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48204 results in Zoology

Page 2365 of 2411

  • CHAP. III

  • William Swainson
  • Book:
    A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural History
    Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    24 September 2009, pp 367-427
    First published in:
    1834

  • Summary

    (252.) In extending the foregoing reflections to the suggestion of means for obviating the evils therein complained of, and for giving to the science of the country that efficient support which it so much requires, we feel that we are entering upon a subject of difficulty and delicacy. Those who are averse to the innovation of established customs, institutions, or modes of thinking, are always more numerous than those who imagine they can be improved. This feeling is natural to the mass of mankind. Few have either the energy, or the inclination, to look deeply into things which they have been accustomed to see go on, year after year, in the same course; and which, they therefore conclude, require neither alteration nor amendment. Say what we will, the mind leans with a degree of fondness, if not of veneration, to every thing which has the authority of antiquity, or of long-continued usage; and these feelings are increased, if those whom we most esteem, and who may have to administer our ancient laws, conscientiously defend their continuance. On the other hand it is to be remembered, that all institutions, to be extensively beneficial, must be altered and modified to suit that progressive improvement which is the consequence of good government. So plain a truth as this, none can be found to deny in the abstract; but the moment we come to apply it in its particulars, — to single out any one case which, for assigned reasons.

  • CHAP. II

  • William Swainson
  • Book:
    A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural History
    Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    24 September 2009, pp 165-187
    First published in:
    1834

  • Summary

    (103.) There are two modes by which our knowledge of natural history can be successfully prosecuted. The first of these is to commence with investigating the forms and properties of species; combining them, according to their degrees of similarity, into groups or assemblages of different magnitudes; and then attempting to discover what general inferences can be drawn from such combinations, or, in other words, what are the principles by which their variations are regulated. This is the analytical method, by which we commence, as with an alphabet; and from letters determine words; from words proceeding to sentences; and, combining these, again, to chapters. By the second mode, we proceed quite differently. We begin by taking for granted the correctness of certain given principles, and apply them to the investigation and arrangement of some particular group. This is the synthetic mode. By the first, we commence as if all general laws were yet to be discovered; by the latter, as if they were already known, and only required a more particular or extended application.

    (104.) As all true knowledge of the combinations of nature must originate in analysis, we shall first intimate how this can be most successfully prosecuted.

Page 2365 of 2411