8 ESSAY ON CLASSIFICATION. 



distinct genus, a distinct family, a distinct class, a distinct 

 branch. Is not this in itself evidence enough that genera, 

 families, orders, classes and types have the same founda- 

 tion in nature as species, and that the individuals living 

 at the time have alone a material existence, they being 

 the bearers, not only of all the different categories of struc- 

 ture upon which the natural system of animals is founded, 

 but also of all the relations which animals sustain to the 

 surrounding world, thus showing that species do not 

 exist in nature in a different way from the higher groups, 

 as is so generally believed \ 



The divisions of animals according to branch, class, 

 order, family, genus, and species, by which we express the 

 results of our investigations into the relations of the 

 animal kingdom, and which constitute the primary ques- 

 tion respecting any system of Zoology, seem to me to 

 deserve the consideration of all thoughtful minds. Are 

 those divisions artificial or natural ? Are they the devices 

 of the human mind to classify and arrange our knowledge 

 in such a manner as to bring it more readily within our 

 grasp and facilitate further investigations, or have they 

 been instituted by the Divine Intelligence as the cate- 

 gories of his mode of thinking r i l Have we, perhaps, thus 

 far been only the unconscious interpreters of a Divine 

 conception, in our attempts to expound nature ? and 

 when in our pride of philosophy we thought that we 

 were inventing systems of science, and classifying creation 

 by the force of our own reason, have we followed only, 

 and reproduced, in our imperfect expressions, the plan 



i It must not be overlooked here but merely as the expression of a 



that a system may be natural, that fact existing in nature no matter 



is, may agree in every respect with how which the human mind may 



the facts in nature, and yet not be trace and reproduce in a systematic 



considered by its author as the mani- form of its own invention, 

 festation of the thoughts of a Creator, 



