190 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY 
be an artificial arrangement — because, by selecting 
these characters alone, and passing over every 
other as inferior, we bring animals together of 
totally different organisations. A natural system, 
on the other hand, aims at exhibiting that series 
which appears most to accord with the order of 
nature. It does not attempt to define groups so 
rigidly as to render them absolute divisions; but, 
by passing over solitary exceptions, rather seeks to 
gain general results, and to develope that uniformity 
of plan, upon which every object in nature was 
originally created. There can be, of course, but, 
one true natural system. But we may safely speak 
of all such as we have last defined in the plural 
number, because they all aim at the natural classi- 
fication ; whereas the object of an artificial system 
is merely to assist us in finding the names and 
properties of species. As we shall have occasion, 
hereafter, to treat of systems more at large, it is suf- 
ficient, for our present purpose, merely to give the 
student a general idea of their respective natures. 
(131.) With his materials before him, in the 
shape of notes and specimens, the young naturalist 
is now to choose whether he will adopt an artificial, 
or aim at a natural, classification: that is to say, 
whether he will learn the names of objects by rote, 
as he would learn the words of a dictionary; or 
whether he will try to combine his objects in such 
a way as to discover the principles upon which their 
variations are regulated. By choosing the latter 
plan, — to pursue the simile, —he will endeavour to 
dispose the words of his dictionary in such order, 
as that they may produce harmonious sentences, or 
. 
