XXXVl 
THE QUINARY SYSTEM, 
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Normal or Typical. 
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Here tlie fifth member may be perceived leading round’’"* to 
the first in order to inosculate with it. The term osculant^ that 
is, kissing, or touching, is applied to ‘‘ groups, which” are said to 
‘‘ form the passage between neighbouring groups of higher degree 
and denomination than themselves.”* “ Laying aside osculant 
groups,” says Mr. MacLeay, “ every natural group is divisible 
into five, which always admits of a binary distribution, that is, into 
two and three.”f “ Notwithstanding, also, the opposite declarations 
which I have heard made,” Mr. MacLeay says, “ I must persist in 
asserting that neither the arrangement of these groups, nor the 
groups themselves are arbitrary. Both, I may say, are almost ma- 
thematically proved to be natural. ” :f We are taught further, that 
such circular groups of five members as this, make an approach or 
passage towards other groups, and that the whole objects of crea- 
tion may be thus linked together in circular groups of fives. When 
the systematists cannot perfect this number five in any particular 
group, they tell us that the deficient member has either perished 
* Vigors, Zool. Joiirn. ii. 65. f Linn. Trans, vol. xiv. p. 587, 
X Dying Struggle, p. 28, 
