14 



ESSAY ON CLASSIFICATION. 



Part I. 



of our earth, now well known to geologists/ when none of these organized beings as 

 yet existed, and when, nevertheless, the material constitution of our globe, and the 

 I^hysical forces acting upon it, were essentially the same as they are now,^ shows that 

 these influences are insufficient to call into existence any living being. 



Physicists know, indeed, these physical agents more accurately than the naturalists, 

 who ascribe to them the origin of organized beings; let us then ask them, Avhether 

 the nature of these agents is not specific, whether their mode of action is not spe- 

 cific? They will all answer, that they are. Let us further inquire of them, what 

 evidence there is, in the present state of our knowledge, that at any time these 

 physical agents have produced any thing they no longer do produce, and what prob- 

 ability there is that they may ever have produced any organized being? If I am 

 not greatly mistaken, the masters in that department of science will, one and all, 

 answer, none whatever. 



But the character of the connections between organized beings and the physical 

 conditions under which they live is such as to display thought;^ these connections 

 are therefore to be considered as established, determined, and regulated by a thinking 

 being. They must have been fixed for each species at its beginning, while the fact 

 of their permanency through successive generations* is further evidence that with 

 their natural relations to the surrounding world were also determined the relations 

 of individuals to one another,^ their generic as well as their family relations, and 

 every higher grade of affinity," showing, therefore, not only thought, in reference to 

 the physical conditions of existence, but such comprehensive thoughts as would 

 embrace simultaneously every characteristic of each species. 



Every fact relating to the geographical distribution of animals and plants might 

 be alluded to in confirmation of this argument, but especially the character of every 



ings, and their relations to one another and to the 

 world in which they live, exhibit tliought, and can 

 therefore be referred only to the immediate action 

 of a thinking being, even though tlie manner in 

 which they were called into existence remains for 

 the present a mysterj'. 



^ Few geologists only may now be inclined to 

 believe that the lowest strata kno^^•n to contain fos- 

 sils, are not the lowest deposits formed since the 

 existence of organized beings upon earth. But even 

 those who would assume that still lower fossiliferous 

 beds may yet be discovered, or may have entirely 

 disappeared by the influence of pintonic agencies, 

 (Powell's Essays, etc., p. 424.) must acknowledge 

 the fact that everywhere in the lowest rocks known 



to contain fossils at all, there is a variety of them 

 found together. (See Sect. 7.) Moreover, the simi- 

 larity in the character of the oldest fossils found in 

 different parts of the world, goes for, in my opin- 

 ion, to prove that we actually do know the earliest 

 types of the animal kingdom which have inhabited 

 our globe. This conclusion seems fully sustained by 

 the fact that we find everywhere below this oldest 

 set of fossiliferous beds, other stratified rocks in 

 which no trace of organized beings can be found. 



^ See, below. Sect, 21. 



' See, below, Sect. 16. 



* See, below. Sect. 1.5. 



^ See, below. Sect. 17. 



^ See, below. Sect. 6. 



