METHOD OF DETERMINING GENERA. 173 



grandest confusion ; but they all have mutual and re- 

 ciprocal bearings which give a definite purpose to the 

 seeming disorder, and which make each separate unit 

 the centre of all. But we, from our inability to grasp in 

 its fulness the order of this disorder, are obliged to seize 

 fragments and, separating them into what we conceive 

 to be their coherent elements, use them as exponents 

 of the entirety. They could not so exist in nature, but 

 would speedily die out, and it is only by the way in 

 which we find them intermingled, that they can be main- 

 tained. Thus, as all conduce to the conservation of each, 

 each conduces to the conservation of all. 



A large collection of natural history, composed of 

 every available item that can be gathered from every 

 kingdom of nature's vast domain, may perhaps be com- 

 pared (magnis componere parvd) with the constituent 

 parts of a most elaborately-constructed and complicated 

 clock, which its skilful artificer has designed and made 

 to record and chime the divisions of time, and to register 

 the days, weeks, months, and seasons, and which a 

 virtuoso having taken to pieces, has sorted into its details 

 of wheels and springs, levers and balances, chains, bells, 

 and hands, which told the time when its music would 

 peal; arid arranging like to like, thinks he will thus 

 understand more clearly the complexity of the varied 

 movements. But, sadly disappointed, he finds he cannot 

 comprehend the combination of the intricate machinery, 

 although he singly admires the minute perfection of each 

 delicate and ingenious piece lying before him which 

 composed the structure, but which has now lost all 

 expression, his curiosity having deprived the organism of 

 its vitality, which is its most wonderful element. 



And this is our process, for if we stop here we have 



