196 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
on the same principle, be likewise separated. It 
might be easy, indeed, in an artificial system, to 
place such apterous insects in a division by them- 
selves; but what mistaken ideas would such a plan 
give rise to! To render such insects intelligible, 
they must have a name; and we should either be 
compelled to introduce the same genus and the 
same species into two different divisions— perhaps 
volumes,—or we must call the male by one name, and 
the femaie by another! Besides this, as artificial 
systems are framed upon no general principles of 
classification, no stability whatever is given to the 
very elements of the science; or rather, there is an 
absence of all elements. As there can be neither 
science nor philosophy in an alphabetical arrange- 
ment of words, so there can be none in a system of 
animals framed only with a view of making them 
easily found out. Simplicity, also, which seems at 
first so captivating a feature in such methods, is 
more superficial than real. Do what we can towards 
defining groups so strictly that no exceptions shall 
occur, and no deviations be found at variance with 
our generic characters, still we shall soon discover 
how impossible it is to cireumscribe nature, even in 
her lowest groups: we shall constantly be meeting 
some species which depart from our arbitrary 
standard of character, and which oblige us to make 
new divisions for their reception: these divisions 
will finally be so multiplied, and so intricate, that 
our artificial method will become more complicated 
than the most elaborate natural system: its simplicity, 
in fact, will be destroyed; and we shall lose as 
