FUNDAMENTAL RELATIONS OF ANIMALS. 



whose foundations were laid in the dawn of creation, and 

 the development of which we are laboriously studying, 

 thinking, as we put together and arrange our fragmentary 

 knowledge, that we are introducing order into chaos 

 anew 1 Is tins order the result of the exertions of human 

 skill and ingenuity; or is it inherent in the objects them- 

 selves, so that the intelligent student of Natural History 

 is led unconsciously, by the study of the animal kingdom 

 itself, to these conclusions ; the great divisions under which 

 he arranges animals being indeed but the headings to the 



o o * > 



chapters of the great book which he is reading \ To me it 

 appears indisputable, that this order and arrangement of 

 our studies are based upon the natural, primitive relations 

 of animal life, those systems, to which we have given 

 the names of the great leaders of our science who first 

 proposed them being in truth but translations into hu- 

 man language of the thoughts of the Creator. And if 



O o O 



this is indeed so, do we not find in this adaptability of the 

 human intellect to the facts of creation, 1 by which we be- 

 come instinctively, and, as I have said, unconsciously, the 

 translators of the thoughts of God, the most conclusive 

 proof of our affinity with the Divine mind \ and is not 

 this intellectual and spiritual connection with the Al- 

 mighty worthy of our deepest consideration ? If there is 

 any truth in the belief that man is made in the image of 

 God, it is surely not amiss for the philosopher to endeavour, 

 by the study of his own mental operations, to approximate 

 the workings of the Divine Eeason, learning from the 

 nature of his own. mind better to understand the Infinite 



1 The human mind is in tune with may be considered as a school in 



nature, and much that appears as a which man is taught to know himself, 



result of the working of our intelli- and his relations to his fellow beings, 



gence is only the natural expression as well as to the First Cause of all 



of that preestablished harmony. On that exists. 

 the other hand the whole universe 



^LIBRARY? 



