lt)6 INTRODUCTORY. 



prove others to be in the wrong, as ever it has done by 

 the imphcit beUef that they were in the right. Such con- 

 fidence in the accuracy of others ought never to be ac- 

 corded until the opinion advanced shall have been tried 

 by several and severe tests. Had therefore my fears of 

 criticism been given way to, I should certainly never have 

 ventured on a ^vork where I must be sure to merit it, and 

 on the publication of new opinions which scarcely ever 

 escape it ; but I reflected that in the study of nature, the 

 ^rill to criticize produces investigation, and that investi- 

 gation must always tend to the development of the truth ; 

 so that if I should be altogether in the wrong, the proba- 

 bility is, that some good to Natural History will have been 

 occasioned in calling forth that investigation which is to 

 convince the public that I am mistaken. In the present 

 happy state of science, which is founded solely on obser- 

 vation and experiment, the proposition of a false theory 

 tends no less indirectly to advance human knowledge 

 than the discovery of a truth advances it directly. The 

 great enemy to the progress of Natural History has hi- 

 therto been indolence, or, at least, the disposition to rest 

 satisfied with the actual state of a science which till very 

 lately has been wholly illusory. The inconsistencies of 

 anatomical systems and of nomenclative methods have 

 justified, as I conceive, the following search for some 

 more satisfactory mode of studying nature than those hi- 

 therto adopted. In this search, however, I must compare 

 myself to a person, who having taken a careful survey of 

 a very small district, and thus having been enabled to 

 form from analogy some general ideas of the surrounding 

 country, then ascends a neighbouring eminence to view 

 it. His description of the general character of the tract 



