xliv THE QUINARY SYSTEM, 
tural Theology, ought to be to trace effects to their causes, and 
to investigate the providential design of the forms, structures, and 
characters of animals. “ It is the business,” says Sir Isaac New- 
ton, ‘‘of Natural Philosophy, to reason from phenomena to God;”* 
but by following the doctrine of types and quinary groups, 
we are led away from this high and philosophic pursuit, and in- 
veigled in an endless labyrinth of critical trifling, whose object 
is to ascertain in what particular circle a group or species should 
be placed, to decide whether it should be considered typical or 
aberrant^ and to trace the most fanciful and utterly worthless 
analogies frittering down all the glorious beauties of exuberant 
nature to the measured standard of a false and petty logic, in a 
similar spirit, but much more blameable than the rules by which 
Aristotle trimmed down the poetry of the drama. If I may judge 
from the published essays of this new school, which lays claim to be 
jieculiarly English, I should be disposed, from the preceding facts 
and documents, to conclude, that if it ever get into temporary 
fashion, of which I think there is small chance, it will do more to 
retard the progress of philosophic natural history, and check its 
popularity and diffusion, than even the Linnsean school did, were 
it no more than by the introduction of a farrago of technical 
terms, the meanings of which are founded on metaphysical, and, 
as it should seem, metaphorical imaginings. If I am told phi- 
losophical works never can be popular, I have merely to refer to 
the extensive sale of Ray’s “ Wisdom of God;” Derham’s “ Phy- 
sico-Theology;” and Paley’s “ Natural Theology,” as an unan- 
swerable reply. 
The doctrine of analogy as distinct from affinity^ is strenu- 
ously contended for as a discovery of equal rank with that of 
the harmony of the planetary system. “ The diffusion,” says Mr. 
Vigors, “of these principles,” [MacLeay’s,] “ wrought the same 
change as may be supposed to have affected the views of the early 
astronomer, when his attention was withdrawn from the mere 
observation of the splendid orbs of the firmament, from conjec- 
turing their apparent stations, and summing up their various 
names, to the more sublime contemplation of the harmonious 
system, in which they revolve through infinite space.”f And 
* De Deo ex phaenominis diserere, ad pliilosopliiam iiatiiralem pertinet. 
t Linn. Trans, vol. xiv. p. 398. 
