1 6 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



progressed this became yet more apparent, until at length the 

 description of one would not apply to the other, and it began to be 

 suspected that the old idea of permanence was incorrect, and would 

 have to be abandoned. 



Different conditions had produced different results. 



Systematic classification is the progressive work of time. 



Our present system of Nature is but of recent origin ; that it is 

 not perfect is but to say that it is human in its origin. Still, it is an 

 improvement on the past ; it grasps all Nature, and divides it into 

 the celestial and terrestrial. In the terrestrial it finds the organic 

 and inorganic ; of the organic it has constituted two kingdoms, the 

 animal and the vegetable, [and here let me remark that I am going 

 to deal exclusively with the animal kingdom] ; this it has separated 

 into sub-kingdoms, classes, orders, families, genera and species. 



Now these divisions which it is so necessary for man to make, 

 that he may the better understand and study his subject, has no 

 clear dividing lines in Nature. There is an elasticity and a blending 

 of parts in Nature, that, from the limited character of man's intel- 

 lectual grasp, and the barrenness of his language to express what he 

 may intellectually perceive, no human system has ever yet attained 

 to. We know, as a matter of fact, that this Ball, which we call ter- 

 restrial, is as much a part of the celestial as any of those we term 

 such ; that the organic is depending on, and inseparably connected 

 with the inorganic. Who can say where the vegetable ends and the 

 animal begins? And just so it is through the whole list; it is at the 

 point of divergence and not that of contact that any of them is clear. 



It is upon structure that the divisions in the animal kingdom 

 are principally founded — size, form and color. By a single bone 

 may the class to which the animal belongs be known ; by certain re- 

 semblances its family relationship is established ; upon some points 

 of difference, peculiar to it, its genus is found, and by minuter ones 

 is its specific character determined. 



It is now a well known fact that there are opposing influences 

 at work in nature affecting the appearance of every living creature ; 

 the one tending to uniformity and the other to diversity. Prof. 

 Huxley says : "The one end to which, in all living beings the for- 

 mative impulse is tending, seems to be to mould the offspring into 

 the likeness of the parent." 



Prof. Louis Agassiz, after premising that all animals, even the 



