lxx'li PRELIMINARY SKETCH OP THE 



From the death of Linnaeus, to the period 

 of our illustrious author, it must be confessed 

 that a sort of anarchy prevailed in the systematic 

 part of Natural History, and divisions of all de- 

 grees, and the names attached to them, varied 

 to such an excess, as to fatigue the most tena- 

 cious memory, and render the study excessively 

 disgusting to the amateur. 



This disorder, however, arose from a na- 

 tural tendency in philosophic minds, towards a 

 better order, to which the plan of Linnaeus 

 seemed calculated to prevent naturalists from 

 ever arriving. The desideratum was to ar- 

 range the facts, of which the science treats, 

 in a series of propositions, so graduated and 

 so successively subordinate, that the whole 

 might represent the actual relations of living 

 beings. 



For this purpose it was necessary, as our 

 author remarks, to group animals according to 

 the entirety of their properties or organization, 

 so that those contained in such a group, shall 

 bear a stronger mutual resemblance to each 

 other, than to any individual of a different 

 group. This arrangement is what is now 

 termed the natural method ; but as it evi- 

 dently required a perfect knowledge, in detail, 

 of all the parts of individual beings, naturalists 



