22 ESSAY ON CLASSIFICATION. Part I. 



no matter how diversified, to reproduce, at another period, something similar, and so 

 on, through all ages, until at the period of the establishment of the present state of 

 things, all the infinitude of new animals and new plants which now crowd its surface, 

 should be cast in these four moulds, in such a manner as to exhibit, notwithstanding 

 their complicated relations to the surrounding world, all those more deeply seated 

 general relations, Avhich establish among them the different degrees of affinity we 

 may trace so readily in all the representatives of the same type ? Does all this 

 really look more like the woi'king of blind forces than like the creation of a reflec- 

 tive mind establishing deliberately all the categories of existence we recognize in 

 nature, and comljining them in that wonderful harmony which unites all things into 

 such a perfect system, that even to read it, as it is established, or even with all the 

 imperfections of a translation, should be considered as the highest achievement of 

 the maturest genius ? 



Nothing seems to me to prove more directly and more fully the action of a 

 reflective mind, to indicate more plainly a deliberate consideration of the subject, 

 than the different categories upon which species, genera, fiimilies, orders, classes, and 

 branches are founded in nature, and manifested in material reality in a succession of 

 individuals, the hfe of wliich is limited in its duration to comparatively very short 

 periods. The great wonder in these relations consists in the fugitive character of the 

 bearers of this complicated hai'mony. For while species persist during long periods, 

 the individuals which represent them are ever changing, one set dying after the 

 other, in quick succession. Genera, it is true, may extend over longer periods; fami- 

 lies, orders, and classes may even have existed during all periods during which 

 animals have existed at all; but whatever may have been the duration of their 

 existence, at all times these different divisions have stood in the same relation to 

 one another and to their respective branches, and have always been represented 

 upon our globe in the same manner, by a succession of ever renewed and short-lived 

 individuals. 



As, however, the second chapter of this work is entirely devoted to the consider- 

 ation of the different kinds and the different degrees of affinity existing among 

 animals, I will not enter here into any details upon this subject, but simply recall 

 the fiict that, in the course of time, investigators have agreed more and more with 

 one another in their estimates of these relations, and built up systems more and 

 more conformable to one another. This result, which is fully exemplified by the 

 history of our science,^ is in itself sufficient to show that there is a system in nature 



* Spix, (J.,) Geschiehte und Beurtliuilung aller naturelles, Paris, 1826, 4 vols. 8%-o. — Ilistoire des 

 Systeme in der Zoologie, Niimberg, 1811, 1 vol. 8vo. sciences naturelles, etc., Paris, 1841, 5 vols. 8vo. 

 — CuviEU, (G.,) Histoire des progres des sciences — DeBlainville, (H.,) Ilistoire des sciences de 



