138 BRITISH BEES. 



direct than those which unite them within their own 

 circle. 



Many novel views and interesting combinations have 

 been thus elicited, showing that very strong affinities lie 

 in very divergent directions, but no system has been 

 hitherto devised which overrules the conflicting difficul- 

 ties that attend these arrangements. Whatever number 

 may have been adopted to bring nature within this 

 circular system, it has always been found that some, or 

 several members, both in the circles themselves, or in 

 their series, is as yet deficient, and awaits either dis- 

 covery or creation. 



The pursuit of such views stimulates profound inves- 

 tigation, and may lead to valuable discoveries that will 

 eventually give a loftier and more philosophical cha- 

 racter to the study of natural history than it has hitherto 

 possessed, and make it an attraction to the highest class 

 of mental powers. The key to the universe hangs at 

 the girdle of the veiled goddess ; and happy the student 

 who shall achieve possession of it, and unlock the mys- 

 teries to the reverential gaze of mankind. 



The relation of analogy is different in kind, although 

 the general affinities which bind a class together are 

 necessarily affinities in the widest construction of the 

 term ; but the class being resolved into its elements, 

 those affinities, thus dissevered, no longer retain the 

 uniting links whereby the mass coheres. They, more 

 correctly, stream from their origin in parallelisms rather 

 than in a continuous and uninterrupted current; and 

 these parallelisms present resemblances often of a merely 

 superficial character. As strong an instance as I can 

 adduce is possibly the analogical parallelism of the Pen- 

 lamera and the Heteromera in the Coleoptera, which 



