EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 107 



for instance, we observe many marked similarities of 

 form and structure, but no one would think of assert- 

 ing that all these different tongues are directly due 

 to Divine intervention, or that Spanish is derived 

 from Italian, or Italian from French. And yet, they 

 are genetically related to one another, because we 

 know that they are all derived from an older speech 

 the Latin. In like manner we are able to trace 

 relationships between the numerous members of the 

 great Aryan family of languages between, for ex- 

 ample, such widely dissimilar tongues as Sanscrit, 

 Latin, Greek, Slavic, Zend, Gothic, German, Irish. 

 We cannot, of course, arrange them in a linear 

 series, but it can be shown that all of them are de- 

 scended from the same mother-tongue and that they 

 all, therefore, belong to the same family tree. 



Tree- Like System of Classification. 



As in philology, so also in botany and zoology, 

 we must look upon the whole of animated nature as 

 constituting but a single genealogical tree. The 

 trunk of this tree represents those lower forms of life 

 which cannot be said with certainty to be either 

 animal or vegetable. It first bifurcates into two 

 minor trunks, or large branches, which are known as 

 the vegetable and animal kingdoms. Each of these 

 trunks or branches bears other branches which de- 

 note classes, and these, in turn, ramify in such wise as 

 to produce boughs, twigs, twiglets, and leaves, repre- 

 senting families, orders, genera, and species. 



This tree-like system of classification of animals 

 and plants obtained long before the time of Darwin, 



