Or, if we choose to vary the simile, we may compare the whole system to a cord, upon which beads, of innumerable sizes, patterns, and colours, have been densely strung. Now, if there were no such things as natural divisions in the organic world, these beads (which represent the separate species) might have been disposed of anyhow,--their positions, with respect to each other, would under those circumstances have been of no importance. But such is not the case: there is an order and method throughout Nature, which shows that every individual portion of it has been adjusted by the Master's hand, and that nothing has been left to chance. Those beads (to follow up the metaphor) of countless magnitudes and hues, have had their proper places allotted to them,--and moreover with such care and regularity, that a complete plan, or scheme, of distribution is at once conspicuous. Although there are not even two, amongst that enormous multitude, which are _precisely_ alike (for every species, however it may resemble its next ally, has _some_ distinctive feature of its own), we immediately perceive that those beads which have most in common, are, as it were, attracted to each other,--so as, by their close approximation, or contact, to create excrescences and stripes, of divers kinds, along the entire length of the cord. If we assume now that the red beads have been collected together, to the length (for instance) of a yard, and that within that space a dozen protuberances, of discordant aspects and dimensions, have (by the union of those beads which more nearly simulate each other) been brought about; we shall have a very fair idea of the ordinary grouping of the animate tribes. The red beads, taken in the mass, may be likened to a perfect "family;" the differing gibbosities to twelve well-marked "genera," which that family includes; whilst the "species" (the real _dramatis personæ_, of independent existence, which are nevertheless compelled to occupy the situations we have described,--thus _causing_ the divisions to be mapped out) are here typified, as everywhere, by the several beads themselves.
I have not thought it necessary to pursue this reasoning into higher divisions than "families;" but of course it may be extended to any amount,--so as to shadow forth, equally, the compartments of _primary_ significance. Nor would I wish to imply, by the above similes, that I regard a _lineal_ method of arrangement as the correct one. Every zoologist is aware, that in Nature such does not exist: but the mode of illustration which I have selected is applicable to all systems alike, so far as the _principle_ is concerned.