1 



THE QUINARY SYSTEM. 



tliey have occasioned being comparatively null, we may be 

 permitted to assign due praise to Lamarck, as being the first 

 zoologist France has produced.' " * When I remind the reader, 

 that this 44 first zoologist" of France gravely tells us that the 

 giraffe acquired its long neck by its efforts to browse on the high 

 branches of trees, f they will not wonder at his having gained 

 few converts in this country ; though they may not agree with 

 Mr. MacLeay, that 44 the mischief" of such doctrines is 44 com- 

 paratively null," when they find his most objectionable terms cur- 

 rently employed in the works of those belonging to what is de- 

 signated the modern English school. Two pages, indeed, after 

 his eulogium, Mr. MacLeay quotes Lamarck as an authority, to 

 prove the objectionable doctrine of the perfection and imperfec- 

 tion of animals — the same indeed as his own, or rather De Blain- 

 ville's normal and aberrant groups, which is opposed, not only to fact 

 and philosophy, but to Scripture, where it is expressly declared 

 that every work of God is 44 perfect.":}: The language objected 

 to, also becomes the more mischievous and dangerous, from 

 its having recently made its appearance in works intended for 

 young persons, and for general readers — I allude to the Ornitho- 

 logia of Jennings, § and to the Gardens and Menageries of the 

 Zoological Society Delineated, the latter being sanctioned by 

 authority of the Council of the Society. Surely the tendency 

 of the language to be met with in this sanctioned publication, 

 which is quite unintelligible, if it be not interpreted on the prin- 

 ciple of animals developing their organs by their own efforts, || is, 

 to say the least, highly improper in such a work, while its being 

 insidious and not glaring, renders it so much the worse. It was 

 the promulgation of such theories as these, whence, as Cornelius 

 Agrippa says, has 44 risen this proverbe among the common 

 people, that the greatest philosophers are wont to be the greatest 



* Dying Struggle, page 24, and Horse Entomol. ii. 328. 



f Quoted by Kirby and Spence, Intr. iii. 351. Note. % Deut. xxxii. 4. 



§ Mr. Jennings, like Virey, Kirby, Fleming, and others, it is said, " does not 

 comprehend" the system (Zool. Journ. iii. 470.) 



|| See No. xiii. p. 177, No. vii. p. 83, No. ii. p. 25, &c. &c. These passages 

 were found on glancing over a few pages. I have, indeed, seen only some 

 odd numbers of the work. 



