142 M. Agassiz ofi the Classification of Fishes. 



themselves so as to represent the most admirable progressive 

 development, in which our own species forms one of the links ; 

 are not these indisputable proofs of the existence of a superior 

 Intelligence, whose power alone could ^establish such an order 

 of things 1 But such is the severity of our method of investi- 

 gation, that what we feel to be altogether natural cannot be 

 admitted by our reason, until supported by facts, as numerous 

 as they are well established ; and it is for this reason that I 

 have delayed till the last moment to express my convictions 

 on this subject. Not that I have shrunk from the discussions 

 which the announcement of such results must necessarily ex- 

 cite, but because I have not wished to provoke them before 

 being able to settle them on a purely scientific foundation, and 

 support them by substantial demonstrations, rather than by a 

 profession of faith. Upwards of fifteen hundred species of 

 fossil fishes with which I have become acquainted, convince 

 me that the species do no pass into one another, but that they 

 appear and disappear unexpectedly, without having any direct 

 relations to their predecessors ; for I do not imagine that it 

 can be seriously pretended that the numerous types of the 

 Cycloides and of the'Ctenoides, which are almost all cotempo- 

 rary with each other, descend from the Placoides and the 

 Ganoides. It might as well, in truth, be affirmed that the 

 mammifera, and man among them, descend directly from 

 fishes. All these species have a fixed period of appearance and 

 disappearance ; their existence is even limited to a determi- 

 nate time ; and yet they present, when viewed as a whole, 

 numerous affinities more or less close ; a determinate co-ordi- 

 nation in a given system of organisation, which possesses inti- 

 mate relations with the mode of existence of each type, and 

 even of each species. There runs, moreover, an invisible 

 thread, at all times, across this immense diversity, and pre- 

 sents to us, as a definite result, a continual progress in this de- 

 velopment, of which man is the termination, of which the four 

 classes of vertebrate animals occupy the intermediate position, 

 and the whole of the invertebrate animals are a constant acces- 

 sory accompaniment. Are not these manifestations of a Mind 

 as powerful as it is fruitful I acts of an intelligence as sublime 

 as it is prescient '? marks of a goodness as infinite as it is wise ? 

 the most palpable demonstration of the existence of a personal 



