in. ix.] SPECIAL-CREATION OB DERIVATION t 443 



will add a number of special reasons. Four kinds of argu- 

 ments 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 Distri- 

 bution in space and time. I shall devote the present chapter 

 to the consideration of these four classes of arguments; 

 reserving for the following chapter the explanation of tha 

 agencies which have been at work in forwarding the process 

 of development. 



I. The facts which are epitomized in tabular classifications 

 of animals and plants, are so familiar to us that we seldom 

 stop to reflect upon their true significance. And in any bald 

 statement of them which might here be made, the impression 

 of triteness would perhaps be so strong as to prevent that 

 significance from being duly realized, save by the student of 

 natural history. To present in the strongest light the evi- 

 dentiary value of these facts, I shall therefore have recourse 

 to an analogous series of facts in a quite distinct science, 

 where the significance of the classification is illustrated by 

 the known history of the phenomena which are classified. 

 Like the sciences of zoology and botany, the science of 

 philology is pre-eminently a classificatory science, using the 

 method of comparison as its chief implement of inductive 

 research. And philology, at least so far as the study of the 

 Aryan languages is concerned, has been carried to such a high 

 degree of scientific perfection, as regards the accuracy of its 

 processes and the certainty of its results, that we may safely 

 gather from it such illustrations as suit our present purpose. 



The various Aryan or Indo-European languages are demon- 

 strably descended from a single ancestral language, in the 

 same sense in which the various modern Eomanic languages 

 are all descended from the vulgar Latin of the Western Em- 

 pire. By slow dialectic variations in pronunciation, and in 

 die use of syntactical devices for building up sentences, these 

 languages have been imperceptibly differentiated from a single 



