INTRODUCTION. 11 



compared her with herself, and that in a few objects which 

 could easily be comprehended without resorting to subdi- 

 vision, would naturally set little value on names, while on 

 the other hand the very object of their pursuit was the 

 investigation of affinities. No distinct ideas of an or- 

 ganized being could indeed be formed in one's own mind, 

 much less communicated to that of others, except by first 

 comparing the several parts with those in some other and 

 well known organized being ; and secondly, by the compa- 

 rison of the two wholes. This process, so necessarily 

 and so unconsciously adopted by persons the most ig- 

 norant of natural history, is nevertheless a rude species of 

 classification. The disposition to classify is then natural to the 

 human mind ; and that organized beings have in some man- 

 ner been arranged in nature, this disposition, if allowed to 

 act freely, will soon discover. But, unfortunately, it is not so 

 easy to agi~ee upon the method in which organized matter 

 was disposed at the creation ; and every naturalist, in at- 

 tempting to find the natural system, has only added an artifi- 

 cial one to the hundreds that had already been proposed. In 

 Botany indeed Linnseus most happily founded his artificial 

 system on the parts of fructification — organs which are per- 

 haps the most important in the natural system. The conse- 

 quence was, that the Linnaean groups in botany were not so 

 wholly different from the more modern ones, which had their 

 origin in a multitude of other though less essential characters 

 combined with the former. 1 1 has not, however, been so with 

 Entomology a . Linnseus commenced with a system entirely 



a " Examinavi tantam scientiarum tam affinium diversitatem ; et in ilia 

 omnia firma, certa, in hac vero omnia vaga inveni. — Certitudinem hanc 

 Botanices regulis fixis bene stabilitis niti observavi, quum e contrario in 

 Entomologia omnino nullse sancitEe.''— Phil, Ent, (Prcef.) 



