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all life forms have been derived, with modifications, from 

 preceding forms, by variation and inheritance. These 

 discoveries were made after science broke away from the 

 blighting influence of authority, and investigations were 

 made by the human senses alone; "the dark ages had 

 passed away," and civilization had changed from the 

 cloister, to the light and fresh air of nature; after men 

 began to gain knowledge by actual experiment and the 

 study of nature. 



These advances in biology are paralleled by the 

 achievements in astronomy, geography, geology, psy- 

 chology, sociology, chemistry, and natural ethics ; all 

 done without the aid of mysticism and finality, by the 

 natural brain, and peripheral senses of man. 



In making classifications, the naturalists had no 

 written pedigrees of the organisms to guide them, but 

 the characters, which nature stamped on the forms, 

 probably were more instructive, to the trained classifier. 

 These formed a pedigree without error, when read ac- 

 curately enough to formulate a true classification. 



The advance made in the method of classification 

 from time to time, from the purely artificial plan of 

 Moses, down to the more natural system of Cuvier, and 

 from him to Darwin, while not so intended by the 

 classifiers, yet at every step showed more clearly, the 

 close genetic relation of all plants and animals. Had 

 these naturalists entertained the theory of descent by 

 modification, as taught subsequently by the theory of 

 evolution, they could only in a few instances have made 

 their classifications more complete evidences of that 

 theory. All classification not only shows close affinity, 

 accompanied by modifications, but a gradual advance 

 from the earliest fossil forms, in heterogeneousness, a 

 constant multiplication of effects, and a development 



