Any attempt to overthrow existing systems, originally devised and unanimously approved by men of superior talents and great acquirements, should not only be made but received with the greatest possible caution; but when, as in the arrangement of the objects of natural history, there exists no universally received plan, but each systematist has, for a few months, or at most, years, his little circle of immediate followers and admirers, one thing must be obvious,—that the true system is yet undiscovered; and, therefore, surely it is competent to every one, however unqualified, to try his hand at the task: that the true system has not been discovered, is admitted by Mr. MacLeay, the only individual who has made any thing like an approach to it; for, in the preface to the Annulosa Javanica, which appeared subsequently to the HorÆ EntomologicÆ, in which his circular and quinary system is proposed, he acknowledges, that, "as yet, we have not even arrived at the threshold of nature's temple."

Some individuals would, I believe, argue that no fixed system or plan prevails in nature, but that each individual species exists quite independently of, and unconnected with all the rest; others, again, allow that there is a system, but without any other division than that of species; thus theoretically disallowing those plain and universally intelligible groups, which we term beasts, birds, fishes, and insects. It seems to me highly improbable that a Creator, who has, with such unerring wisdom, adapted means to their destined ends, should have performed any part of the mighty work of creation without a fixed and perfect design. If we consider that no muscle, tendon, or vein, however minute, whether in man, the highest, or in those animals which may be reckoned the lowest grade among created beings, but has functions appointed for it regularly to perform, and that no single portion of our frame can be parted with, without occasioning us inconvenience, it seems fair to infer, that no single atom, or no one created thing, exists without filling some appointed place in a great and perfectly organized and arranged whole; however far that whole may, and must be, above our limited understandings. To doubt the existence of a natural system appears to me to be precisely equivalent to doubting a creation; for one cannot conceive the various tribes of animals to have received their being at the hands of an Omnipotent Creator, and yet to be indebted, at the same time, to chance for those gradual shades of difference from each other, which are found so harmoniously blending group into group, that the practised naturalist may follow up the same peculiarity of habit or structure, however varied in its development, from one to the other of the most opposite beings which you can place before him. Infinitely varied, however, as the course of such a peculiarity must be, the naturalist never finds those sudden departures from the regular flow of variation, which all systems, even the most approved, are constantly exhibiting; the reason of which is, that, in thus tracing approaches in his mind, he will continually discover an individual completely surrounded by others, each of which partakes of its peculiarities, not only in a different degree, but in a different mode; and thus he will perceive the character on which his attention has been fixed, ramifying in all directions. Now no system, hitherto suggested, will at all cope with this; it has been the plan, and I imagine the fault of all our systems, that they are so constructed as to be incapable of receiving a character from, or imparting it to, more than a single individual: hence they never can possess capacity sufficient to exhibit those endless chains of relation which the mind so luxuriates in tracing. The want of such a system has been, I believe, universally acknowledged, and should my humble endeavour even prepare the way for its establishment, and act the mere part of a herald to proclaim its approach, I shall not only be satisfied, but delighted.

I cannot here plough my toilsome track through the wild waste of systems and speculations, which have embarrassed, rather than assisted, natural history during the last hundred years; my aim will be more to make myself understood than comment on the merits of others, except as I can lay them under contribution to enhance my own.

Previously to the publication of Mr. MacLeay's HorÆ EntomologicÆ, it appears to have been an opinion universally prevalent, that there existed in nature a regularly graduated scale of beings, beginning with man as the most perfect, and terminating in the least perfect creature known to possess life. One ingenious author had varied a little from this theory by allowing a double series to nature's works, which commencing on a level with the most perfect animal and most perfect plant, descended gradually and approached as they descended, until they met in those jelly-like substances which seem yet to hover between the two kingdoms, puzzling naturalists by their proximity to both—the system thus assuming the shape of the letter V.[3]

However convenient for the formation of a catalogue, or the arrangement of a cabinet, such a system may be; and however inconvenient or impracticable any other conceivable plan may appear, I think few will concur in imagining man capable of, or warranted in, thus setting up limits and boundary-marks to the works and power of his Maker; for the next step, as a matter of course, would be the application of similar restrictions to infinite space, which he might as reasonably expect to bring under his sapient admeasurement.

Our country has the credit of having first sapped the foundation of a building, which, though by its founder[4] termed a commodious and well covered house, could not retain religion or reason among its inmates; indeed, the illustrious Swede was himself the first to see and to know that his mansion, however commodious, was built but on the sand; but knowing its imperfections, he cared not to alter them: he thought it enough to acknowledge without striving to amend them; in fact, he really seems to have considered the natural system, like the philosopher's stone, a mere ens imaginationis, the pursuit of which would be but a waste of time: he doubted not its existence, but he doubted man's ability to discover it.

