THE QUINARY SYSTEM. 



xlix 



these dreams are either avowedly atheistical, by ascribing, 

 with Robinet and Lamarck, the divine workmanship of the Cre- 

 ator, to the self-originating efforts of animals, to get, by what 

 is termed transition or progress, into groups, having the assumed 

 nearest affinity to themselves; or tacitly atheistical, by adopt- 

 ing this very language, while the Creator is at the same 

 time distinctly, though most incongruously, acknowledged : it 

 is my imperative duty, I conceive, when treating of the sub- 

 ject of this volume, to enter my strongest protest, with the 

 reasons thereof, against the innovation. Mr. MacLeay and 

 his followers are obviously amenable to the latter charge ; for 

 though they exhibit a tone of religious sentiment, sound, lofty, 

 and enthusiastic, they seldom fail to follow it up, (incongruous 

 and inconsistent as it so clearly is,) with the pernicious language 

 of the French school, as promulgated by Lamarck, Cuvier, 

 and their adherents, who are indeed men of undoubted talent, 

 but it must not be disputed that they have deplorably misap- 

 plied their powers, by leaving the path of observation, to flounder 

 about in the Nilotic mud of atheistical metaphysics, though 

 they might have learned from Lucretius, that, even in his time, 

 the mud of the Nile had ceased to be spontaneously prolific* 



If it were in my power, I should be most happy to clear 

 Mr. MacLeay and his followers from the contamination of 

 such writers, but he seems himself to be anxious to acknow- 

 ledge his obligations to them. "I have," he says, "peculiar 

 reasons for stating that it is to the labours of these distinguished 

 naturalists" [Cuvier, Lamarck, &c] " that I feel myself more 

 particularly indebted." f Again — " I am so far removed from the 

 scientific world, that I know not whether Lamarck be alive or 

 dead ; but I revere him if still on earth, and respect his memory 

 if he has ascended to a better place. Time has only shown me 

 more and more the truth of what eight years ago I said of him. 

 ' His peculiar and very singular opinions have never gained 

 many converts in his own country, and I believe none in this. 

 They are indeed only to be understood by those who are already 

 supplied with the means of refuting them ; so that the mischief 



* De Natura Rerum, v. 826. f Horse Entomol. ii. 171. 



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