Ornithological dictionary of British birds / By G. Montagu.

  • George Montagu
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ornithological dictionary of British birds / By G. Montagu. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    these dreams are either avowedly atheistical, by ascribing, with Robinet and Lamarck, the divine workmanship of the Cre- ator, to the self-originating efforts of animals, to get, by what is termed transition or progress, into groups, having the assumed nearest affinity to themselves; or tacitly atheistical, by adopt- ing this very language, while the Creator is at the same time distinctly, though most incongruously, acknowledged: it is my imperative duty, I conceive, when treating of the sub- ject of this volume, to enter my strongest protest, with the reasons thereof, against the innovation. Mr. MacLeay and his followers are obviously amenable to the latter charge; for though they exhibit a tone of religious sentiment, sound, lofty, and enthusiastic, they seldom fail to follow it up, (incongruous and inconsistent as it so clearly is,) with the pernicious language of the French school, as promulgated by Lamarck, Cuvier, and their adherents, who are indeed men of undoubted talent, but it must not be disputed that they have deplorably misap- plied their powers, by leaving the path of observation, to flounder about in the Nilotic mud of atheistical metaphysics, though they might have learned from Lucretius, that, even in his time, the mud of the Nile had ceased to be spontaneously prolific.* If it were in my power, I should be most happy to clear Mr. MacLeay and his followers from the contamination of such writers, but he seems himself to be anxious to acknow- ledge his obligations to them. ‘TI have,” he says, ‘peculiar reasons for stating that it is to the labours of these distinguished naturalists’ [Cuvier, Lamarck, &c.] “that I feel myself more particularly indebted.” + Again—‘ I am so far removed from the scientific world, that I know not whether Lamarck be alive or dead; but I revere him if still on earth, and respect his memory if he has ascended to a better place. ‘Time has only shown me more and more the truth of what eight years ago I said of him. ‘His peculiar and very singular opinions have never gained many converts in his own country, and I believe none in this. They are indeed only to be understood by those who are already supplied with the means of refuting them; so that the mischief * De Natura Rerum, v. 826. + Hore Entomol. i. 171. d
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