THE QUINARY SYSTEM. 
XXXVll 
from the earth* or remains to be discovered by subsequent re- 
search.f “ Intervals,” says Mr. MacLeay, “ do not lessen the 
truth of the chain, because some of the links may not yet be 
discovered.”^ 
This is a brief outline of the views upon which animals are 
arranged in the system in question, so far as I can comprehend it ; 
yet I have little doubt that it will be said I have fallen into mis- 
representation ; though in that case I shall be in good company, 
for, amongst others, Dr. Fleming, § Dr. Virey, |1 and Mr. Kirby, ^ 
have been accused of not understanding the system. If men of 
their superior powers, and experience also as naturalists, cannot 
understand the published works of the systematists, I am fairly 
entitled to infer that they must be unintelligible to inferior minds, 
and consequently useless to all but a few of the initiated. 
One thing I am certain of, that I have spared no pains in labour- 
ing to decypher all the writings of the school which I could pro- 
cure. But inventors of systems, it may be remarked, are gene- 
rally very hot and testy when they meet with opposition ; of which 
(to pass by living examples) Linngeus himself affords a marked 
instance; for because Buffon had treated his classification with 
little respect, he took care never to quote any of his works, 
“ despising,” as he says, ‘‘ those grinning apes and chattering 
baboons whom I have encountered in my journey.” ** 
In the necessarily limited space of an introduction, I cannot go 
much into detail either in explanation of this system, or in stat- 
ing such objections to it as have occurred to me ; but I shall 
endeavour to show that it rests, so far as I can perceive, on very 
untenable grounds. “ In natural history,” says Mr. MacLeay, 
we have always good reason for suspecting methods,” ff and still 
more, I should say, for suspecting principles. The doctrine of 
types^ if I comprehend it aright, is one of those suspicious prin- 
* Linn. Trans, vol. xiv. p. 54. f Ibid, vol. xiv. p. 409. 
X Dying Straggle, p. 29. § MacLeay, Dying Straggle, passim. 
II Zool. Journ. iv. 49. H Dying Straggle, page 25. 
Kerr’s Linnaeus, p. 13. The original is if possible still stronger. “ Rin- 
gentium Satyrorum cacbinnos, meisque Immeris insilientiimi Cercopitbccoruin 
exultationes siistinui.” Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. Introitus, ed. 12th. 
Horae Entomologicae, p. 6. 
