66 



ESSAY ON CLASSIFICATION. 



Part I. 



it be called soiil, reason, or instinct, it presents in the whole range of organized 

 beings a series of phenomena closely linked together; and upon it are based not 

 only the higher manifestations of the mind, but the very permanence of the specific 

 difterences which characterize every organism. Most of the arguments of philosophy 

 m favor of the immortality of man apply equally to the permanency of this principle 

 in other living beings. May I not add, that a future hfe, in which man shoidd be 

 dejDrived of that great source of enjoyment and intellectual and moral improvement 

 which result from the contemjDlation of the harmonies of an organic world, w^ould 

 involve a lamentable loss, and may we not look to a spiritual concert of the com- 

 bined worlds and all their inhabitants in presence of their Creator as the highest 

 conception of paradise ? 



SECTION XVIII, 



METAMORPHOSES OF ANIMALS. 



The study of embryology is of very recent date; the naturalists of the past 

 century, instead of investigating the phenomena accompanying the first formation and 

 growth of animals, were satisfied with vague theories upon reproduction.^ It is true 



taneously and with logical sequence in accordance 

 with these perceptions. There is a vast field open 

 for investigation in the relations between the voice 

 and the actions of animals, and a still more inter- 

 esting subject of inquiry in tlie relationship between 

 the cycle of intonations which different species of 

 animals of the same family are capable of uttering, 

 which, as far as I have as yet been able to trace 

 them, stand to one another in the same relations as 

 the different, so-called, families of languages (Schle- 

 GEL, (Fr.,) Ueber die vSprache und Weisheit der 

 Indier, Heidelberg, 1808, 1 vol. Svo. — Humboldt, 

 (W. V.,) Ueber die Kawi-Sprache, auf der Insel 

 Java, Berlin, 1836-39, 3 vols. 4to. Abh. Ak. d. Wis- 

 sensch. — .Steintiial, (H.,) Grammatik, Logik und 

 Psychologie, Berlin, 1855, 1 vol. Svo.) in the human 

 family. All the Canina bark ; the howling of the 

 wolves, the barking of the dogs and foxes, are 

 only different modes of Iiarking, comparable to one 

 another in the same relation as the monosyllabic, 



the agglutinating, and the inflecting languages. The 

 Felidce mew : the roaring of the lion is only ano- 

 ther form of the mewing of our cats and the other 

 species of the family. The Equina neigh or bray : 

 the horse, the donkey, the zebra, the dow, do not differ 

 much in the scale of their sounds. Our cattle, and the 

 different kinds of wild bulls, have a similar affinity 

 in their intonations ; their lowing differs not in kind, 

 but only in the mode of utterance. Among birds, 

 this is, perhaps, still more striking. Wlio does not 

 distinguish the note of any and every thrush, or of 

 the warblers, the ducks, the fowls, etc., however nu- 

 merous their species may be, and who can fail to 

 perceive the affinity of their voices ? And does 

 this not indicate a similarity also in their mental 

 faculties ? 



^ Bdffon, (G. L. LeClerc de,) Discours sur 

 la nature des Animaux, Geneve, 1754, 12mo. ; also 

 in his Oeuvres completes, Paris, 1774-1804, 36 vols. 

 4to. 



