SYSTEMATIC ARRANGEMENT. 99 



SYSTEMATIC ARRANGEMENT OF INSECTS. 



THE only use of a systematic arrangement of insects 

 or other natural productions, appears to me to be its 

 convenience of bringing things together in some 

 logical order, both to aid the memory in remembering, 

 and the judgment in comparing and deciding upon 

 agreements and differences. A system, in this point 

 of view, is similar to the frame work of a cabinet, into 

 the partitions of which many little facts may be stored 

 and dove-tailed, that would otherwise be scattered 

 through the memory at random at the great hazard of 

 being lost. 



Such systems, however, since the time of Linnaeus, 

 who set the baneful example, have been considered 

 the sole end and aim of study, and are even prepos- 

 terously represented as a high branch of philosophy, 

 though, viewed in this light, they appear to me no 

 higher nor more important than the play pebbles^ 

 which a child may be seen to amuse itself in classing 

 in rows or circles, according to size, form, or colour. 



Nay, viewed in the light of a philosophical study, 

 they are worse than triflhig, they are decidedly 

 injurious, by leading to serious errors, such as that 

 of sucking insects, having "jaws totally useless, can 

 do no injury to the agriculturist," which has been 

 asserted and published within the last two years, 

 by a fanciful theorist, with the ravages of the hop-fly 

 and the bean dolphin staring him with flat contradic- 

 tion in the face.( J ) 



(1) The same theorist has since proposed to prove the doctrine 

 of the TRIXITY, by what he calls a Trinarian System of Animals. 



