150 ON SYSTEMATIC ZOOLOGY. 
not called upon for critical investigation of organs, or 
nice distinctions of habits or economy ; he was addressing 
himself to those who had merely a bird before them, 
and who desired to know in what manner its name could 
be ascertained. He framed his system for the practical, 
not the philosophic naturalist. The Systema Nature 
was to be an ‘* Every-day Book,” not a sealed volume ; 
and he built the foundation of his system accordingly. 
It seems, therefore, to us, that the very deficiency which 
has been so strongly urged against our author, is, in 
fact, the chief merit for which he should have been 
extolled. No one knew better that his system was arti- 
ficial; for it was, in fact, intended to be so. Had he 
dwelt upon all those minute circumstances which are now 
known to determine the natural station of a bird; had 
he, in a genus which then consisted of five species, but 
which now comprises thirty-five, minutely described 
the modifications of their structure, or of their generic 
peculiarities; his system might certainly have been more 
philosophical, and possibly more natural, but it would 
have become perfectly useless to all but a very few deep 
thinkers. Nor would this have been the only objection: 
general readers would have turned with disgust from 
such tedious details; and have justly reproached our 
author with mystifying information, capable of being 
conveyed in an intelligible form. The truth is, that 
those who detract from the merits of the Systema Na- 
ture forget the object for which it was written, and the 
state of science when it appeared. Who that compares 
the Synopsis Methodica Avium with the system of 
Linneus, but must be struck with the vast superiority 
of the latter? Let us not, however, institute invidious 
comparisons, but rather allow that’ both these works 
eminently advanced the progress of science. ‘That the 
genera of Linneus, with but few exceptions, are natural 
assemblages, may be seen by the great number which 
have been kept entire by the most eminent ornitholo- 
gists who succeeded him. These groups, indeed, were 
termed by our author genera,—a term which he applied 
