Mr. J. O. Westwood on Oriental Species of Butterflies. 159 



the most part never give a thought to the higher objects of 

 zoological study, but content themselves with capturing or rearing, 

 and occasionally describing, new or rare species of moths and 

 butterflies. 



In thus recalling attention to the remarkable principles which 

 have been laid down within the past thirty years as regulating the 

 natural distribution of animals, I do not think I shall run any risk 

 of being regarded as upholding that doctrine of Linnaeus, thrice 

 repeated in his " Philosophia Botanica," that the true end of our 

 science is the discovery of the natural system,* or arrange- 

 ment of natural objects with reference to each other, to the 

 manifest disparagement of those higher inquiries into the man- 

 ners and customs, economic uses or injuries, and all those other 

 relations of life, of an animal in reference to its operations in 

 the universe, which St. Pierre has so excellently expressed under 

 the title of " Harmonies of Nature," and for the performance of 

 which it has in fact been called into existence. 



If the Fyiodi atavTov of Solon was accounted the chief of the 

 seven sentences of the seven wise men of Greece, written in letters 

 of gold on the temple of Diana, and was in more recent times em- 

 ployed by Linnaeus as the specific character of the human race 

 (Homo sapiens, Nosce teipsum, Syst. Nat. i. 28), so in respect to 

 natural objects, the naturalist must make himself thoroughly 

 acquainted with every peculiarity in the structure and habits, 

 transformations and physiology of the objects of his study. To 

 attempt the description of an animal before its structure has been 

 thoroughly investigated, or to construct systems of nature (which 

 may indeed appear plausible upon paper) before a profound 

 investigation has been made of the same peculiarities in each of the 

 primary types or groups, is but to build houses on the sand, to be 

 washed down by the tide of knowledge, as it is more and more 

 swollen by the accumulation of fresh facts. " Facts before 

 Theory" has indeed been my motto ever since I commenced the 

 study of insects. But still inquiries as to the principles of the 

 natural system of the creation and theories formed with a view to 

 its elucidation, even if occasionally false, are unquestionably valu- 

 able, because it has always happened that the promulgation of 



* " Methodi naturalis fragmenta studiose inquirenda sunt. Piimum et ulti- 

 mum hoc in Botanicis desideratum est" (p. 27). " Methodus naturalis est 

 ultimus finis Botanices" (p. 101). " Classes quo magis naturales, eo, ceteris 



paribus, praestanliores sunt. Ad fines conveniunt habitu , &c. Summorum 



Botanicorum iiodiernus labor in his sudat et desudare debet. Methodus naturalis 

 hinc ultimus finis Botanices est et erit" (p. 137). 



