14 EARLY PROGRESS IN NATURAL HISTORY. 
not an attempt to classify for our own con- 
venience the objects we study, then they are 
thoughts which, whether we detect them or not, 
are expressed in Nature,— then Nature is the 
work of thought, the production of intelligence, 
carried out according to plan, therefore premedi- 
tated,— and in our study of natural objects we 
are approaching the thoughts of the Creator, 
reading his conceptions, interpreting a system 
that is his and not ours. 
All the divergence from the simplicity and 
grandeur of the division of the animal kingdom 
first recognized by Cuvier arises from an ina- 
bility to distinguish between the essential fea- 
tures of a plan and its various modes of execu- 
tion. We allow the details to shut out the plan 
itself, which exists quite independent of special 
forms. I hope we shall find a meaning in all 
these plans that will prove them to be the parts 
of one great conception and the work of one 
Mind. 
