THE QUINARY SYSTEM. 



li 



lieretikes : " # — At the same time, I am well convinced this was 

 done without a shadow of sinister design, as the deservedly 

 esteemed authors do not believe the doctrine implied by their 

 words. 



Thus it is that men of unquestionable genius and extensive 

 knowledge, when they construct for themselves fantastic theories, 

 "without form and void," are certain to "darken counsel by 

 words without knowledge," no less absurd, as Dr. Wm. Hunter 

 said upon a similar occasion, than " if colours had been explained 

 by sounds." f Such I conceive to be the doctrine of analogy, 

 highly useful when judiciously employed ; but when pushed to 

 the extremes above exemplified, most absurd and pernicious. 



The grouping of animals in fives, a prominent feature of the 

 Quinary system, I can easily prove to be equally fanciful and 

 baseless, as the doctrine of Types, Affinities, Analogies, Progress, 

 Development, and Quinary Circles. But it possesses no better 

 claim to originality than the rest, for the idea was entertained by 

 Linnaeus : " It was his opinion," says Pulteney, " that nature acts 

 6 numero quinario,' as he informs us in his Diary." J That certain 

 numbers are found to prevail among the works of creation is suffi- 

 ciently obvious, but so far from one number or its multiples appear- 

 ing to be universal, we find as great a variety as in any other cir- 

 cumstance. In botany, for instance, one plant (Ranunculus) shall 

 have five flower leaves, (petals,) and another, (Ficaria, Persoon,) 

 having what would be termed the nearest affinity to it, shall have 

 nine flower leaves, (petals,) not even a multiple of five. The 

 other parts of the organs of fructification vary much more widely. 

 Most birds again have four toes, though some have only three, as 

 the bustard, (Otis, Linnaeus,) and others only two, as the ostrich 

 (Struthio Camelus.) The organs of sense are usually reckoned 

 five, but are in fact ten, in the larger animals, being all in pairs, 

 even to the tongue, which is divided by a median line, while spiders 

 have from one § to four pairs of eyes. It might answer the purpose 

 of a systematist to tell us that a spider has twice five legs, including 

 the pair of feet-jaws, as the French call them ; but what would he 



* Vanitie and Uncertaintie of Artes and Sciences, ch. 25. 

 f Intr. Lect. % Pulteney's Linn, by Maton, p. 167. 



§ MacLeay, Dying Struggle, p. 33. 



