FUNDAMENTAL RELATIONS OF ANIMALS 11 



The argument for the existence of an intelligent Creator is gen- 

 erally drawn from the adaptation of means to ends, upon which the 

 Bridgewater treatises,^ for example, have been based. But this does 

 not appear to me to cover the whole ground, for we can conceive 

 that the natural action of objects upon each other should result in 

 a final fitness of the universe and thus produce an harmonious whole; 

 nor does the argument derived from the connection of organs and 

 functions seem to me more satisfactory, for, beyond certain limits, 

 it is not even true. We find organs without functions, as, for instance, 

 the teeth of the whale, which never cut through the gum, the breast 

 in all males of the class of mammalia; these and similar organs are 

 preserved in obedience to a certain uniformity of fundamental struc- 

 ture, true to the original formula of that division of animal life, even 

 when not essential to its mode of existence. The organ remains, not 

 for the performance of a function, but with reference to a plan,^*' 

 and might almost remind us of what we often see in human struc- 

 tures, when, for instance, in architecture, the same external combi- 



the existence of living beings, even though these have a material body, unless it be 

 actually shown that the action of these laws implies by their very nature the produc- 

 tion of such beings. Life in appropriating the physical world to itself with all its pe- 

 culiar phenomena exhibits, however, some of its own and of a higher order, which can- 

 not be explained by physical agencies. The circumstance that life is so deeply rooted 

 in the inorganic nature, affords, nevertheless, a strong temptation to explain one by the 

 other; but we shall see presently how fallacious these attempts have been. 



^ [Named for Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater, who left £8,000 for 

 the writing of treatises on the "Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as Manifested 

 in the Creation." They included the first eight titles in the following Agassiz note, 

 and the fragment by Babbage.] 



Thomas Chalmers, The Adaptation of Exterrial Nature to the Moral and Intellectual 

 Constitution of Man (2 vols., Glasgow, 1839); John Kidd, The Adaptation of External 

 Nature to the Physical Condition of Man (London, 1833); William Whewell, Astron- 

 omy and General Physics Considered with Reference to Natural Theology (London, 

 1839); Charles Bell, The Hand, its Mechanism and Vital Endowments, as Evincing 

 Design (London, 1833); Peter M. Roget, Animal and Vegetable Physiology Considered 

 with Reference to Natural Theology (2 vols., London, 1834); William Buckland, 

 Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural Theology (2 vols., 

 London, 1836; 2d ed., 1837); William Kirby, The History, Habits, and Instincts of 

 Animals ... (2 vols., London, 1835); William Prout, Chemistry, Meteorology, and the 

 Function of Digestion Considered with Reference to Natural Theology (London, 1834). 

 Compare also, Hercule Strauss-Durkheim, Theologie de la Nature (3 vols., Paris, 1852); 

 Hugh Miller, Footprints of the Creator (Edinburgh, 1849; 3d ed., with a Memoir of 

 the Author by Louis Agassiz, Boston, 1853); Charles Babbage, The Ninth Bridgeivater 

 Treatise, a Fragment (2d ed., London, 1838). 



"The unity of structure of the limbs of club-footed or pinnated animals, in which 

 the fingers are never moved, with those which enjoy the most perfect articulations and 

 freedom of motion exhibits this reference most fully. 



