xxxii 



LINNiEAN SYSTEM. 



But leaving these remarks to stand or fall, according as the 

 reader, upon due examination, may find them to agree with the 

 facts, I must now advert to a system recently proposed, which, on » 

 its first announcement, put forth the high claim of being exclu- 

 sively, — if not the natural system, at least the rudiments thereof, 

 or furnishing the means for arriving at this, and, therefore, 

 in accordance with the plan of the Deity at the creation. The 

 attempt was, beyond all question, highly laudable, though, as I 

 shall endeavour to show, after giving a brief outline, it appears 

 to be altogether a failure. Mr. W. S. MacLeay, the author of 

 these views, spoken of by his disciples as " that profound zoolo- 

 gist, who has succeeded more effectually than any of his pre- 

 decessors, in unravelling the intricacies of the system pursued 

 by Nature in the distribution of the animal kingdom,"* himself 

 tells us, that "an artificial system is a dry unmeaning collec- 

 tion of names, unless it be made subservient to the discovery 

 of the natural one.f" — " It requires neither talent nor ingenuity 

 to invent an artificial system. This," he adds, a is the mi- 

 serable resource of the feeble mind of man, unable to com- 

 prehend in one view the innumerable works of the creation; 

 whereas the natural system is the plan of the creation itself — 

 the work of an all-wise, all-powerful Deity."| Again, speaking 

 of his discovery of what he calls the nature of the difference 

 between analogy and affinity, Mr. MacLeay says, " It is quite 

 inconceivable, that the utmost human ingenuity could make these 

 two kinds of relation tally with each other, had they not been so 

 designed at the Creation"^ In another place he talks of portions 

 of his system being "almost mathematically proved to be natural." || 



* Zool. Journ. ii. 258. f Horse Entomol. Pref. xii. % Ibid. xiii. 



§ Linn. Trans, quoted in Dying Struggle, 26. 

 || Dying Struggle, p. 28. 



