38 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



although they are incessantly approximating to the 

 goal of their inquiries, somewhat in the same 

 manner as in geometry, where certain curves only 

 come in contact at an infinite distance with the 

 straight line which forms their limit. The problem 

 we refer to is that of the natural method, which we 

 must be careful not to confound with classification. 



By this natural method we are enabled to appre- 

 ciate the different relations which connect with one 

 another the elements of a group and the groups 

 themselves ; by classification we endeavour to re- 

 present these relations; but this latter method is 

 necessarily inefficient. Being obliged in our books 

 and delineations to describe and illustrate one by one 

 the objects of our researches, we are enabled to 

 represent each of them in immediate connexion with 

 the object which precedes it and with that which 

 follows it. From hence arise innumerable errors on 

 the part of those, and they are unhappily too nume- 

 rous, who, confounding these two very distinct things, 

 mistake the means for the end and the classification 

 for the method. Let us here refer to the words of 

 a master, who after thirty years' labours and medita- 

 tions appears to have foreseen and protested against 

 the theories, which various false disciples have endea- 

 voured to disseminate in his name. In that Histoire 

 des Poissons, which the illustrious successor of 

 Linnaeus began, and which M. Valenciennes is at 

 this moment completing, Cuvier thus expressed 

 himself : f< The further we advance in the study of 

 nature, the more thoroughly shall we recognise the 

 necessity of considering each being and each group 



