LOUIS AGASSIZ. ^Oo 



characters not to be found in the true members of this class, which form 

 its bulk at present." , 



The succession of organized beings in the course of time shoukl also 

 serve as a principle of classitication. Thus in arranging, as many bota- 

 nists do, the Gymnosperms among the Dicotyledons, we find no relation 

 between the hierarcliical series of the living plants and their mode of 

 appearance. If we make of the Gynuiosperms an isolated group, inter- 

 mediate between the Cryptogams and the Angiosperms, a classification 

 which corresponds with their principal characteristics, we find immedi- 

 ately an intimate correlation between the hierarchal series of these 

 plants, which commence with the Cryptogams and continue with the 

 Gymnosperms, the Monocotyledons, and Dicotyledons, and their suc- 

 cessi^'e appearance. 



" 1 confess," said Agassiz, "that this question as to the nature and 

 foundation of our scientific classifications appears to me to have the 

 deepest importance ; an importance far greater, indeed, than is usually 

 attached to it. If it can be proved that man has not mvented but only 

 traced this systematic arrangement in nature ; that these relations and 

 proportions which exist throughout the animal and vegetable world have 

 an intellectual, an ideal, connection in the mind of the Creator ; that this 

 plan of creation, which so commends itself to our highest wisdom, has 

 not grown out of the necessary action of physical laws, but was the free 

 conception of the Almighty Intellect, matured in His thought before it 

 was manifested in" tangible external forms ; if, in short, we can prove 

 premefHfation prior to the act of creation, we have done once and forever 

 with the desolate theory which refers us to the law^s of matter as account- 

 ing for all the wonders of the universe, and leaves us with no God but 

 the monotonous unvarying action of physical forces, binding all things 

 to their inevitable destiny. * * * 



" To me it appears indisimtable that this order and arrangement of 

 our studies are based upon the natural i)rimitive relations of animal 

 life ; those systems to which we have given the names of the great lead- 

 ers of our science who first proposed them, being in truth but transla- 

 tions 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 of our 

 deepest consideration f 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 comprehend the 

 workings of the Divine Keason, learning from the nature of his own mind 

 better to understand the Infinite Intellect from which it is derived."t 



*Essay on classification, Chap, i, sec. 26, p. 177. 



t Essay ou Classitication, chap, i, sec. 1, pp. 10 and 9. 



