196 ESSAY ON CLASSIFICATION. 



that, in their respective great types, the phenomena of 

 animal life correspond to one another, whether we com- 

 pare their rank as determined by structural complication 

 with the phases of their growth, or with their succession 

 in past geological ages ; whether we compare this suc- 

 cession with their embryonic growth, or all these different 

 relations with each other and with the geographical distri- 

 bution of animals upon earth. The same series every- 

 where ! l These facts are true of all the great divisions of 

 the animal kingdom, so far as we have pursued the inves- 

 tigation ; and though, for want of materials, the train of 

 evidence is incomplete in some instances, yet we have proof 

 enough for the establishment of this law of a universal 

 correspondence in all the leading features which binds all 

 organized beings, of all times, into one great system, in- 

 tellectually and intelligibly linked together, even where 

 some links of the chain are missing. It requires con- 

 siderable familiarity with the subject even to keep in 

 mind the evidence ; for, though yet imperfectly under- 

 stood, it is the most brilliant result of the combined intel- 

 lectual efforts of hundreds of investigators during half a 

 century. The connection, however, between the facts, it 

 is easily seen, is only intellectual ; and implies, therefore, 

 the agency of Intellect as its first cause. 



And if the power of thinking connectedly is the privi- 

 lege of cultivated minds only ; if the power of combining 

 different thoughts, and of drawing from them new thoughts, 

 is a still rarer privilege of a few superior minds; if the 

 ability to trace simultaneously several trains of thought, is 

 such an extraordinary gift, that the few cases in which 



l Compare all the preceding sec- 2 AGASSIZ (L.), Contemplation of 

 tions, where every topic is considered God in the Kosmos, Christian Exa- 

 eeparately. miner, January 1851, Boston. 



