34 INTRODUCTION. 



and time in the sole elucidation of the characters of obscure- 

 species of insects, without a thought of the higher views 

 which lay open before them. " English naturalists," says 

 Mr. Bicheno, " appear to me, from various causes, to have 

 pursued the nomenclature and examination of species in 

 such a way as very much to exclude from their attention the 

 higher ends of science, in which alone the bulk of mankind 

 is interested. Ever since the subject has been pursued in 

 the spirit of true philosophy, it has almost solely been con- 

 fined to the analytic form, which, however important, is apt 

 to degenerate into unprofitable detail, as the synthetic mode 

 leads oftentimes to the other extreme of loose and imprac- 

 ticable generalization." "The necessity of knowing par- 

 ticulars has made our researches into species very minute, 

 and has given to our operations in the eyes of the multitude 

 rather a puerile cast. The method by which the name of an 

 unknown species, and all that has been written about it, can 

 be discovered, necessarily involves such minute discrimi- 

 nation, that it cannot escape this superficial objection. It 

 is, however, an inconvenience not incident to our subject 

 alone, but to all the sciences, more or less, which require a 

 minute examination of particulars." And he concludes by 

 observing, " I am anxious not to be misunderstood ; I do 

 not want to disengage naturalists from attention to the 

 analysis of species, or to absolve them from the labour of 

 minute investigation, which, after all, is our chief business ; 

 but I do wish to see them following nature through all 

 her varieties, with a view to generalize as well as to particu- 

 larize ; to relieve the memory from the overwhelming mul- 

 titude of names which the discovery of new species has im- 

 posed ; and to compress the result into a size adapted to the 

 human capacity. This may safely be pronounced to be 

 among the highest efforts of a created intelligence." 



Hence will he seen the necessity for studying collections 



