, 



as 



