220 AFFINITIES AND GEOGRAPHICAL 



also, in the third, the bats the sloths and the apes appear 

 in precisely the same series of relations. Whether there be 

 still another grade of sub-analogies, I will not take it upon 

 me to pronounce. 



It may here be remarked that this system is not affected by 

 any determination which may be arrived at with regard to the 

 genealogy of the birds ; for these, whether descended from one 

 order of reptiles or all three, would exhibit the same group- 

 ings. It may also be remarked that their supposed descend- 

 ants, the Edentata, Rodentia, and Insectivora, conform to the 

 relations as thus collocated. The Fish must not yet be specu- 

 lated upon ; but in the Mollusca, I am tempted to think that 

 the relations apply in this order Cephalopoda Gasteropoda 

 Cochifera. 



Even with those relations here indicated, we acquire first 

 the idea of three great strands of organic being, each composed 

 of three inferior strands, respectively representing the principal 

 lines, and which probably were the true genealogical series of 

 our system. Verily, it would give us a curious conception of 

 organic nature, if we could satisfy ourselves that, like chemistry, 

 it had a mysterious foundation in mathematical proportions. 

 Threes under threes, each subordinate three reflecting the 

 ternity to which it belongs, and all others ! Such an idea is 

 obviously favourable to the development theory, as arguing a 

 unity in animated nature and the definite character of its 

 entire constitution. It suggests how, under the flowing robes 

 of nature, where all looks arbitrary and accidental, there is an 

 artificiality of the most rigid kind. The Natural appears to 

 sink into and merge in a higher Artificial. To adopt a com- 

 parison more apt than dignified, we may be said to be placed 

 here as insects in a garden of the old style. Our first unas- 

 sisted view is limited, and we perceive only the irregularities 

 of the minute surface, and single shrubs which appear arbi- 

 trarily scattered. But our view at length extending and 

 becoming more comprehensive, we begin to see parterres ba- 

 lancing each other, trees, statues, and arbours placed sym- 

 metrically, and that the whole is an assemblage of parts 

 mutually reflective. It can scarcely be necessary to point to 

 the inference hence arising with regard to the origination of 

 nature in some Power, of which man's mind is a humble and 

 faint representation. The insects of the garden, supposing 

 them to be invested with reasoning power, and aware how 

 artificial are their own works, might, of course, very reasonably 



