8 ESSAY ON CLASSIFICATION. Part I. 



they the devices of the human mind to classify and arrange our knowledge in such 

 a manner as to bring it more readily within our grasp and facilitate further investi- 

 gations, or have they been instituted by the Divine Intelligence as the categories of 

 his mode of thinking ? ^ Have w^e, perhaps, thus far been only 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 foundations were laid in the 

 dawn of creation, and the development of which we are laboriously studying, — think- 

 ing, as we put together and arrange our fragmentary knowledge, that we are anew 

 introducino- order into chaos? Is this order the result of the exertions of human skill 

 and ingenuity, or is it inherent in the objects themselves, so that the intelligent stu- 

 dent of Natural History is led unconsciously, by the study of the animal kingdom 

 itself, to these conclusions, 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 arrangement 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 

 Avorthy 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 

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

 Intellect from wdiich it is derived. Such a suggestion may, at first sight, appear irrev- 

 erent. But, which is the truly humble ? He who, penetrating into the secrets of cre- 

 ation, arranges them under a formula which he proudly calls his scientific system? or 

 he who, in the same pursuit, recognizes his glorious afliuity with the Creator, and, in 

 deepest gratitude for so sublime a birthright, strives to be the faithful interpreter of 

 that Divine Intellect with whom he is permitted, nay, with whom he is intended, 

 according to the laws of his being, to enter into communion ? 



1 It must not be overlooked here that a system of a Creator, but merely as the expression of a 



may be natural, that is, may agree in every respect fact existing in nature, no matter how, which the 



with the facts in nature, and yet not be considered human mind may trace and reproduce in a system- 



by its author as the manifestation of the thoughts atic form of its own invention. 



