20 INTRODUCTION. 



acquirements more by the number of species they possess, than 

 by their knowledge of those general principles, which constitute 

 the Science of Natural History. It is quite possible for one 

 of these pseudo-naturalists to attain a correct acquaintance with 

 the external characters of every individual composing an exten- 

 sive group ; and even to contribute towards improving their 

 classification. But he would not thereby have more claim to 

 the character of a man of Science, nor would he have more 

 exercised the higher faculties of his mind, than one who should 

 learn the forms, colours, and specific gravities of all the sub- 

 stances with which Chemistry brings us acquainted, without 

 making himself acquainted with the laws of chemical com- 

 bination. 



It is in the search after those general principles, which regu- 

 late the structure and actions of the animated as well as the 

 inanimate creation, that the noblest powers of the human intellect 

 are exercised ; and exercised, too, in their most legitimate sphere. 

 " Wherefore," it may be asked, " has the Creator given to Man 

 faculties so far exalted above those of the brute creation ? "Where- 

 fore has He formed him with a mind capable of seeing into the 

 depths of space of grasping ages in one mighty thought of 

 seeing with the eye of reason into things not obvious to mortal 

 sense of discovering and in some measure comprehending, his 

 own sublime and ever-acting laws ?" Was it merely to compen- 

 sate for the partial inferiority of his bodily constitution, was it 

 only to give him the power of subduing the lion without his 

 strength, of providing himself with subsistence from the antelope 

 without his fleetness, of parrying the venomous attacks of the 

 serpent without his cunning, of resisting the inclemency of the 

 elements without those natural defences with which almost every 

 other animal is provided ? Surely not. We should be much 

 nearer the truth in considering, that the Creator has provided 

 Man with a corporeal structure inferior in many respects to 

 that of brutes, and has left him with instinctive powers far less 



