﻿106 CLEMENS' SYNOPSIS OF 



but when individuals agree in all these particulars, when their biographies and struc- 

 ture impress the mind with the idea of identity, there can be no longer any doubt 

 that they are representatives of one and the same conception, even though the perfect 

 forms may differ materially in ornamentation. 



gejstus . 



We find in nature various groups of species, the chief conception involved in each 

 of which, differing from the details of any specific group selected as a type, and 

 which are brought together naturally into a secondary group, by the general harmony 

 or agreement existing in their biographies and structural peculiarities. Each specific 

 cycle possesses some special characteristics by which it is distinctively marked, by 

 which we recognize in the representatives permanent and individual differences, 

 irreconcilable with the idea of identity, whilst at the same time, there is an obvious 

 tendency to specific resemblance, giving rise to ideas of similarity with specific differ- 

 ences. Thus, we may have several specific groups, or there may be but a single 

 group, which agree amongst themselves in general and ultimate structure and in bio- 

 graphy, more intimately than with any other natural bodies or species, seeming to be 

 harmonious and conformable variations of a dominant thought or conception which 

 pervades the whole, not only in their structural evolution and history, but as perfect 

 beings. In this secondary or generic group, the conception is then one of conformity , 

 by which distinct natural bodies or .specific cycles are intimately related to each other, 

 linked like the harmonic combinations or chords of which any musical note taken 

 as a basis is susceptible. From their evident concurrence, but not identity, in all 

 that, of which species consists, the mind is naturally led to group them as similar but 

 distinct bodies, and perceives the relation of conformity in the sum of the organic 

 actions from which the individuals result, and which aim at maintaining the in- 

 tegrity and continuance of the races. 



The affinities existing within the limits of single groups, when these consist of 

 more than one species, are therefore very intimate although of dissimilar values or in- 

 tensities. For, whilst the species are conformed to some dominant conception, their 

 affinities branch out into other generic groups, producing a concatenation of rela- 

 tionships throughout the entire range of a family, or extending into other families. 

 These are most observable, perhaps, in some portion of embryonic life, but are present 

 also in the perfect being itself. With the exception of these almost insensibly formed 

 relationships, necessarily existing from the fact that each individual is the bearer of 

 its generic and family characters, as well as of its specific or individual ones, form is 

 the same among all the individuals of a genus, both in the embryonic and perfect con- 

 dition. In all the essential organs there is the closest agreement, if not absolute simi- 

 larity in the peculiarities of ultimate structure, both the internal and external. 



