DEGREES AND KINDS OF RELATIONSHIP. 29 



of them to one another and the surrounding world ; but 

 in the circumstance, that beings, endowed with such dif- 

 ferent and such unequal gifts, should nevertheless consti- 

 tute an harmonious whole, intelligibly connected in all its 

 parts. 



SECTION VI. 



VARIOUS DEGREES AND DIFFERENT KINDS OF RELATIONSHIP 



AMONG ANIMALS. 



The degrees of relationship existing between different 

 animals are most diversified. They are not only akin as 

 representatives of the same species, bearing as such the 

 closest resemblance to one another, but different species 

 may also be related as members of the same genus ; the 

 representatives of different genera may belong to the 

 same family ; and the same order may contain different 

 families, the same class different orders, and the same 

 type several classes. The existence of different degrees of 

 affinity, between animals and plants which have not the 

 remotest genealogical connection, which live in the most 

 distant parts of the world, which have existed in periods 

 long gone by in the history of our earth, is a fact beyond 

 dispute ; at least, within certain limits, no longer contro- 

 verted by well informed observers. Upon what can this 

 be founded 1 Is it that the retentive capacity of the 

 memory of the physical forces at work upon this globe is 

 such, that, after bringing forth a type according to one 

 pattern, in the infancy of this earth, that pattern was 

 adhered to under conditions, no matter how diversified, 

 to reproduce, at another period, something similar, and so 

 on, through all ages, until, at the period of the establish- 

 ment of the present state of things, all the infinitude of 

 new animals and new plants which now crowd its surface 



