186 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



than between others more closely related. From 

 these proofs, which come home to the conviction of 

 all, the student will readily perceive that there are 

 relations of analogy, as well as relations of affinity ; 

 and he will plainly see the theoretical difference be- 

 tween them, disconnected from any particular system 

 or theory. To deny the existence of such relations, 

 is to deny the existence of our senses. 



(126.) It further appears, from the examples just 

 given, that there are different degrees of analogies ; 

 some being more striking than others : hence they 

 become either immediate or remote. We say that an 

 analogical resemblance is immediate, when it con- 

 cerns animals of the same class, as that of the monkey 

 and the lion ; and we term it remote, when the com- 

 parison is made between individuals of different 

 classes, — between quadrupeds and birds, — as just 

 exemplified. In the former case, the animals com- 

 pared come nearer to each other in the order of 

 nature than do the latter, and their mutual resem- 

 blance is consequently greater. The degrees of 

 affinity, on the contrary, are much fewer, and more 

 circumscribed in their range. No animal can have 

 an affinity, except to those which stand in the same 

 group, or which immediately precede, or immediately 

 follow it. But its analogies, as will hereafter be 

 seen, may be traced throughout all other groups 

 of the same class, and even, in some cases, through- 

 out the whole animal kingdom. 



(127.) It must, then, be received as an incontest- 

 ible truth, that every animal has a twofold relation 

 to others. By one of these it is united, like the link 

 of a chain, by direct affinity to others of its kind : 



