6 
SYSTEM OF NATURE. 
to afford the only true characters. C then comes into the 
field, and after a long diatribe on the want of knowledge 
shown by A and B, coolly asserts that from the metamor¬ 
phosis alone true characters of affinity can be drawn. 
This is no caricature ; it is an abuse to which relations of 
analogy must always be subject: everyone can employ 
them to assist his own views, however far-fetched those 
views may be. For my own part I admit without hesita¬ 
tion the great and equal importance of all these characters, 
and I firmly believe that the slightest disposition to evade 
either of them, or, in fact, to evade or undervalue any 
structural or metamorphotic character, is in itself an evi¬ 
dence of natural incapacity to cope with the great question 
of natural arrangement. When an author tells me that he 
considers similarity of an insect’s maxillae, mesothorax, 
wings, or metamorphosis, to be only a relation of analogy, 
and not to indicate propinquity in a natural system, I feel 
satisfied that he is by nature's self precluded from ever 
becoming a revealer of her secrets. To no isolated cha¬ 
racter must be assigned a paramount importance, nor 
must such be dismissed as altogether valueless. Wri¬ 
ters who think otherwise are unable to grapple with the 
subject; they voluntarily place their legs in the stocks 
and then think to contend in the race. All preconceived 
opinions disqualify the mind for an enquiry after truth; 
these must therefore be religiously avoided : the judgment 
must be perfectly unfettered: facts must be diligently 
collected and collated, and each well weighed, and its in¬ 
trinsic value ascertained with the utmost precision. 
To trace nature from the trivial differences which may 
distinguish two cognate species — differences often imper¬ 
ceptible to all but the instructed eye of the zoologist —■ 
