THE USE OF SYSTEM. 
I MAY venture to say tlie only use of wliat, in Natural History, 
is called a system, meaning thereby a methodical classification, is, 
that it may serve as a frame-work or a cabinet, into the par- 
titions of which many little facts may be stored and dove-tailed, 
that would otherwise be scattered through the memory at ran- 
dom, at the great hazard of being lost. The advantage of a 
system of this kind then consists in its preserving such collec- 
tions of facts, as a cabinet preserves a collection of specimens; 
and, provided the several facts be not too far separated from 
their usual associations, it matters little what other qualities the 
system possess. Simplicity indeed must always be valuable, and 
a simple system may be likened to a plain unornamented cabinet, 
where the specimens hold a prominent / place and the cabinet 
itself is almost overlooked; while a complex system may, in the 
same way, be likened to a cabinet bedizened with grotesque 
carving and fretwork, the compartments of which are curiously 
cut”* and fantastically arranged, consisting indeed chiefly of 
empty framework, without a useful fact or an interesting speci- 
men on which the mind can rest. To the manufacture of such 
gew-gaw nursery toys, I confess, I am hostile, because I think 
it is lowering the dignity of philosophy; and she has no dignity 
to spare for such a purpose, amidst the numerous humiliations 
which philosophers daily meet with in attempting to fathom what 
is unfathomable, and to explain what to man is inexplicable in the 
works of God. 
* Tailor. With a trunk sleeve. 
Gruinio. I confess two sleeves. 
Tailor. The sleeves curiously cut. 
Petruchio. Ay, there’s the villainy. 
Grumio. Error i ’the bill, Sir ; error i^the bill. 
' Shakesp. Taming of the Shre7i\ 
