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page last quoted, with assuming "that a stone has improved itself 

 into an oak, and a horse into a man !" The idea of deviation in struc- 

 ture from a type previously discovered by an inductive process, or 

 that of the assemblage of characters which belong to the species form- 

 ing the aberrant groups of Mr. Macleay, is confounded in the work 

 before us with the notion of absolute imperfection and degradation in 

 the works of the Creator. The mental process by which we express 

 the gradual change of form and structure observable in the progres- 

 sion of affinities among animals, is mistaken by Mr. Rennie for the 

 actual physical conversion of one animal into another by the exercise 

 of its own volition, and Mr. Macleay is charged with advocating the 

 latter doctrine ! The most philosophical and profound deductions of 

 the most eminent naturalists of all ages, are also stigmatized by him 

 as being nothing but the vagaries of fancy. 



Finally, Mr. Rennie, rightly anticipating that he would be charged 

 with misrepresenting the Macleayan System, and the opinions of its 

 discoverer and advocates, attempts to excuse himself by confounding 

 his own groundless inferences with the mistakes regarding the sub- 

 ject, of certain naturalists whom he names, but whom we will not 

 degrade by naming unnecessarily in the same page with him. 



We here terminate our indictment of Mr. Rennie at the bar of 

 scientific and literary justice, for the numerous misrepresentations of 

 fact, and misinterpretations of reasoning, of which the introductory 

 matter of his edition of Montagu's Ornithological Dictionary is com- 

 posed ; and we proceed to state the process we have adopted in order 

 to obtain the evidence necessary to support our charges, and the 

 manner in which we intend to bring it forward. 



Agreeably to Mr. Rennie's invitation in p. xxi. we have weighed 

 " every fact" which he has adduced j we have " rigidly" scrutinized 

 " every inference " he has made ; and having found them wholly 

 "wanting in truth and accuracy," "at once," as he calls upon us to 

 do, "without any compromise," we " reject them." And, in accord- 

 ance with our duty as conductors of a scientific Journal, we intend, 

 by detailing the results of our weighing of facts and scrutiny of in- 

 ferences, to evince that our readers also must, " without any com- 

 promise," " reject" Mr. Rennie and his works, as having any claim to 

 the attention of the cultivators or students of science, or to that of 

 the admirers of nature. 



All the representations concerning Mr, Rennie's mode of treating 

 the subjects he has undertaken to discuss, which are preferred in the 

 foregoing pages, we engage to substantiate in detail, refuting at the 

 same time such of his assertions as may appear to require it, in the 

 course of the present article. In doing this, we shall have occasion 

 to enter into an examination of certain errors respecting the " new 

 views" in Natural History, which, as we conceive, have been com- 

 mitted by several contemporary naturalists ; but we shall most care- 

 fully distinguish their candid criticism and expression of their senti- 

 ments from the arrogant and baseless assertions of Mr. Rennie, 

 which involve the same fallacies of reasoning. We shall also en- 

 deavour, as we proceed, to explain and define, in their true characters, 



the 