Such was natural history when Mr. MacLeay's immortal work first diffused its splendour over the world. The power of thought, the profound research which he there exhibited, and the confession that "he was one of those who preferred an imperfect transitory glimpse of nature pure and unveiled, to a full view of the most commodious and ostentatious mantle that could be employed to conceal her features from the gaze,"[5] were such novelties in the science, that men scarcely credited their understandings: they began thinking, and have continued to think until the term naturalist is not, as it was but a short time back, immeasurably separated from that of philosopher. The extraordinary merit of the HorÆ EntomologicÆ consists, not merely in disclosing and elucidating the invaluable fact, that a series of affinities, naturally arranged, has a constant tendency to describe a circle which eventually returns into itself: a still more important feature of the work is, that unceasing and determined endeavour evinced by its learned author to seek after, weigh, and examine facts, and to employ these alone in the support of his theories,—an endeavour indicative of that only true spirit of philosophy which has and can have no other end in view than the establishment of truth.

That I suppose Mr. MacLeay to have mistaken the number which nature has adopted in the combination and distribution of her various tribes—that I totally dissent from his idea of analogies and affinities, and from his division or rather adoption of Clairville's division of insects into mandibulate and haustellate, will be sufficiently evident from the contents of this little Essay; but in these and all other instances, in which I feel myself bound to disclose any difference of opinion which may tend to reveal or establish truth, I hope I shall always be found urging my objections with the deference due to an author from whose works I have extracted many important facts, and the still more important discovery which forms the ground-work of my own theory.

That nature has a decided tendency to the formation of circles, I cannot for one moment doubt. If there be yet doubters on that subject,—if there be yet those who deem the discovery of Mr. MacLeay a mere invention of his own, let them consider the plan of the universe, as established by the celebrated Newton,—let them behold the glorious sun, a circular centre of light and life; let them observe the circular attendant worlds, which revolve in circles about him, and which are themselves attended by circular moons, whose progression is still in circles: the very days of the year, a varied effect of the same universally operating cause, proclaim the existence of a circle, by lengthening and shortening until they arrive at the very day from which our observations began. These facts, these unquestionable facts, while they beautifully illustrate the existence of circles in the grand primary distribution of nature, point quite as decidedly to another conclusion, which it is my aim also to establish—that there is a tendency universally developed, in a greater or less degree, in all minor or less important circles to arrange themselves round major or more important ones. Systematists, although fully allowing the existence of this tendency in this the primary or highest system of nature which human intellect has hitherto been able to grasp; yet its application in detail to the systematic arrangement of the numerous objects of natural history has hitherto been totally neglected. It can hardly be supposed that the idea has never occurred to any of the illustrious writers who have devoted their time and talents to this interesting subject: it has most probably occurred, and been rejected as insupportable. It may perhaps be, that the apparent difficulty of arranging the objects of natural history thus, as it were, in a mass, has operated somewhat against the proposal or adoption of a plan like the present; but if we come to consider the question with the cool deliberation which an inquiry of this kind requires, I trust it will be generally considered that our first object is to discover, if possible, nature's plan; our second to adapt it to our own artificial ideas. Should the present, or any future scheme, prove incontrovertible,—and incontrovertible the real system of nature must be, whenever discovered,—it will then be high time to meditate on the best plan of rendering it serviceable to ourselves, and available to science; and objectors on this score must please to recollect that the calculations for eclipses, and other important astronomical phenomena, experienced any thing but delay or difficulty from Newton's development of the true solar system. Be the system of nature discovered when it may, it will never be found that Appia Via which LinnÆus has made it out to be, but rather like the Cretan labyrinth, and whoever may happen to be the fortunate Theseus, must undertake the task of showing the way to his competitors, until it becomes so well known, that a map of the road[6] may be drawn for the use of all.

It being then incontrovertibly established, that nature possesses, on the grand scale, two tendencies; one, the formation of globes or circles, the other, the disposition of inferior creations to cluster round superior ones, is it too great a presumption to imagine tendencies thus exhibited in the creation and government of worlds, as in some degree typical of the design from which universal nature has been modelled? Is there the least violation of probability in supposing the great and beneficent Creator the centre of His works, and from the centre pervading and upholding His wonderful and stupendous creation? And again, may not minor centres typify those beings on whom He has been pleased to bestow a marked superiority over those around them? Such an one is man, of whom it is said, "In His own image created he him."[7]

I will suppose them a system composed of an immense multitude of material beings, organic and inorganic, animate and inanimate, revolving in circles around the central, everlasting abode of that Providence who created, pervades, and upholds them, and can, by the act of His will, either annihilate or create anew,—a supposition much more readily admitted than rejected; and, although not positively proved, yet incapable of disproof from man's researches. I will further suppose the minor circles occasionally clustering round major ones; yet I am still in want of some number by which to allot to these circles their respective stations, and give something like a primary arrangement to a multitude that would be, without such an assistance to man's capacity, an utter wilderness of beings; and here it will be perfectly useless to devise or invent: the only right plan is carefully to examine all authority within our reach, and steadfastly endeavour to discover truth.

