460 GENERAL REFLECTIONS ON 



of Nature, far, I confess, beyond what two years ago would 

 have been by me conceived possible to exist amid such 

 infinite variety of form. This order, thus deduced in the 

 first case from experiment, and then confirmed by the ob- 

 servations of the most celebrated naturalists, became by 

 analysis apparent in the plan upon which a genus of South 

 American insects has been constructed, and by synthesis 

 is now seen to extend to those primary groups which com- 

 pose the whole of the animal kingdom. Can we then sup- 

 pose that the collateral branches of Nature present nothing 

 but confusion, when, in that which we have happened to 

 investigate, there appears a design so consummate as to 

 have no limit except in our power of understanding it I 

 In one part of Nature we discover affinities and their at- 

 tendant analogies all combining to one sublime effect, 

 intricacy upon intricacy, yet apparently capable of being 

 reduced to the most simple regularity of plan. Is it then 

 possible to suppose that the rest of organized beings con- 

 stitute a chance-medley map of reticulation, as some seem 

 to think, or offer to the view a few scattered fragments of a 

 temple now in ruins, as others have esteemed them to be ? 

 Or, if it be granted that order of some kind does exist in 

 those collateral branches, which have not fallen within the 

 scope of our investigation, is it credible that one plan should 

 have been uniformly adopted for that vast and essential 

 part of the universe which has been the subject of the 

 preceding pages, and another plan for the rest ? These are 

 questions which must be left for the reader to answer. I 

 shall merely observe, that he who can readily assent to 

 such opinions has undoubtedly the right, but he alone, to 

 give his verdict against me for having too hastily formed 

 a. general hypothesis with respect to nature. I do not 



