SYSTEM OF NATURE. 
135 
twin group to vegetables exists only in animals. By this 
train of reasoning, I think we are led to the conclusion 
that neither animals nor vegetables constitute a single 
group complete in itself, but that together they constitute 
a double group. Thus it seems we have no choice but to 
abandon the idea that animals occupy the centre of the 
system. Superior as they certainly are to vegetables, and 
still more so to unorganized matter in any of its forms, we 
require for a centre something that shall evince an unques¬ 
tionable superiority over all alike, a superiority typified by 
that of vertebrates over invertebrates, yet still more complete, 
even as the whole must be greater than a part. It has been 
seen that man is treated as a portion of the animal king¬ 
dom, the type and centre certainly, yet still a portion. It will 
be impossible to find any material being making the slightest 
approach to him in intellectual capacity, the most uner¬ 
ring test of superiority. The centre of all, the centre of 
centres, must therefore be immaterial. Apart from reli¬ 
gion, and regarded as an abstract question, we can form 
no idea of such a centre. Our senses take no cognizance 
of it. Our language cannot describe it. Still, whatever 
that centre may be, we cannot refuse to admit the pro¬ 
bability, the more than possibility, that its attributes are 
reflected or represented, albeit faintly, either in the mate¬ 
rial body or immaterial soul of man as the type and centre 
of the most important primary division; as the most per¬ 
fect, most intellectual, and most spiritual among created 
beings. 
Again, we must admit that as the three pairs of groups, 
the organized, the mineral, and the atmospherical, contain 
all the created beings of which our senses take cognizance, 
so the central and normal must be increale , self-existent, 
