DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0173
AND LOWER EGYPT. 145
tions of this kind, should, at first sight, and with-
out farther examination, have imposed false deno-
minations on foreign animals, fomsome apparent
relation, whether in respeet of form or mode of
living, with known animals, is not a matter of
surprise : their manner of viewing objects was su-
perficial and vulgar, the results had the same de-
fects. But there is good reason to he surprised, that
naturalists by profession, that Hasselquitz, for ex-
ample, the pupil of an illustrious master, should
have fallen into the same errors. He is so murh
the less excusable, that he did not fix on the de-
nomination to be appropriated, till after a long and
even minute examination. But he had, like his
master Linnaeus, the mania of referring to the same
genus, beings which Hature had separated. This
union of objects, frequently very remote from each
other in the true system of nature, was founded
merely on certain approximations in the exterior
forms : approximations isolated, vague, taken by
chance, and so destitute of foundation, that they
might be given up, and were in fact given up, to
assume others equally precarious, by means of
which, the same animal changed place or genus,
at the pleasure of the nomenclator- *.
After having examined each form in particular,
to catch and to compare their combination; above
* See the proof of this in the nomenclature introduced in the
first note, bottom of the preceding page.
VOL. i. l all
tions of this kind, should, at first sight, and with-
out farther examination, have imposed false deno-
minations on foreign animals, fomsome apparent
relation, whether in respeet of form or mode of
living, with known animals, is not a matter of
surprise : their manner of viewing objects was su-
perficial and vulgar, the results had the same de-
fects. But there is good reason to he surprised, that
naturalists by profession, that Hasselquitz, for ex-
ample, the pupil of an illustrious master, should
have fallen into the same errors. He is so murh
the less excusable, that he did not fix on the de-
nomination to be appropriated, till after a long and
even minute examination. But he had, like his
master Linnaeus, the mania of referring to the same
genus, beings which Hature had separated. This
union of objects, frequently very remote from each
other in the true system of nature, was founded
merely on certain approximations in the exterior
forms : approximations isolated, vague, taken by
chance, and so destitute of foundation, that they
might be given up, and were in fact given up, to
assume others equally precarious, by means of
which, the same animal changed place or genus,
at the pleasure of the nomenclator- *.
After having examined each form in particular,
to catch and to compare their combination; above
* See the proof of this in the nomenclature introduced in the
first note, bottom of the preceding page.
VOL. i. l all