ClIAP. I. 



FUNDA^FENTAL RELATIONS OF ANIMALS. 



9 



I confess that tliis question as to tlie nature and foundation of our scientific 

 classifications appears to nic 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 

 invented, but only traced this systematic arrangement in nature, that these relations 

 and proportions "which exist throughout the animal and vegetable Avorld have an 

 intellectual, an ideal connection in the mind of the Creator, that this plan of crea- 

 tion, 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 fonns, 

 — if, in short, we can prove premeditation prior to the act of creation, we have done, 

 once and for ever, Avith the desolate theory which refers us to the laws of matter as 

 accounting 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.^ I think our science has now reached that degree of advancement, in which 

 we may venture upon such an investigation. 



The argument for the existence of an intelligent Creator is generally drawn from 



' I alliiile here only to the doctrines of material- 

 ists ; but I feel it necessary to add, that there are 

 pliysicists, who might be shocked at the idea of being 

 considered as materialists, who are yet prone to be- 

 lieve tliat when they have recognized the laws which 

 regulate the physical world, and acknowledged that 

 these laws were established by the Deity, they have 

 explained every thing, even when tliey liave consid- 

 ered only the phenomena of the inorganic world, as 

 if tlic world contained no living beings and as if 

 these living beings exhibited nothing that differed 

 from the inorganic world. Mistaking for a causal 

 relation the intellectual connection observable be- 

 tween serial phenomena, they are unable to perceive 

 any difference between disorder and the free, indc- 

 pi nilrnt, and self-possessed action of a superior niind, 

 and call mysticism, even a ])assing allusion to the 

 existence of an immaterial principle in animals, wliich 

 they acknowledge themselves in man. [I'owKi.i/s 

 Essays, etc., p. 478, 385, and 4GG.] I wduld fiirihcr 

 remark, that, when speaking of creation in contra- 

 distinction with reproduction, I mean only to allude 

 to the ditlVrcncc tliere is between the regular course 

 of phenomena in naliin- and tlie establishment of tiiat 

 ordir of things, without attempting to explain eiliier; 



9 



for in whatever manner ar.y state of things which 

 has prevailed for a time upon earth may have been 

 introduced, it is self-evident that its establishment 

 and its maintenance for a determined period are two 

 very different things, however frequently they may 

 be mistaken as identical. It is further of itself plain 

 that the laws which may explain the phenomena of 

 the material world, in contradistinction from the or- 

 ganic, cannot be considered as accounting for 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 

 jiroduction of such beings. Thus far, Cross's cx]ieri- 

 ments are the only ones offered as proving such a 

 residt. I do not know what phj'sicists may think 

 al)out them now ; but T know lliat there is scarcely 

 a zoologist who doubts tiiat they only exhibited a 

 mistake. Life in appropriating the pliysical world 

 to itself with all its peculiar phenomena exhibits, how- 

 ever, some of its own and of a higher order, which 

 cannot be explained bj' pliysical agencies. The cir- 

 cumstance that life is so deejjly rooted in the inor- 

 ganic nature, affords, nevertheless, a strong tempta- 

 tion to exjilain one liy the other; but we shall see 

 presently how fallacious these attempts have been. 



