4 ESSAY ON CLASSIFICATION. Part I. 



ered in ascertaining the manifold relations of animals to one another and to the 

 world in which they live, upon which the natural system may be founded. 



In considering these various topics, I shall of necessity have to discuss many 

 questions bearing upon the very origin of organized beings, and to touch upon many 

 points now under discussion among scientific men. I shall, however, avoid contro- 

 versy as much as possible, and only try to render the results of my own studies and 

 meditations in as clear a manner as I possibly can in the short space that I feel 

 justified in devoting to this subject in this volume. 



There is no question in Natural History on which more diversified opinions are 

 entertained than on that of Classification ; not that naturalists disagree as to the 

 necessity of some sort of arrangement in describing animals or plants, for since 

 nature has become the object of special studies, it has been the universal aim of all 

 naturalists to arrange the objects of their investigations in the most natural order 

 possible. Even Buffon, who began the publication of his great Natural History 

 by denying the existence in nature of any thing like a system, closed his work by 

 grouping the birds according to certain general features, exhibited in common by 

 many of them. It is true, authors have differed in their estimation of the characters 

 on which their different arrangements are founded ; and it is equally true that they 

 have not viewed their arrangements in the same light, some having plainly acknowl- 

 edged the artificial character of their systems, while others have urged theirs as the 

 true expression of the natural relations which exist between the objects themselves. 

 But, whether systems were presented as artificial or natural, they have, to this day, 

 been considered generally as the expression of man's understanding of natural objects, 

 and not as a system devised by the Supreme Intelligence, and manifested in these 

 objects.-' 



There is only one point in these innumerable systems on which all seem to meet, 

 namely, the existence in natrn^e of distinct species, persisting with all their pecul- 

 iarities, for a time at least; for even the immutability of species has been ques- 

 tioned.^ Beyond species, however, this confidence in the existence of the divis- 

 ions, generally admitted in zoological systems, diminishes greatly. 



With respect to genera, we find already the number of the naturalists who 



1 The expressions constantly used with refer- own making ; which can, however, only lie true in so 



ence to genera and species and the higher groups for as these groups are not true to nature, if the 



in our systems, — as, Mr. A. has made such a species views I shall present below are at all correct. 



a gemis ; Mr. B. employs this or that species to form ^ Lamarck (J. B. de) Thilosophie zoologique, 



/lis ijenus ; and in which most naturalists indulge Paris, 1809, 2 vols. 8 vo. ; 2de edit., 1830. — Powell 



when speaking of their species, their genera, their (The Rev. Baden) Essays on the Spirit of the In- 



families, ^/ietV systems, — exhibit in an unquestiona- ductive Philosophy, etc., London, 1855, 1 vol. 8vo. 



ble light the conviction, that such groups are of their Compare, also, Sect. 15, below. 



