1 
THE QUINARY SYSTEM. 
they 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 first zoologist” of France gfavely tells us that the 
giralfe 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 “ the mischief” of such doctrines is 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 TzormuZ and groups, which is opposed, not only to fact 
and philosophy, but to Scripture, where it is expressly declared 
that every work of God is “ perfect.” j: 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, |1 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 ‘‘risen this proverbe among the common 
people, that the greatest philosophers are wont to be the greatest 
i: 
* Dying- Straggle, page 24, and Horoe Entomol. ii. 328. 
f (Quoted by Kirby and Spence, Intr. iii. 351. Note. f Dent, xxxii. 4. 
§ Mr. Jennings, like Virey, Kirby, Fleming, and others, it is said, “ does not 
comprehend” the system (Zool. Journ. iii. 470.) 
11 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. 
