Unless these affinities, which I have fully detailed, can be disproved
or explained by some other mode of reasoning, it seems to me impossible
to arrive at any other conclusion*.
Such are the principles of natural arrangement discoverable by
analysis, which more or less pervade the entire order of Perching
Birds. Aware that they are, in a great measure, opposed to every
theory yet started upon the subject, I have been anxious to establish
them by facts which are incontrovertible, and by arguments founded
not merely upon structure, but upon every circumstance, even the
most trivial, that is yet known of the economy of the birds themselves.
It is with these facts, and with these inferences, that such naturalists
as wish to establish other conclusions must deal.
It cannot be too often repeated, that science has nothing to do with
mere opinions, or with abstract reasoning. Authentic facts and just
inferences, the former capable of being verified, and the latter founded
exclusively upon analysis, and in unison with some general harmony
of creation, are the only arguments which will possess any permanent
influence.
The truth or the fallacy of these opinions must therefore entirely
repose upon the proofs here adduced ; for although similar results have
attended the investigation of other departments of nature, these
results have not yet been laid before the public in detail f, and conse-
* Recent investigations in another department of Zoology, more abundant in forms and species
than that of the class Aves, lead me strongly to suspect the existence of another property in natural
groups, which at present I shall merely state as an hypothesis. It is the union of the most aberrant
group in one circle, with the most aberrant in the next; so that in a diagram of the Order I nsessores,
formed either on Mr. Made ay’s plan of five circles, or of mine upon three, one circle would unite all
the Tenuirostral types, another the Fissirostral and Scansorial, and a third the typical and sub-typical.
The whole would thus be represented by three great circles, one within the other, and this without
the least derangement o f the series here exhibited. It must, however, be premised, that this principle
cannot be clea,rly traced in Ornithology, because the Tenuirostral or Grallatorial groups are remarkably
deficient in their numerical contents. In Entomology, the very reverse of this appears to be the
case; and it is there, if my suspicions are well founded, that it may probably be detected.
t The essential characters of several of the groups in Conchology, slightly mentioned in the two
volumes of ‘ Zoological Illustrations,’ new series, now in course of publication, depend upon the same
laws. I may also be allowed to cite, in corroboration of the theory now advanced, “ The principles
which appear to regulate the geographic distribution of man and of animals,’ as detailed in the | Encyclopedia
of Geography,’ p. 245—266, the proofs sheets of which are now before me. So far as
concerns the variation of Man, I feel all the confidence that can result from being supported by such
philosophers as Cuvier and Blumenbach. On this point the theory is theirs,not mine. (July 1831.)
quently possess as yet no claim to corroborative evidence. Seeing,
nevertheless, that the longest life is insufficient to analyse more than
an insignificant portion of Nature’s works, and that centuries, probably,
may elapse before the true arrangement of all known animals, by
such a mode of investigation, can be detected, the mind may be allowed
to take a wider range; and, presuming that a system regulating such
an important and comprehensive class of the animal kingdom would
necessarily pervade all nature, let us briefly consider the subject under
this light, divested of metaphysical definitions.
1. The true nature of Matter has never yet, and probably never will
be, clearly understood. Philosophers, however, distinguish two divisions,
to which they give the names of ■ ponderable and imponderable;
while electricity, which, from its peculiar phenomena, cannot be comprised
under either, is still conceived by some to form a third.
2. As ponderosity is that quality of matter by which it is most distinguished
from Time and Space*, from Light and Heat, so we may
esteem it the typical peculiarity of Matter.
3. Ponderable matter, in common language, is termed a body, and
of such bodies we know only of three sorts—i. Animals ; ii. Vegetables ;
and iii. Minerals—the two first being organic, the latter inorganic.
The general sense of mankind, from the earliest ages to the present
time, has concurred in considering all the substances composing our
globe as belonging to one or other of these three divisions or kingdoms.
This conclusion, indeed, is so natural, and appears to me so
just, that it seems almost needless to uphold its propriety. It has
been insisted, however*, that the primary division of matter is into
organic and inorganic f. Now, to use this distinction j; in common
* See Horae Ent., 179. t Horae Ent., p. 175.
t ‘ Who does not see that I was here hinting at the quinary division of matter as much as if I
had expressed it tabularly thus?
MATTER.
Normal Group, [I. Animals.
Organic. (2. Vegetables.
{3 * 1 * 4 ’ * * *
5* | | n
—Macleay’s Letter to Dr. Fleming, p. 10.
Mr. Macleay, however, upon a former occasion, observes, with more justice, * We have two natural,
but I fear somewhat arbitrary, divisions of matter into organic and inorganic. No person denies the