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Show 166 JJARWINIANA. gories of thought, and not fac~s or things, .how .does this prevent the individuals, whiCh are m~tenal t~mgs, from having varied in the course of time, so as to exemplify the present almost i~u:nerable cat~gories of thought, or embodiments of D1vme t~oug~t m material forms, or-viewed on the human s1de-m forms marked with such orderly and graduated resemblances and differences as to suggest to our minds the idea of species, genera, orders, etc., and to our reason th~ inference of a Divine Original? We have no clear 1dea how Mr. Agassiz intends to answer this question, in saying that branches are founded upon different plans ·of structur(3, classes upon different mode of execution of these plans, orders on different degrees of complication in. the mode of execution, families upon different patterns of form, genera upon ultin:ate peculiarHies of structure, and species upon relatwns and proportions. That is, we do not perceive how tbese .several "categories of thought" exclude the possibility or the probability that the individuals which manifest or suggest the. thoughts had an ultimate community of origin. . Moreo-ver, Mr. Darwin might insinuate that the particular philosophy of classification upon w~ich this whole argument reposes is as purely hypothetical and as -little accepted as is his own doctrine. If both are pure hypotheses, it is hardly fair or satis.factory to extinguish the one by the other. If there 1s no real contradiction between them, nothing is gain.ed by the ~m~ . As to· the dilemma propounded, suppose we try .It upon that category of thought which we call cha~r. JJAR WIN ANJJ HIS REVIEWERS. 167 This is a genus, comprising a common chair (Sella vulg( Jfl'is), arm or easy chair (S. cathedra), the rockino--cbair (S. oscillans)-widely distributed in the United 5States -and some others, each of which has sported, as· the gardeners say, into many varieties. But now, as the genus and the species have no material existence, bow can they vary? If only individual chairs exist, how can the differences which may be observed among them prove the variability of the species? To which wereply by asking, Which does the question refer to, the category of thought, or the individual embodiment? If the former, then we would remark that our categories of thought vary from time to time in the readiest manner. And, although the Divine thoughts are eternal, yet they are manifested to us in time and succession, and by their manifestation only can we know them, how imperfectly! Allowing that what bas no material existence can have had no material connection or variation, we should yet infer that what has intellectual existence and connection might have intellectual variation; and, turning to the individuals, which represent the species, we do not see how all this shows that they I?ay not vary. Observation shows us that they do. Wherefore, taught by fact that successive individuals do · vary, we safely infer that the idea must have varied, and that this variation of the individual representatives proves the variability of the species, whether objectively or subjectively regarded. .Each species or sort of chair, as we have said, has its varieties, and one species shades off by gradations into another. And-note it well-these numerous and successively slight variations and gradations, far |