INDIAN CYPRINID^. 



253 



structure differ totally from those with which we set out, we are led back 

 again through a succession of different forms from those through which we 

 passed at first, to the point from which we started. 



It has resulted from Mr. Macleay's views applied to the analyses of the 

 classes of birds, quadrupeds, and insects, that " the contents of such a circular 

 group are symbolically (or analogically) represented by the contents of all other 

 circles in the animal kingdom," but as such analyses have not yet been carried 

 through fishes and reptiles, the conclusion just quoted has been submitted 

 rather as a proposition by the distinguished author of the geography and 

 classification of animals whose next proposition is, " That the primary divi- 



Vigors and Horsfield with the same result (vide Linnaean Transactions, vol. ]6) and the whole of 

 these observations have since been confirmed, and their results more fully made out by Mr. 

 Swainson, who also has extended his views to the Mammalia. About the same period with the 

 publication of the Horse Entomologicse, the progression of affinities began to acquire additional 

 interest among botanists. M. Agardh and M. Decondolle both published their views on the subject, 

 the first in his Botanical Aphorisms, and the second in the Memoires du Museum ; when, with- 

 out knowing what had been done by Mr. Macleay, Mr. Fries announced the same results in the 

 Fungi, attained by a different form of analysis. Similar views have since been more extensively ap- 

 plied to plants by Professor Lindley in the last edition of his Introduction to tlie Natural System. 



Writers on natural history in the present day may be divided into three classes ; first, those 

 who recognise no rules but such as appear to be laws of nature, and taking nature as their guide form 

 their views according to the result of observations which are not confined to external characters, 

 but embrace all that concerns natural objects. The second class consists of naturalists who 

 pursue the easier course of following authorities, but their works consist chiefly of techni- 

 calities derived from external characters indiscriminately applied to genera and species ; tlieir 

 higher groups are consequently constructed according to rule rather than nature. The third class 

 comprises describers of species, whose books are only remarkable for their size and expense. 

 Nor can I altogether overlook upon this occasion another class of persons, who, though they 

 are not naturalists, and scarcely even allow us to call them writers, yet exercise but too often 

 an influence in Societies detrimental to the objects of such institutions, and the real advancement 

 of science. 



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