INTRODUCTORY. l63 



nature. Long however before it was ventured to put the 

 first part of this work to the press, I had ascertained that 

 the pecuUar order which was first observed in the Peta- 

 locerous insects existed throughout all that portion of or- 

 ganized matter which I had been in the habit of studying ; 

 and that the chain of affinities always returning into it- 

 self might be represented by any curve, such as a circle 

 or ellipse, having this property. It was even once in- 

 tended to publish the general application of this fact before 

 the particular discovery of it which had been made in the 

 Scarabcci of Linnseus; but on reflection I was induced to 

 brave those criticisms which it \vas easy to foresee would 

 be my portion, and to let the public, as nearly as possible, 

 arrive at the same conclusions by the same order and 

 means that I had used myself; assured that the publica- 

 tion of this second Essay, when compared with that of the 

 first, would convince naturalists that I had never advanced 

 general principles until there was some good reason for 

 supposing them to be general ; and that I had never adopted 

 a new theory until that theory had almost lost the right to 

 the name, and had become a mass of facts, observed in- 

 deed by others, but now for the first time arranged so as 

 to form one regular whole. I might indeed, according to 

 what was once my intention, have published the general 

 plan first ; but as this course of proceeding would neces- 

 sarily have led me to assume facts in proportion as the 

 masses of beings under consideration became less general, 

 the truth of the whole might have been disputed, or at 

 best have rested its sole title to credit on certain casual 

 circumstances ; so that if I had then attempted to make 

 use of such an instrument in the examination of small 

 groups, I might with some justice have been accused of 



M 2 



