AND ON THE RELATIONS OF ANIMALS. 7 



Geoffroy St. Hiliare upon the Continent, our list comprises 

 nearly all the most distinguished naturalists now living. We 

 differ, indeed, among ourselves, as to numerical divisions; but 

 the grand principle being unanimously admitted, that no group 

 is natural whose affinities are not circular, will soon bring 

 about a harmony of agreement in the details. 



But the time is gone by when even names, illustrious as 

 they may be, can outweigh logical deductions from undisputed 

 facts. If every one, therefore, of the above distinguished 

 Zoologists and Botanists, was to read his recantation, and yet 

 was unable to substitute any other theory, explaining and 

 illustrating the facts of nature as fully as this does, their 

 secession would have no influence whatever upon the philo- 

 sophic naturalist, who will ever give the preference to that 

 system, whatever it may be, which establishes the greatest 

 uniformity of principle in the variation and construction of 

 animals. After all, the value of a system is best seen in its 

 details, in its workings, and by its realizing our ordinary 

 conceptions on the affinities of nature. It is not abstract 

 theories, however learnedly promulgated or defended, which 

 will ever persuade us that the following is the natural series of 

 animals, although it is so stated in the Regne Animal. Nowhere, 

 as Mr. MacLeay truly observes, " do we find inconsistencies 

 so conspicuous as in this series, which is that nevertheless of 

 the most learned comparative anatomist in existence." c 



Why will the Reviewer, and similar devotees to the Regne 

 Animal, provoke such comparisons from those who rejoice to 

 honour M. Cuvier in his proper sphere 1 



We now come to the second point of discussion, no less 

 important and interesting than the last, viz. the resemblances 



See Horae Entom., p. 271. 



