ON THE PROGRESS AND PRESENT STATE OP ORNITHOLOGY. 177 



organization in that which is a mere abstraction, the System of Nature. 

 The point at issue is this, — whether or not it formed a part of the plan of 

 Creative Wisdom, when engaged in peopling this earth with living beings, 

 so to organize those beings that when arranged into abstract groups conform- 

 ably with their characters, they should follow any regular geometrical or 

 numerical law. Now such a proposition appears, when tested by reason, to 

 be improbable, and when by observation, to be untrue. The researches of 

 the comparative anatomist universally lead to this result, — that all organized 

 beings are examples of certain general types of structure, modified solely 

 with reference to external circumstances, and consequently that the final 

 purpose of each modification is to be sought for in the conditions under 

 which each being is destined to exist. But these conditions result from the 

 infinitely varied arrangements of unorganized matter, they are consequently 

 devoid of any symmetry themselves, and the wild irregularity of the inorganic 

 is thus transmitted to the organic creation. Geology has revealed to us that 

 in all ages of the world new organic beings have been from time to time 

 called into existence whenever the changes of the earth's surface presented a 

 new field for the development of life, and, judging from analogy, we cannot 

 doubt that if a new continent were hereafter raised by volcanic agency in the 

 Southern Ocean, a new fauna and flora would be created to inhabit it, 

 adapted to the neAV set of influences thus brought into action. Such a sup- 

 position appears, as far as man can presume to reason on a subject so far 

 above him, to be more consistent with the benevolence of an all-wise Creator, 

 than the theory which would consider the final purpose for which certain 

 groups of organic beings were created, to be the fulfilment of a fixed geo- 

 metrical or numerical law. The supporter of the latter view appear to con- 

 sider that in many cases whole tribes of animals have been made, not because 

 they were wanted to perform certain functions in the external world, but 

 merely in order to complete the circularity of a group, to fill a gap in a nu- 

 merical arrangement, or to represent (in other words, imitate) some other 

 group in a distant part of the system. But, from what is above advanced, 

 irregularity, and not symmetry, may be expected to characterize the natural 

 system, and to form, like the features of a luxuriant landscape, not a defect, 

 but an element of beauty. 



If this be true, it follows that the natural system cannot be arrived at in 

 any part of its details by prediction, but only by the process of induction. 

 The quinarian authors have themselves suggested a method by which the 

 affinities of organic beings may be worked out inductively, and exhibited to 

 the mind through the medium of the eye. Having observed that the true 

 series of affinities cannot be expressed by a straight line, and having assumed 

 from a few instances of groups returning into themselves, that the circular 

 arrangement was universal, they proceeded to draw these circles on paper, 

 and thus gave the first idea of zoological maps. For this idea we may be 

 grateful to them, as it indicates a process, which, if pursued inductively and 

 not syllogistically, seems likely to be of great use in arriving at the natural 

 classification. This process consists in taking a series of allied groups of equal 

 rank, and placing them at various distances and positions according to a fair 

 estimate of the amount of their respective affinities. If this be done with 

 care and impartiality, the traces of a symmetrical arrangement, if any such 

 existed, would soon begin to show themselves ; but I am not aware that any 

 indications of such a law are apparent in the cases in which this method has 

 yet been used. 



In 1840 I endeavoured to apply this process to the natural arrangement of 

 birds, and exhibited to the Glasgow meeting of the Association a map of the 

 1844. N 



