COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



to be dismissed upon these summary, though 

 forcible considerations. To the general reasons 

 here assigned for preferring the theory of deri- 

 vation to the theory of special creations, a scien- 

 tific survey of the phenomena will add a num- 

 ber of special reasons. Four kinds of arguments 

 in favour of the hypothesis of derivation are 

 furnished respectively by the Classification of 

 plants and animals, by their Embryology, by 

 their Morphology, and by their Distribution in 

 space and_time. I shall devote the present chap- 

 ter to the consideration of these four classes 

 of arguments, reserving for the following chap- 

 ter the explanation of the agencies which have 

 been at work in forwarding the process of de- 

 velopment. 



I. The facts which are epitomized in tabu- 

 lar classifications of animals and plants are so 

 familiar to us that we seldom stop to reflect upon 

 their true significance. And in any bald state- 

 ment of them which might here be made, the 

 impression of triteness would perhaps be so 

 strong as to prevent that significance from be- 

 ing duly realized, save by the student of natural 

 history. To present in the strongest light the 

 evidentiary value of these facts, I shall there- 

 fore have recourse to an analogous series of 

 facts in a quite distinct science, where the sig- 

 nificance of the classification is illustrated by the 

 known history of the phenomena which are clas- 

 378 



