186 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
than between others more closely related. From 
these proofs, which come home to the conviction of 
all, the student will readily perceive that there are 
relations of analogy, as well as relations of affinity ; 
and he will plainly see the theoretical difference be- 
tween them, disconnected from any particular system 
or theory. To deny the existence of such relations, 
is to deny the existence of our senses. 
(126.) It further appears, from the examples just 
given, that there are different degrees of analogies ; 
some being more striking than others: hence they 
become either zmmediate or remote. We say that an 
analogical resemblance is zmmediate, when it con- 
cerns animals of the same class, as that of the monkey 
and the lion; and we term it remote, when the com- 
parison is made between individuals of different 
classes, — between quadrupeds and birds, — as just 
exemplified. In the former case, the animals com- 
pared come nearer to each other in the order of 
nature than do the latter, and their mutual resem- 
blance is consequently greater. The degrees of 
affinity, on the contrary, are much fewer, and more 
circumscribed in their range. No animal can have 
an affinity, except to those which stand in the same 
group, or which immediately precede, or immediately 
follow it. But its analogies, as will hereafter be 
seen, may be traced throughout all other groups 
of the same class, and even, in some cases, through- 
out the whole animal kingdom. 
(127.) It must, then, be received as an incontest- 
ible truth, that every animal has a twofold relation 
to others. By one of these it is united, like the link 
of a chain, by direct affinity to others of its kind: 
