THE QUINARY SYSTEM. 



xli 



mind, that the creatures were in a manner their own creators." # 

 The doctrine of types, passage, and aberration indeed, seems only 

 another version of the visions of Epicurus, Robinet, Darwin, and 

 Lamarck ; for in the Quinary system we find the very language 

 of the latter theorists, in talking of transitions of one group into 

 another, and of a species " leading round," or filling up a chasm, 

 and forming a link or passage between two groups.f " The 

 weakness" it is said " of the bill and of the legs and feet of the 

 Caprimulgus still keeps it at some distance from the owls, in which 

 the same members are comparatively strong ; while the wide gape 

 of its mouth serves to divide the families still farther. A connecting 

 link has been however supplied by an Australasian group, the 

 Podargus of M. Cuvder, which harmonizes these discrepant cha- 

 racters.":): The word still, though I am well convinced it was 

 not so meant by the author, has no obvious meaning, unless it 

 refer to a time when the Caprimulgus may make a transi- 

 tion or progress to the owl. That this is not, as I have heard 

 alleged in answer, a mere figurative mode of expression, such as 

 when we say, " America approaches Asia at Behring's Straits," 

 appears evident from the whole tone of the system. We are told, 

 for example, that " the nearest approach of the mammalia to the 

 birds exists, according to MacLeay, among the glires, which make 

 several attempts, as it were, to attain the structure of the feathered 

 class as plain, strong, and precise terms, as Darwin or Lamarck 

 himself could have used in talking of a jerboa (Dypus, Gmelin) 

 trying to convert its legs into wings, or a porcupine (Hystrix, 

 Brisson) endeavouring to barb its quills with feathers. The 

 saving clause, " as it were," indeed shows that the author was 

 aware of his words being objectionable. Unless the Creator be 

 discarded altogether, in what way are we to understand this 

 doctrine ? The language used can only be reasonably explained 

 upon the theory of animals making " progress," or passing by 

 their own efforts to greater development in their organs ; the 

 imperfect ones, for example, in the aberrant groups, becoming 

 by such efforts more typical, losing some of their legs if they 



* Kirby and Spence, Int. iii. 173. 

 \ See Mag 1 , of Nat. Hist. i. 330 ; and Zool. Jour, passim. 

 \ Linn. Tr. xiv. p. 401. § Zool. Jour. iv. 41fi. 



