The Zoologist— July, 1873. 3583 



must be capable of some classification by their resemblances; but 

 a very slight acquaintance with the science of Zoology forces upon 

 us a conviction that a classification is possible which shall express 

 more than this. 



Vast numbers of these species consist of animals of infinite com- 

 plexity of organization, and the resemblances and affinities of 

 construction of many of the organs belonging to animals of different 

 species are so interlinked and graduated as to suggest irresistibly 

 some mysterious continuity between them. The permanence of 

 animal life is provided for amongst each species in its community 

 as specified by our definition, by the reproduction of young, which 

 generally develope into animals like their parents, although in some 

 of the lower forms it takes two or three generations for the return 

 to the same form. All animals can be so arranged, according to 

 their organic structures and most essential characters, as to form a 

 sort of genealogical tree. 



Three theories are tolerably widely accepted to account for the 

 classification by scale of development and affinity of construction 

 of which animals are capable; one is that they were created in 

 general harmony of idea, to educate the soul of man ; another, that 

 of Darwin, supposes that there were but few of the simplest forms 

 which first had life breathed into them by the Creator, that all the 

 rest have been developed by a severe competition amongst these 

 forms, which in reproduction continually varied slightly, that in 

 this severe struggle for existence the best forms survived, and 

 gradually the higher types of life were thus developed, without any 

 further interference of any other power. The third view is held by 

 those who are not satisfied with the first-mentioned opinion, inas- 

 much perhaps as the width of creation coming so little within the 

 view of the majority of mankind, it seems rather a presumptuous 

 and inadequate idea to suppose that this infinity of gradation was 

 made for the education of men, so (evr of whom could ever see its 

 meaning. These persons also doubt the power of the second 

 principle to be capable of surmounting all the difficulties of 

 organic construction, or of producing the originality, beauty, or 

 sensibility which is actually found in the organic world: they are 

 rather inclined to believe that they behold the real steps of evolu- 

 tion, invention, and creation, by which not only is man to be 

 educated, but by which he was invented and created (if these two 

 words should not indeed stand for the same act). 



