130 ESSAY ON CLASSIFICATION. Part L 



graphical distribution of animals upon earth. The same series everywhere ! ^ These 

 facts are true of all the great divisions of the animal kingdom, so far as we have 

 pursued the investigation ; and though, for want of materials, the train of evidence 

 is incomplete in some instances, yet we have proof enough for the establishment 

 of this law of a universal correspondence in all the leading features Avhich binds 

 all organized beings, of all times, into one great system, intellectually and intelligibly 

 linked together, even where some links of the chain are missing. It requires con- 

 siderable familiarity with the subject even to keep in mind the evidence, for, 

 though yet imperfectly understood, it is the most brilliant result of the combined 

 intellectual efforts of hundreds of investigators during half a century. The connec- 

 tion, however, between the facts, it is easily seen, is only intellectual; and implies, 

 therefore, the agency of Intellect as its first cause.^ 



And if the power of thinking connectedly is the privilege of cultivated minds 

 only ; if the power of combining different thoughts, and of drawing from them new 

 thoughts, is a still rarer privilege of a few superior minds; if the ability to trace 

 simultaneously several trains of thought is such an extraordinary gift, that the few 

 cases in which evidence of this kind has been presented have become a matter 

 of historical record (Cifisar dictating several letters at the same time), though they 

 exhibit only the capacity of passing rapidly, in quick succession, from one topic to 

 another, while keeping the connecting thread of several parallel thoughts : if all 

 this is only possible for the highest intellectual powers, shall we by any false 

 argumentation allow ourselves to deny the intervention of a Sujjreme Intellect in 

 calling into existence combinations in nature, by the side of which, all human 

 conceptions are child's play? 



If I have succeeded, even very imperfectly, in showing that the various rela- 

 tions observed between animals and the jiliy'^^ici^l world, as well as between them- 

 selves, exhibit thought, it follows, that the whole has an Intelligent Author, and it 

 may not be out of place to attempt to jjoint out, as far as possible, the difference 

 there may be between Divine thinking and human thought. 



Taking nature as exhibiting thought for my guide, it apjieai's to me, that while 

 human thought is consecutive. Divine thought is simultaneous, embracing at the same 

 time and for ever, in the past, tlie present, and the future, the most diversified 

 relations among hundreds of thousands of organized beings, each of which may 

 present complications again, which, to study and understand even imperfectly, as 

 for instance, Man himself. Mankind has already sjjent thousands of years. And 

 yet, all tliis has been done by one Mind, must be the work of one Mind only, of 



' Compare all the preceding sections, where every ' Agassiz, (L.,) Contemplations of God in the 



topic is considered separately. Kosmos, Christian Examiner, January, 1851, Boston. 



