378 Notices respecting New Books. 



vouied to fix upon Mr. Macleay the charge of plagiarism, with respect 

 to the distinction of rehuions of affinity from those of analogy, he 

 observes, "I have however repeatedly stated that Linnaeus, Pallas, 

 and Desfontaines, and even Aristotle himself, have all mentioned 

 certain analogies in nature, as distinct from affinities, before I was 

 born. They have mentioned the existence of this distinction in par- 

 ticular cases : but I first pointed out its nature and its general appli- 

 cation, and called the attention of naturalists to the subject." Dying 

 Struggle, p. 25. Every reader whose progress in literature has ad- 

 vanced one step beyond "The London Primer," and more especially 

 those who have ascended into the mysteries of that profound storehouse 

 of philology and rhetoric, "Mavor's Spelling Book," will immediately 

 perceive what Mr. Macleay means by the word nature, where he uses 

 it the second time, which is that alluded to by his erudite antagonist. 

 Far be it from us to estimate the extent of Mr. Rennie's attainments 

 as a m.m of letters ; but as we are so unfortunate as to dift'er essen- 

 tially from him in opinion in our construction of this word, we must, 

 in our own vindication, explain our views on the point. When, there- 

 fore, Mr. Macleay employs the term ^'nature' of "the distinction of 

 relations of affinity from those of analogy," we humbly conceive that 

 he does not intend to imply that the distinction between those rela- 

 tions is " nature," or the universe, as Mr. Rennie seems to think ; 

 any more than we intend, by saying that the nature oi Mr. R's attack 

 on the new views in Zoology is at once frivolous and unprincipled, to 

 imply the existence of nature, or anything like nature, in any of his 

 productions. Mr. Macleay means, that he first pointed out iheNatnra 

 (to employ the original Latin word, in the sense in which it is used 

 by Cicero and others) of the distinction between those two species of 

 relation, that is, its intimate quality and peculiar characters. 



This subject, as it appears to us, illustrates another on which Mr- 

 Rennie enlarges in a previous page: " On my plan [of the study of 

 Natural History,] any person," he observes, " may become a tolera- 

 bly good naturalist, the first walk he takes in the fields, without much 

 knowledge of books :" in illustration of this plan of study, this mode 

 of making "tolerably good" naturalists with the rapidity of steam- 

 power, this new royal road to the knowledge of nature, or Professor 

 Rennie's short cut to scientific fame, we are favoured in page x, by 

 a learned dissertation on the nest of a Dabchick, given as the great 

 type of the proper mode of conducting ornithological investigations. 

 But the author has unconsciously favoured us, in his construction 

 of the word ^'■nature" as above, with a memorable refutation of his 

 own principles of study : to us this is peculiarly consolatory ; for we, 

 obtuse wights as we are, were obliged, alas, to take a great many 

 " walks in the fields," and to pore over a great many books too, 

 before we thought ourselves " tolerably good naturalists." But in 

 Mr. R's mode of construing the word " nature" we now have an 

 example before us of the discovery of a phaenomenon in nidification 

 far exceeding, in its wonderful character, what the Dabchick's nest 

 would be, even were all the contradictory stories of it true j Mr. 

 Rennie, without even a siu'rle " walk in the fields," has discovered 



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