202 Agassiz 1 Contributions to the 



devote a large portion of a scientific work to such a subject, had 

 not some late writers, with that same eccentricity which occasion- 

 ally brings up a strong and wordy opponent of the Coperincan 

 system in astronomy, attempted to maintain the introduction of 

 organic forms in a way different from the "Miracle of Creation." 

 In this part of the subject, therefore, we find little that is new 

 in itself, but a sort of cumulative argument, gathering into one a 

 vast number of considerations illustrated by facts familiar to the 

 writer, and all bearing on the doctrine that nature is not God ; 

 but that in studying what we call nature we have before us the 

 works of a Supreme intelligent creator. Coming from a man so 

 thoroughly versed in his subject, and supported as it is by a vast 

 mass of illustrative facts, the conclusion tells with irresistible 

 force. Most strenuously and boldly does Agassiz assert this 

 great result, in which science, rising above ber favourite ideas of 

 recurring cycles and unchanging law? finds herself in direct relation 

 with the great First Cause. 



The argument on this subject is spread over a great number of 

 heads, but they may in effect be reduced to the following : — 



1. The idea of type or pattern in nature, as distinguished from 

 that of mere individual adaptation, the construction of creatures in- 

 tended for similar uses on different types, and the persistence of 

 the same type through many subordinate varieties of structure, 

 the simultaneous existence of the most diversified types in identi- 

 cal circumstances and the converse of this, the persistence of all 

 the leading types through the whole sequence of geological ages, 

 the wide geographical distribution of some types and the narrow 

 range of others, the special resemblances in details of structure 

 that occur in animals otherwise quite different, the order of 

 succession of types in geological time. These and many other 

 considerations founded on types in nature, prove a thinking 

 Agent, just as similar considerations in reference to the various 

 styles of architecture, would effectually answer any one who 

 should attribute these, like the columns of basalt, or the stalactites 

 of a cavern, to merely physical agencies. 



2. The relations of animals to each other and to the world 

 around them. Among these are the relative sizes of animals, 

 and the relations of size to the media in which animals exist ; the 

 adaptation of animals in their structure and habits to the world 

 in which they live and its various conditions ; the relations of 

 animals with each other as mutually dependent ; the mutual 