No authority on this subject can be equal to the Scriptures; and there we find the number seven always used as a number of greater importance than any other;—the six days of creation, and the seventh day of rest, from that time more or less observed as a holy or superior day, by divine command,[8] is the first and one of the most remarkable instances: I need merely mention the seven clean animals which Noah was commanded to take into the ark, the seven plagues, seven years of famine and of plenty, and that more than two hundred other instances occur in the Old Testament. In the New the number seven occurs still more remarkably: as seven golden candlesticks, seven churches, seven angels, and seven spirits of God. I need scarcely go further; but being able to adduce the opinions which have been avowed by the greatest naturalists that have ever lived, I rejoice to strengthen my own opinion by such high authorities. M. le Baron Cuvier, in a paper published in 1795, divided all invertebrate animals into six groups, the vertebrates forming the seventh.[9] Our eminent countryman, Mr. Kirby, observes: "The number five, which Mr. MacLeay assumes for one basis of his system, as consecrated in nature, seems to me to yield to the number seven, which is consecrated both in nature and in Scripture. Metaphysicians reckon seven principal operations of the mind; musicians seven primary musical notes; and opticians seven primary colours. In Scripture the abstract idea of this number is fulness, completeness, perfection. I have a notion, though not yet sufficiently matured, that Mr. MacLeay's quinaries are resolvable into septenaries."[10] Our own observation will speedily convince us, that most groups of animals with which we are tolerably well acquainted are divisible into seven; we shall never find the number greater, and when less, we shall invariably perceive that the deficiency exists in groups of which our knowledge is particularly limited, for the perfection of a septenary distribution of any particular group will depend entirely on our acquaintance with that group: thus the groups at present known by the names Mammalia, Aves, and Insecta, resolve themselves instantly into sevens. No ingenuity can frame eight good groups of either, and no scheme, however plausible, can reduce the number to sixes or fives. An attempt to reduce birds into five groups has been made in this country; I cannot do better than refer the reader to it as a triumphant confirmation of the predominance of the number seven.[11] The great LinnÆus assigned to Mammalia seven orders, to Aves six, and to Insecta seven, in a system which, though capable of improvement in many of the orders, evidently points to the truth, and considering his limited means of reference, compared with what the naturalist now possesses, was a remarkable and magnificent monument of human talent.[12]

To go back two thousand years before the birth of LinnÆus, may be thought rather an unlikely mode of obtaining proof of the value of a modern theory in natural history; yet at that time we find a system of insects[13] divided so accurately into seven groups, that every attempt to improve it has, as far as regards these great groups, proved an utter fallacy. Now this array of names, Aristotle, LinnÆus, Cuvier and Kirby, thus corroborating Holy Writ, even in direct opposition to our own observations, is entitled to a good degree of confidence; but how much more cheerfully is that confidence given when our own unbiassed judgment must thoroughly coincide!

Presuming, therefore, that a septenary and circular arrangement, with one seventh superior to the others, does exist in nature, its first application must necessarily be made to the result of the six days' creation, which I consider as typifying six grand groups of matter, and the seventh—the day of rest, emphatically commanded to be kept holy—that Omnipotence who created and presides over the stupendous work.[14]

To trace nature from the trivial differences which may distinguish between two kindred mosses—differences scarcely to be detected by the practised eye of the botanist—upwards to the grand grouping of organized matter, into kingdoms containing myriads of such species,—to define accurately major and minor divisions, and assign to each division, and each individual, its appropriate place in an enduring system, is a task, in all probability, far beyond the mental powers of any single individual, especially when we consider the interesting facts and fresh objects which are daily added to our store in such number as must convince the student that as yet he scarcely possesses a knowledge of one hundredth part of nature's works;[15] but, to pencil a dim and dubious outline,—to suggest whether nature has not aimed at such and such conclusions,—whether she has not chosen such and such paths, without making the slightest attempt to bend or turn her aside from her course where it does not precisely coincide with his own artificial schemes, may be fairly claimed as the privilege of any of her students, and ought to be freely granted to him by his fellow-labourers.

