CHAP. VIII.] LIKENESSES IN ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 251 



in certain races of animals and plants to assume the external 

 semblance of creatures very different from them a tendency 

 the existence of which is to be explained by no mechanical 

 conceptions, though in many instances the destructive 

 agencies in nature must tend to keep true and to intensify 

 such resemblances. 



We may now turn to the second order of resemblance 

 found in animals, i.e., likenesses in internal struc- second order 

 ture as well as external form agreements and dif- 

 ferences respecting which various very different explanations 

 have been offered. The real existence, however, of the dif 

 ferent kinds of resemblance about to be referred to, as facts, 

 cannot be denied. 



In however many directions the human mind sends forth 

 its energy upon surrounding nature, its activity The number 

 brings just so many vistas of agreement underlying J^ftlria 

 difference before its ken. Indeed, as Mr. Lewes StfoSdi 

 says,* with, perhaps, some exaggeration of expres 

 sion : &quot; Science is in 110 respect a plain transcript of reality 

 . . . but ... an ideal construction in which the manifold 

 relations of reals are taken up and assimilated by the 

 mind, and there transformed into relations of ideas, so that 

 the world of sense is changed into the world of thought.&quot; 

 And again he declares :f &quot;What we call laws of nature are 

 not objective existences, but subjective abstractions.&quot; We 

 say that these expressions are somewhat exaggerated, because 

 what is the product of the &quot; manifold relations of reals &quot; must 

 have some real foundation and some objective validity in the 

 eyes of those who admit, as it seems Mr. Lewes does not, the 

 known existence of an external world (of more than feelings) 

 at all. Any one who admits such existence must also admit 

 that the various ideal entities which are ultimately justified 

 to reason as true ideals, have their foundation in their agree 

 ment with real objective existence, &quot; truth &quot; being a relation 

 between &quot; Being &quot; and &quot; an Intellect.&quot; 



* Troblonis of Life and Miud, vol. i. p. 342. f Op. cit. p. 1500. 



