30 ESSAY ON CLASSIFICATION. 



were cast in these four moulds, in such a manner as 

 to exhibit, notwithstanding their complicated relations to 

 the surrounding world, all those more deeply seated 

 general relations that establish among them the different 

 degrees of affinity which we may trace so readily in all 

 the representatives of the same type 1 Does all this really 

 look more like the working of blind forces than like the 

 creation of a reflective mind, establishing deliberately all 

 the categories of existence which we recognize in nature, 

 and combining them into that wonderful harmony, which 

 unites all things into such a perfect system, that even to 

 read it as it is established, or even with all the imperfec- 

 tions of a translation, must be considered as the highest 

 achievement of the maturest genius \ 



Nothing seems to me to prove more directly and more 

 fully the action of a reflective mind, to indicate more 

 plainly a deliberate consideration of the subject, than the 

 different categories upon which species, genera, families, 

 orders, classes, and branches are founded in nature, and 

 manifested in material reality in a succession of indivi- 

 duals, the life of which is limited in its duration to com- 

 paratively very short periods. The great wonder in these 

 relations consists in the fugitive character of the bearers 

 of this complicated harmony. For, while species persist 

 during long periods, the individuals which represent them 

 are ever changing, one set dying after the other in quick 

 succession. Genera, it is true, may extend over longer 

 periods ; families, orders and classes may even have existed 

 throughout all periods during which animals have existed 

 at all ; but, whatever may have been the duration of their 

 existence, at all times these different divisions have stood 

 in the same relation to one another and to their respec- 

 tive branches, and have always been represented upon 



