152 ESSAY ON CLASSIFICATION. 



done at all times. Who, in presence of such facts, could 

 assume any casual connexion between two series of phe- 

 nomena, the one of which is ever obeying the same laws, 

 while the other presents at every successive period new 

 relations, an ever changing gradation of new combinations, 

 leading to a final climax with the appearance of Man 1 

 Who does not see, on the contrary, that this identity of 

 the products of physical agents in all ages totally dis- 

 proves any influence on their part in the production of 

 these ever changing beings which constitute the organic 

 world, and which exhibit, as a whole, such striking evi- 

 dence of connected thoughts ! 



SECTION XXII. 



LOCALIZATION OF TYPES IN PAST AGES. 



The study of the geographical distribution of the ani- 

 mals now living upon earth has taught us that every spe- 

 cies of animals and plants has a fixed home, and even 

 that peculiar types may be circumscribed within definite 

 limits upon the surface of our globe. But it is only re- 

 cently, since geological investigations have been carried 

 on in remote parts of the world, that it has been ascer- 

 tained that this special localization of types extends to 



J- t/ JL 



past ages. Lund for the first time showed that the ex- 

 tinct Fauna of the Brazils, 1 during the latest period of a 

 past age, consisted of different representatives of the very 

 same types now prevalent in that continent; and Owen 

 has observed similar relations between the extinct Fauna 



1 LOND, (DR.,) Blik paa Brasiliens Afhandl. VIII. ; Kiobenhavn, 1841, 

 Byi'everdeii for sidste Jordonivtelt- 4to. tig., p. 61, etc. ; Engl. Abstract, 

 K. Daiiske Vidensk. Selsk. Aim. aiid Mag. vol. 3, p. 422. 



