14 ESSAY ON CLASSIFICATION 



the contrary, that these organisms may have appeared in the begin- 

 ning over a wide area, is to grant, at the same time, that the physical 

 influences under which they existed at first were not so specific as to 

 justify the assumption that these could be the cause of their appear- 

 ance. In whatever connection, then, the first appearance of organ- 

 ized beings upon earth is viewed, whether it is assumed that they 

 originated within the most limited areas, or over the widest range 

 of their present natural geographical distribution, animals and plants 

 being everywhere diversified to the most extraordinary extent, it is 

 plain that the physical influences under which they subsist cannot 

 logically be considered as the cause of that diversity. In this, as in 

 every other respect, when considering the relations of animals and 

 plants to the conditions under which they live, or to one another, 

 we are inevitably led to look beyond the material facts of the case for 

 an explanation of their existence. Those who have taken another 

 view of this subject, have mistaken the action and reaction which 

 exist everywhere between organized beings, and the physical influ- 

 ences under which they live^* for a causal or genetic connection, 

 and carried their mistake so far as to assert that these manifold in- 

 fluences could really extend to the production of these beings; not 

 considering how inadequate such a cause would be, and that even 



conditions, in different species, passes successively through all those changes which 

 lead to the formation of a new perfect being. I then would ask, is it probable that the 

 circumstances under which animals and plants originated for the first time can be 

 much simpler, or even as simple, as the conditions necessary for their reproduction 

 only, after they have once been created? Preliminary, then, to their first appearance, 

 the conditions necessary for their growth must have been provided for, if, as I believe, 

 they were created as eggs, which conditions must have been conformable to those in 

 which the living representatives of the types first produced now reproduce them- 

 selves. If it were assumed that they originated in a more advanced stage of life, the 

 difficulties would be still greater, as a moment's consideration cannot fail to show, 

 especially if it is remembered how complicated the structure of some of the animals 

 was which are known to have been among the first inhabitants of our globe. When 

 investigating this subject it is of course necessary to consider the first appearance of 

 animals and plants upon the basis of probabilities only, or even simply upon that 

 of possibilities; as with reference to these first-born, at least, the transmutation theory 

 furnishes no explanation of their existence. 



For every species belonging to the first fauna and the first flora which have existed 

 upon earth, special relations, special contrivances must, therefore, have been provided. 

 Now, what would be appropriate for the one would not suit the other, so that, exclud- 

 ing one another in this way, they cannot have originated upon the same point; while 

 within a wider area physical agents are too uniform in their mode of action to have 

 laid the foundation for so many such specific differences as existed between the first 

 inhabitants of our globe. 



" See below, Sect. xvi. 



