Classification. 47 
characters presenting resemblances to one another 
have always been found to be of special importance 
as guides to classification. This, of course, is what we 
should have expected, if the real meaning of classifica- 
tion be that of tracing lines of pedigree ; but on the 
theory of special creation no reason can be assigned 
why single characters are not such sure tokens of 
a natural arrangement as are aggregates of characters, 
however trivial the latter may be. For it is obvious 
that unity of ideal might have been even better 
displayed by everywhere maintaining the pattern of 
some one important structure, than by doing so in the 
case of several unimportant structures. Take an 
analogous instance from human contrivances. Unity 
of ideal in the case of gun-making would be shown by 
the same principles of mechanism running through all 
the different sizes and shapes of gun-locks, rather than 
by the ornamental patterns engraved upon the outsides. 
Yet it must be supposed that in the mechanisms 
assumed to have been constructed by special creation, 
it was the trivial details rather than the fundamental 
principles of these mechanisms which were chosen by 
the Divinity to display his ideals. 
And this leads us to the next consideration— 
namely, that when in two different lines of descent 
animals happen to adopt similar habits of life, the 
modifications which they undergo in order to fit them 
for these habits often induces striking resemblances of 
structure between the two animals, as in the case of 
whales and fish. But in all such instances it is 
invariably found that the resemblance is only super- 
ficial and apparent: not anatomical or real. In other 
words, the resemblance does not extend further than 
