15 



stations, and give something like a primary arrangement to a 

 mnltitude that would be, without such an assistance to man's 

 capacity, an utter wilderness of beings ; and here it will be 

 perfectly useless to devise or invent : the only right plan is care- 

 fidly to examine all authority within our reach, and steadfastly 

 endeavour to discover truth. 



No authority on this subject can be equal to the Scriptures ; 

 and there we find the number seven always used as a number 

 of greater importance than any other; — the six days of creation, 

 and the seventh day of rest, from that time more or less observed 

 as a holy or superior day, by divine command,* is the first and 

 one of the most remarkable instances : I need merely mention 

 the seven clean animals which Noah was commanded to take 

 into the ark, the seven plagues, seven years of famine and of 

 plenty, and that more than two hundred other instances occur 

 in the Old Testament. In the New the number seven occurs 

 still more remarkably : as seven golden candlesticks, seven 

 churches, seven angels, and seven spirits of God. I need 

 scarcely go further ; but being able to adduce the opinions which 

 have been avowed by the greatest naturalists that have ever 

 lived, I rejoice to strengthen my own opinion by such high 

 authorities. M.le Baron Cuvier, in a paper published in 1795, 

 divided all invertebrate animals into six groups, the vertebrates 

 forming the seventh.')' Our eminent countryman, Mr. Kirby, ob- 

 serves : " The number five, which Mr. MacLeay assumes for one 

 basis of his system, as consecrated in nature, seems to me to 

 yield to the number seven, which is consecrated both in nature 

 and in Scripture. Metaphysicians reckon seven principal opera- 

 tions of the mind ; musicians seven primary musical notes ; and 

 opticians seven primary colours. In Scripture the abstract idea 

 of this number is fulness, completeness, perfection. I have a 

 notion, though not yet sufficiently matured, that Mr. MacLeay's 

 quinaries are resolvable into septenaries.";}; Our own observation 

 will speedily convince us, that most groups of animals with which 



* Genesis ii. 3. 



t Translation of Cuvier by Griffith, Vol. I. p. 64, note. Cuvier has since 

 adopted the number four. 



X Introduction to Entomology, Vol. III. p. 15, note. 



