FUNDAMENTAL RELATIONS OF ANIMALS 9 



the unconscious interpreters of a Divine conception in our attempts 

 to expound nature? And when, in our pride of philosophy, we 

 thought that we were inventing systems of science and classifying 

 creation by the force of our own reason, have we followed only, and 

 reproduced, in our imperfect expressions, the plan whose founda- 

 tions were laid in the dawn of creation, and the development of 

 which we are laboriously studying — thinking, as we put together 

 and arrange our fragmentary knowledge, that we are introducing 

 order into chaos anew? Is this order the result of the exertions of 

 human skill and ingenuity, or is it inherent in the objects them- 

 selves, so that the intelligent student of Natural History is led un- 

 consciously, by the study of the animal kingdom itself, to these con- 

 clusions, the great divisions under which he arranges animals being 

 indeed but the headings to the chapters of the great book which he 

 is reading? To me it appears indisputable that this order and arrange- 

 ment of our studies are based upon the natural, primitive relations 

 of animal life — those systems to which we have given the names of 

 the great leaders of our science who first proposed them being in 

 truth but translations into human language of the thoughts of the 

 Creator. And if this is indeed so, do we not find in this adaptability 

 of the human intellect to the facts of creation,'''^ by which we become 

 instinctively, and, as I have said, unconsciously, the translators of the 

 thoughts of God, the most conclusive proof of our affinity with the 

 Divine Mind? And is not this intellectual and spiritual connection 

 with the Almighty worthy our deepest consideration? If there is any 

 truth in the belief that man is made in the image of God, it is surely 

 not amiss for the philosopher to endeavor, by the study of his own 

 mental operations, to approximate the workings of the Divine Rea- 

 son, learning from the nature of his own mind better to understand 

 the Infinite Intellect from which it is derived. Such a suggestion may 

 at first sight appear irreverent. But who is the truly humble? He who, 

 penetrating into the secrets of creation, arranges them under a 

 formula which he proudly calls his scientific system? Or he who, in 



isting in nature — no matter how — which the human mind may trace and reproduce 

 in a systematic form of its own invention. 



""" The human mind is in tune with nature, and much that appears as a result of the 

 working of our intelligence is only the natural expression of that preestablished 

 harmony. On the other hand the whole universe may be considered as a school in 

 which man is taught to know himself, and his relations to his fellow beings, as well as 

 to the First Cause of all that exists. 



