22 ESSAY ON CLASSIFICATION. 



the Temperate zone, or those of the Tropics and those of 

 the Antarctic regions : there is none between the foxes 

 and the wolves of the most distant parts of the globe. 1 

 Moreover, if there were any, and the specific differ- 

 ences existing between them were insisted upon, could 

 any relation between these differences and the cosmic 

 influences under which they live, be pointed out, which 

 would at the same time account for the independence of 

 their structure in general ? Or, in other words, how could 

 it l)e assumed, that, while these causes produce specific 

 differences, they at the same time produce generic iden- 

 tity, family identity, ordinal identity, class identity, typi- 

 cal identity 1 Identity in every thing that is truly 

 important, high, and complicated in the structure of 

 animals, produced by the most diversified influences, 

 while at the same time these extreme physical differ- 

 ences, considered as the cause of the existence of these 

 animals, produce diversity in secondary relations only ! 

 What logic ! 



Does not all this show, on the contrary, that organized 

 beings exhibit the most astonishing independence of the 

 physical causes under which they live, an independence 

 so great that it can only be understood as the result of a 

 power governing the physical causes themselves, as well 

 as the existence of the animals and plants, and bringing 

 all into harmonious relations by adaptations which can 

 never be considered as cause and effect ? 



When naturalists have investigated the influence of 

 physical causes upon living beings, they have constantly 

 overlooked the fact that the features which are thus 



1 Innumerable other examples naturalists. Those mentioned above 

 might be quoted, which will readily may suffice for my argument, 

 present themselves to professional 



