GEOGRAPHICAL RANGE OF ANIMALS. 47 



of their kingdom, those of their class, those of their order, 

 those of their genus, and those of their species, to the 

 home assigned to them, and therefore were not produced 

 by the nature of the place, or of the element, or by any 

 other physical condition. 1 To maintain the contrary, would 

 really amount to asserting, that, wherever a variety of 

 organized beings live together, 110 matter how great their 

 diversity, the physical agents prevailing there must have 

 in their combined action the power of producing such a 

 diversity of structures as exists in animals, notwith- 

 standino- the close connection in which these animals 



o 



stand to them, or of working out an intimate relation to 

 themselves in beings, whose essential characteristics have 

 no reference to their nature. In other words, in all these 

 animals and plants there is one side of their organization 

 which has an immediate reference to the elements in 

 which they live, and another which has no such connec- 

 tion ; and yet it is precisely that part of the structure of 

 animals and plants, which has no direct bearing upon the 

 conditions in which they are placed in nature, which con- 

 stitutes their essential, their typical character. This 

 proves, beyond the possibility of an objection, that the 

 elements in which animals and plants live (and under 

 this expression I mean to include all that is commonly 

 included under the expressions of physical agents, phy- 

 sical causes, etc.) cannot in any way be considered as the 

 cause of their existence. 



1 In the study of the geographical rous and most heterogeneous types, 



distribution of animals and plants under all possible variations of clima- 



and their relations to the conditions tic influences, severally circumscribed 



under which they live, too little im- within the narrowest limits, seems to 



portance is attached to the circum- me to present the most insuperable 



stance that representations of the objection to the supposition that the 



most diversified types are everywhere organized beings, so combined, could 



found associated, within limited areas, in anyway have originated sponta- 



under identical conditions of exist- neously by the working of any natu- 



ence. These combinations of nume- ral law. 



