128 REV. JOHN GERARD, F.L.S., ON SPECIES AND THEIR ORIGIN. 
we may trace its origin? Until we can satisfy ourselves upon 
this point, it seems vain to seek any answer to the further 
question regarding transformation; but if we can arrive at a 
conclusion satisfactory to reason concerning the basis upon 
which our classification must ultimately rest, we shall at any 
rate have a tolerably clear understanding of the problems 
which lie beyond. 
It is clear, to begin with, that in such an enquiry we must 
needs introduce the idea of Mind. Mr. Mivart, as we have 
heard, after defining species as a congeries of characters having 
no separate existence, adds the important qualification, “ except 
ideally as a thought in some mind.” Similarly, Professor 
3owne declares, “ Intelligence i is the only source of any objective 
classification.” Nor can this be understood as meaning no more 
than that were there no intelligence capable of making abstrac- 
tions, and grouping individuals according to their common 
characteristics, there could be no possibility of classification, 
as in like manner there could be no colour were there no eyes 
in the world capable of sight ? 
We must, in fact, ascribe to Mind a far higher function, and 
recognize in it the only power capable of establishing those 
real relations upon the recognition of which any true principle 
of classification must be based. And here we may apply what 
Newman says in general concerning order* :— 
“ As a cause lmpiies a will, so order implies a purpose. Did 
we see flint celts in their various receptacles all over Europe, 
scored always with certain special and characteristic marks, even 
though those marks had no assignable meaning or final cause 
whatever, we should take that very repetition, which, indeed, 
is the principle of order, to be a proof of intelligence. The 
agency, then, which has kept up and keeps up the general laws 
of nature, energizing at ouce in Sirius and on the earth, and on 
the earth in its primary period as well as in the nineteenth 
century, must be Mind, and nothing else, and Mind at least as 
wide and as enduring in its living action, as the immeasurable 
ages and spaces of the universe on which that agency has left 
its traces.” 
Sir John Herschel likewise saw in such a manifestation of 
order as is afforded by the repetition of similar features, clear 
evidence of the influence of purpose. As he observes,f a line 
of spinning jennies of the same pattern, or a regiment of 
* Grammar of Assent, p. 70. 
t+ Prelimanary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, p. 38. 
