58 ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 



and new combinations by which they are enabled to fulfil 

 their various destinies, it will be hardly figurative to say 

 that the objects of inquiry are infinite and inexhaustible. 



In this, as in most other subjects, the quantity of solid 

 instruction is an inconsiderable fraction of the accumulated 

 mass; — a few grains of wheat are buried and lost amid 

 heaps of chaff. For a few well-observed facts, rational 

 deductions, and cautious generalisations, we have whole 

 clouds of systems and doctrines, of speculations and fancies, 

 built merely on the workings of the imagination and the 

 labours of the closet. 



In reference, however, to biology, or the science of life, 

 I may observe, that descriptions of particular animals, and 

 surveys of detached districts in the great kingdom of nature, 

 are not so much wanted at present, as the assemblage and 

 assortment of the facts already accumulated, and the em- 

 ployment of them by some vigorous and comprehensive 

 mind to furnish the fundamental principles of the science 

 of living nature. It is employment, and not mere posses- 

 sion, that gives a value to intellectual as well as material 

 wealth. We have had workmen enough to toil in the mine 

 and the quarry : they have raised and roughly fashioned an 

 abundance of materials ; and we now only wait for the 

 architect who shall be able to employ them in constructing 

 a temple, suitable in majesty and simplicity, to the Divinity 

 whose shrine it is destined to contain. 



The parts of natural history having been cultivated in a 

 detached manner, its doctrines were long in an insulated 

 state ; unconnected to each other, like the pyramids in the 

 deserts of Egypt: as the number of detached parts in- 

 creased, the necessity of a system was felt to bind them 

 together, however imperfectly, into something like a con- 

 nected whole. 



After many unsuccessful attempts by his predecessors^ 

 LiNN.^us produced an arrangement of natural objects, 

 which met with very general approbation and adoption. 

 The efforts of naturalists were subsequently directed to the 

 correction and extension of his system ; to the formation 



