NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL SYSTEMS. 125 
are we to understand from this question and remark, but 
that, in the estimation of our author, his own system, 
although unquestionably nearest to nature than any other, 
is, like all others, artificial 2? According to this view, the 
natural system can never, by any possibility, bediscovered: 
since, in the most perfect human exposition of the laws 
of creation, a “ remnant of unknown things” will always 
remain, and the system will thus become artificial. Mr. 
Bicheno, on the other hand, contends, that “ to establish 
differences is the end of the natural system ;” obviously 
meaning, as it appears to us, that the chief object which 
the naturalist should keep in view, when prosecuting this 
search after the natural system, should be to trace and 
*“ establish those agreements” which, although unex-' 
plained, have, as his opponent truly observes, existed 
since the creation. The same writer remarks, that “ di-' 
vision and separation is the end of the artificial sys- 
tem,’ or, in other words, is that object which the 
framer of such a system should keep in view, in order 
to facilitate the more ready discovery of the species. 
Now, both these definitions are unquestionably true. 
For, however objectionable the precise words may be 
in which they have been expressed, it is clear that our 
author understood that difference ‘between an artificial 
and a natural system, which we shall presently in- 
vestigate. We pass over the confused and unintel- 
ligible doctrines of other writers, one of whom main- 
tains, ‘‘ that in a natural genus, or system, there are 
artificial combinations ;” * thus denying that there is, in 
fact, any natural system, and maintaining the ridiculous 
inconsistency that what is natural may be at the same 
artificial! 
(178.) What, then, is the difference between an artifi- 
cia] and a natural system? The first is, for the ready dis- 
crimination of the species ; the latter, for the elucidation 
of those resemblances which such species bear to others, 
in all their varied and complex relations. The one stops, 
’ * Philosophy of Zoology, vol. ii, P- 141. 
