METHOD OF DETERMINING GENERA. 
173 
grandest confusion; but they all have mutual and re¬ 
ciprocal bearings which give a definite purpose to the 
seeming disorder, and which make each separate unit 
the centre of all. But we, from our inability to grasp in 
its fulness the order of this disorder, are obliged to seize 
fragments and, separating them into what we conceive 
to be their coherent elements, use them as exponents 
of the entirety. They could not so exist in nature, but 
would speedily die out, and it is only by the way in 
which we find them intermingled, that they can be main¬ 
tained. Thus, as all conduce to the conservation of each, 
each conduces to the conservation of all. 
A large collection of natural history, composed of 
every available item that can be gathered from every 
kingdom of nature’s vast domain, may perhaps be com¬ 
pared (magnis comjjonere parva) with the constituent 
parts of a most elaborately-constructed and complicated 
clock, which its skilful artificer has designed and made 
to record and chime the divisions of time, and to register 
the days, weeks, months, and seasons, and which a 
virtuoso having taken to pieces, has sorted into its details 
of wheels and springs, levers and balances, chains, bells, 
and hands, which told the time when its music would 
peal; and arranging like to like, thinks he will thus 
understand more clearly the complexity of the varied 
movements. But, sadly disappointed, he finds he cannot 
comprehend the combination of the intricate machinery, 
although he singly admires the minute perfection of each 
delicate and ingenious piece lying before him which 
composed the structure, but which has now lost all 
expression, his curiosity having deprived the organism of 
its vitality, which is its most wonderful element. 
And this is our process, for if we stop here we have 
