164 INTRODUCTOllY. 



first advancing an hypothesis, and then endeavouring to 

 explain facts on the assumption of its truth. It was there- 

 fore preferred to proceed differently, under the idea that 

 if the facts in detail which had originally led to my pre- 

 sent opinions on Natural History were fairly stated, they 

 must induce every person to draw the same conclusions 

 with myself. To state these facts was to propose no new 

 hypothesis, but to expose myself, as I might be right or 

 Avrong, to the full assent or flat contradiction of every 

 person who had studied the Scarabcei of Linnseus. If the 

 accuracy of the table of affinities which had been drawn 

 up on the presumption that my observations were correct, 

 was once assented to, it was said that it might be ex- 

 pressed by two circles ; and in this I did not expect that 

 the circles would have attracted criticism, because it was 

 evident that these only represented the chains of affi- 

 nity returning into themselves, and that therefore it was 

 useless to deny generally the truth of the circle, while cer- 

 tain affinities were unmolested of which it was only used 

 as a symbol. It was in short manifest that the accuracy 

 of the affinities ought to have been examined, and that if 

 these were found incorrect or false, the foundations of the 

 fabric being gone, it followed as a matter of course that 

 the superstructure must fall. The affinities however have 

 remained undisputed, and the circle is even supposed by 

 naturalists to hold good among the Petalocera, though 

 some deny that it exists generally throughout nature. In 

 the actual state of natural science it is presumptuous no 

 doubt to assert positively that the general distribution of 

 organized matter is in circles ; but I am in some degree 

 contented to submit to this charge, because my observa- 

 tion has never been found absolutely to contradict the hypo- 



