OF MANDIBULATA. 455 



A more appropriate example of the consequences of 

 not knowing what has just been explained, cannot be given 

 than the system of Fabricius. That he was an acute man 

 is testified by the Philosophia Entomologica ; that he was 

 well versed in the knowledge of species appears from his 

 other works ; and the reader must have witnessed in several 

 of tliese pages, unequivocal marks of his not having been by 

 nature incapable of perceiving an affinity. Indeed it would 

 be very extraordinary if he should have been but httle above 

 the ordinary level, whose memory is honoured in Germany 

 as that of the greatest naturalist it has produced. Yet 

 there is no hazard whatever incurred in asserting that the 

 system he invented, although originating in considerations 

 of the first importance, is one of the most artificial of the 

 multitudes that have been proposed for Entomology. Of 

 this, although the cause escaped him, no one was more 

 aware than himself, as he shows by a total disregard at 

 times of the most essential parts of his method. The 

 Linneean school has therefore condemned the adoption of 

 any such principle as the structure of the organs of mandu- 

 cation, just as Swammerdam's failure drew down their 

 invectives on metamorphosis, without occasioning on their 

 own part the production of any much less objectionable 

 arrangement. Indeed it appears impossible that there 

 should be a great distinction between any two of all their 

 systems in value, since the generality of Entomologists 

 have split on the same rock, and regarded only the actual 

 difference between the structures of animals, and not tlie 

 manner in which this diflference takes place. If Fabricius 

 even had bestowed half the attention on the method in 

 which the organs of manducation vary, that he has on his 



