Nomenclature of Ornithology. 181 



of all natural research, his mind becomes wedded to a sub- 

 ordinate branch of his subject, and is drawn away from the 

 contemplation of its sublimer truths. He becomes conversant 

 with artificial, not natural, systems. It is upon the labours of 

 man that he dwells, and not upon the works of the creation. 

 He dwindles, as it were, into a mere compositor of the volume 

 of nature, artificially putting together the symbolick words that 

 stand for ideas, while the ideas themselves in their true spirit 

 and meaning escape him. And thus the exertions which, properly 

 directed, might have tended to explain the laws, and elucidate 

 the operations of nature, — which might have been devoted to a 

 study purely intellectual, — are lost in a pursuit which is strictly 

 and exclusively mechanical. 



But even the value of Nomenclature itself, which, it is needless 

 here to observe, is an efficient and powerful instrument towards 

 the progress of the science, inasmuch as it is the necessary organ 

 for the communication, and of course for the acquisition of know- 

 ledge, is deeply injured by the injudicious endeavour to elevate it 

 beyond its intrinsick consequence, and to place it on an equality 

 with the science itself. It is the common and natural course of our 

 feelings to imbibe a decided partiality for that which it has cost 

 us some pains to attain. And the student in Natural History 

 who has been led to conclude that nomenclature should be the 

 main object of his pursuit, and who has been accustomed to 

 study it with reference to a particular form or system, naturally 

 feels a prejudice towards the system into which he has been 

 initiated ; he looks up to it with somewhat of a sacred reverence ; 

 he becomes intolerant of every change that may affect it, and 

 hostile to every innovation. To unlearn, even partially, what he 

 has acquired, he often finds a more difficult task than to enter 

 upon his researches from the commencement. His pride, in fact, 

 is enlisted on the side of his partialities; and indulging a happy 

 feeling of contentment with the actual state in which he himself 

 found the science, he feels a jealousy towards the admission of any 

 new light, which, while it tends to clear away the mists of the 

 prospect before him, serves equally to expose the darkness in 

 which he had hitherto been involved. Hence it inevitably fol- 



