414 Mr. W. S. MacLeay's Examination of 



" many instances a class is equivalent to an order or genus," and that 

 " the great division of Cotyledonous plants may only be equivalent to 

 " the order of grasses," I do not now wonder that in another part of 

 your paper you should place Natural History in diametrical opposition to 

 mathematics, for I recollect that Euchd begins with the fundamental 

 axiom, that " the whole must be greater than its part." 



You are obliging enough to consent to the adoption of the terms species 

 and genus in Natural History, but to these alone. All other terms for 

 groupes are ETrea Trrepoepra, " fleeting instruments of thought." But 

 how the term genus, or even species, is not equally objectionable, how 

 it is not equally a fleeting instrument of thought, as well as the terms 

 class, order, family, &c., I cannot well discover. In the place of these 

 last terms you would, in the natural method, employ the words groupe, 

 section, and division, but I have yet to learn the ground of preference. 

 Groupe is a general word for all masses of individuals, of whatever de- 

 gree , and as to the words section and division, it surely requires expla- 

 nation how they can express "assemblages of approximations" better 

 than the terms tribes and families. 



I have now gone through your Paper, of which, as I said at the be- 

 ginning of my review, the object aimed at may, for all that I know, co- 

 incide with my own opinions. It is indeed the peculiar advantage of the 

 style of argument you have chosen to adopt, that the purport and aim 

 of your remarks remain enveloped in secure mystery, while the only 

 visible points of your line of attack are detached and insulated proposi- 

 tions. Many of these detached propositions I am far from fighting with; 

 many indeed are truisms ; while many, such as those discussed above, will 

 require some time, I suspect, before they can possibly triumph. But 

 whether assented to or denied, I confess I do not perceive the use of any 

 of them, and the novelty of but very few. Believe me, I do not say 

 this in any spirit but that of good will. I do not feel, indeed, except 

 that I happen to have followed in the wake of such idiots as Fabricius 

 and Latreille, and have subdivided Scarabseus, that any one of your ob- 

 servations personally affects me ; and I can never forget that you have 

 always, in the most honourable way, been a friend to the free expression 

 of opinion, and have of late most warmly patronized Zoology. Yet as 

 every law-giver must, in these days, expect to have the goodness of his 



