42 NATURAL ARRANGEMENT OF INSECTS. 



being, by pointing out the various relations which it 

 holds to other objects. 



(36.) Every system which arranges insects upon 

 principles which have no reference or application to 

 other parts of the animal kingdom, is not only artificial, 

 but viciously false ; inasmuch as it is contrary to what 

 we know of nature. There is, or there is not, some 

 plan in the creation. None but a disbeliever in the in- 

 finite perfections of the Deity would deny the first ; 

 for, where there is no plan, there can be no perfection : 

 besides, such a denial would be disproved by the in- 

 numerable traces of a system of co-relationship in the 

 different tribes of animals, manifest to all observing 

 minds. To take one of these tribes, therefore, arrange 

 it wathout any reference to the others, and then to pro- 

 claim that our arrangement is founded upon nature, is a 

 manifest absurdity. It is not merely a violation of the 

 first principles of philosophical reasoning, but is an out- 

 rage upon common sense. Such a system, in one sense, 

 indeed, may be defended as natural, on the plea that 

 its foundation is laid upon anatomical structure, or on 

 other pecuUarities either of organisation or habits. But 

 this is nothing to the purpose ; it reaches not our argu- 

 ment: for every system must, in the nature of things, 

 be so founded. The question is, whether any arrange- 

 ment of animals can possibly be natural, which is. not 

 based upon a comprehensive view of all. The answer 

 to this is obvious. It is morally impossible it should 

 be so. Applying this axiom to the various systems of 

 Entomology which come under our present head, and 

 which may be termed isolated systems, we should, 

 upon no other grounds, reject them all, otherwise than 

 as temporary substitutes for some other, however im- 

 perfect, which aimed at arranging all animals on a few 

 general principles of classification. We should admit 

 them to be useful ; but deny that, by any possibility, 

 they coidd be natural. 



(37.) The consequences of naturalists forming svs- 

 tems for that portion of nature only to which they con- 



