12 



ESSAY ON CLASSIFICATION. 



Part I. 



of creation, and that without a consideration of all the facts furnished by the study 

 of the habits of animals, by their anatomy, their embryology, and the history of the 

 past ages of our globe, we shall never arrive at the knowledge of the natural system 

 of animals. 



Let us now consider some of these topics more specially. 



SECTION II. 



SIMULTANEOUS EXISTENCE OF THE MOST DIVERSIFIED TYPES UNDER IDENTICAL 



CIRCUMSTANCES. 



It is a fact which seems to be entirely overlooked by those who assume an exten- 

 sive influence of physical causes upon the very existence of organized beings, that 

 the most diversified types of animals and plants are everywhere found under iden- 

 tical circumstances. The smallest sheet of fresh water, every point upon the sea- 

 shore, every acre of dry land, teems with a variety of animals and plants. The 

 narrower the boundaries are, which may be assigned as the primitive home of all 

 these beings, the more uniform must be the conditions under which they are assumed 

 to have originated ; so uniform, indeed, that in the end the inference would be, that 

 the same physical causes could produce the most diversified effects.^ To concede, 



* In order fully to appreciate the difficulty al- 

 luded to here, it is only necessary to remember how 

 complicated, and at the same time how localized the 

 conditions are under which animals multiply. The 

 egg originates in a special organ, the ovary ; it grows 

 there to a certain size, until it requires fecundation, 

 that is, the influence of another living being, or at 

 least of the product of another organ, the spermary, 

 to determine the further development of the germ, 

 which, under the most diversified conditions, in dif- 

 ferent species, passes successively through all those 

 changes which lead to the formation of a new per- 

 fect 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 crea- 

 ted as eggs, which conditions must have been con- 

 formable to tiiose in wliich 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 com- 

 plicated the structure of some of the animals was, 

 which are known to have been among the first in- 

 habitants of our globe. "When investigating this sub- 

 ject, it is of course necessary to consider tlie first 

 appearance of animals and plants, upon the basis of 

 probabilities only, or even simply upon that of pos- 

 sibilities ; as with reference to these first-liorn, at 

 least, the transmutation theory furnishes no explana- 

 tion of their existenc*'. 



For every species belonging to the first fauna and 

 the first flora which have existed upon earth, si)ceial 



