210 Mr. W. S. MacLeay's Examination of 



of unknown things? Not surely that He diil not understand 

 the relations subsisting between the things He created. And 

 as to the Naturalists not understanding them, this only proves 

 that we have not yet attained the knowledge of the natural 

 system, and much less that of many of them. " We are con- 

 stantly approximating to the truth, but never reaching it." 

 At the same time it must be allowed, we are sometimes too 

 apt to forget that the real object of the Naturalist ought to be 

 to come as near the truth as possible, and that this is not to 

 be done by " abstract reasoning," so much as by observing 

 and arranginflf facts. 



\^e next have a rather novel proposition started ; to wit, 

 that " the mammiferous animals are arranged wdth more ease, 

 according to a natural system, (again as if there were more 

 than one,) in consequence of their number being comparatively 

 small, and their forms strongly marked." That is, in other 

 words, the more widely the species are asunder, and the more 

 distant they are in form, the more easily are they combined : 

 just, perhaps, as a chain is more connected in proportion to 

 the number of links that are wanting ! 



In order to prove that you have not confined your studies 

 to the vegetable kingdom, you afterwards infer that the series 

 of M. Cuvier in the Regno Animal, is the natural system. 

 This author indeed says as much in his title-page; and you 

 only think it necessary to criticize his groupes of Pachyder- 

 mata and Passeres, and to prefer Jussieu's method of having 

 for such unhwwn things a miscellaneous groupe at the end of 

 the work. As neither Passeres nor Pachydermata are much 

 more " unknown" than other beings, it would perhaps save 

 trouble, and give more satisfaction, to make one miscellaneous 

 groupe of the whole of organized matter. 



You decide that " those persons, who imagine it to be neces- 

 sary or advantageous to find a place for every thing, appear 

 to lose sight of the chief object of the natural system, and to 

 destroy its utility as an instrument of general reasoning." 

 So then, the Natural System, or plan by which the Deity re- 

 gulated the Creation, is nothing more, in your o])inion, than 

 an instrument of general reasoning towards attaining a parti- 

 cular object. You are constantly alluding to this object, but 

 what it is you do not deign to state ; nor do you explain how 

 they who endeavour to find a place for every thing destroy 

 the utility of your instrument of general reasoning. But the 

 defect, without doubt, is on my side, and results from my 

 being one of those practical Naturalists who would attempt to 

 make accumulations to science without the aid of such abs- 

 tract reasoning. 



Your 