In looking for a centre around which to arrange the almost infinite hosts of the animal kingdom, the vanity of man naturally enough suggests himself; but to gratify this vanity, he must submit to the somewhat mortifying necessity of admitting six families of apes and monkies to his immediate company, and the tribe thus constituted may be termed Primates,—a name originally conferred on it by LinnÆus. Anatomy, as well as external appearances, prove the propriety of this arrangement, however repulsive the idea may be to our false feelings of exclusiveness. Primates thus constituted, will be found to be the central seventh of a larger group, termed Mammalia by LinnÆus; a group, which includes all the truly viviparous and mammiferous animals. Amongst the outermost of these, as we retrograde gradually from the type, man, we shall find a bird typified in the bat; a shark in the seal; many other fish in the whale; a tortoise, crocodile, and slender lizards, in the armadillos, ant-eaters, &c., all thus exhibiting a tendency to borrow characters from other approaching groups. Mammalia, thus surrounded, must of necessity be the central of seven groups, within the compass of which will be found all animals which possess a frame of connected bones and a spinal marrow; these are termed Vertebrata, and, I think, will be found to constitute a central seventh of all animated nature.

From this it will be apparent, that there are in nature forty-nine groups of animals, each of about the same value as Mammalia, as far as regards their relation to a whole. Distrustful of my own very limited knowledge of the subject, and fearful of encumbering science with crude theories and ill-defined divisions and characters which future discoveries may hereafter totally subvert, I shall content myself with observing, that I believe in the existence of such groups, and shall not presume to give them, at present, definitions or even names: the charge of ignorance is merited and easy to be borne, but the charge of attempting to establish divisions, in order to secure the paltry fame of naming them, I hope not to deserve.

In some instances, these tribes or sub-kingdoms seem pointed out by nature's self in so decided a manner, that the lisping infant will at once recognise them. Where this is the case, what can definition avail? Let us refer to birds as one of these clearly marked divisions. I single it out as better understood than either of the others. Let us ask, To what does all the arrangement tend which has here been so lavishly bestowed? To utter confusion, volume after volume, essay after essay, open their yawning leaves, and repeat, again and again, one and all, utter hopeless, unintelligible confusion. But if, neglecting the high authorities on the subject in toto, we condescend to consult nature, we shall soon perceive that birds readily range themselves in seven good and clearly defined groups; one of which is preeminently distinguished from the rest, and yet partakes in some one or other of its component genera of the characters of all the other groups; such a sub-class must, therefore, be central; and, by a little care in availing himself of the most obvious approaches, the naturalist will find every other sub-class, and order, and genus, beautifully filling up their appropriate situations, without causing any of those distortions which so disfigure every existing arrangement of this interesting tribe. Syrrhaptes, Serpentarius, and all those hitherto parodoxical creatures which seem to have frightened our ornithologists out of their wits, are now not only admissible, but absolutely necessary to connect tribes which no one had previously supposed in the least degree related;—but I will not here forestall, as an attempt to point out the numerous and unlooked-for relations existing among the genera of birds, which the present plan has served to develop, forms the subject of a separate essay, already in a state of forwardness; and the more immediate object of my present inquiry, although a tenant of the air, is not to be sought for among its feathered tribes. I will, therefore, leave these for the present, fully intending that the ornithologist as well as the entomologist shall have an opportunity of examining whether my theory has truth and reason to support it, or whether he must condemn it as an ignis fatuus of the brain.

The law that rules animal rules also vegetable nature: the phÆnogamous plants present a centre very nearly corresponding, in relative value, to vertebrates among animals; these, again, offer equal scope for subdivision; and the surrounding vegetations must be those at present termed cryptogamous, which vary as greatly among themselves as they collectively do from the more perfect and central ones: the various tribes of Fungi, AlgÆ, Filices, Musci, &c., possessing wonderfully varied forms and characters, and assuming every size from the gigantic fern of the tropical islands to that almost invisible Mucor, which seems, by its instantaneous appearance, to be for ever floating in the air, prepared to vegetate wherever it may chance to fall, and has often afforded arguments to those who deny the dictum of omnia ex ovo, and support that of spontaneous reproduction; thus ennobling these almost nonentities, by assigning to them properties which man might pine for in vain, and which cannot be the attributes of dust.

The centre for each particular group will not always derive that mark of superiority from its size, or intelligence, or beauty, or complicated structure, but from a combination of these qualities, and more particularly from uniting in itself the principal and more decidedly distinguishing characters of the group of which it forms the nucleus, and the gradation will by no means be found to be regular, from the most perfect in the centre to the least perfect on the circumference of minor groups, although I imagine this relative position to obtain in the extremes: on the contrary, the approaches towards perfection or imperfection will be infinitely varied, presenting the most complete labyrinth of intricacies that imagination can conceive, yet all disposed with that beautiful and wonderful regularity which proclaims more loudly than words, that "the natural system is the plan of creation itself, the work of an all-wise all-powerful Deity."[16]