Saint-Martin, and others, and the works of the greatest authors on
Natural History--Leibnitz, Buffon, Charles Bonnet, etc., we detect in
the _monads_ of Leibnitz, in the _organic molecules_ of Buffon, in the
_vegetative force_ of Needham, in the correlation of similar organs of
Charles Bonnet--who in 1760 was so bold as to write, "Animals vegetate
as plants do"--we detect, I say, the rudiments of the great law of
Self for Self, which lies at the root of _Unity of Plan_. There is but
one Animal. The Creator works on a single model for every organized
being. "The Animal" is elementary, and takes its external form, or, to
be accurate, the differences in its form, from the environment in
which it is obliged to develop. Zoological species are the result of
these differences. The announcement and defence of this system, which
is indeed in harmony with our preconceived ideas of Divine Power, will
be the eternal glory of Geoffroi Saint-Hilaire, Cuvier's victorious
opponent on this point of higher science, whose triumph was hailed by
Goethe in the last article he wrote.

I, for my part, convinced of this scheme of nature long before the
discussion to which it has given rise, perceived that in this respect
society resembled nature. For does not society modify Man, according
to the conditions in which he lives and acts, into men as manifold as
the species in Zoology? The differences between a soldier, an artisan,
a man of business, a lawyer, an idler, a student, a statesman, a
merchant, a sailor, a poet, a beggar, a priest, are as great, though
not so easy to define, as those between the wolf, the lion, the ass,
the crow, the shark, the seal, the sheep, etc. Thus social species
have always existed, and will always exist, just as there are
zoological species. If Buffon could produce a magnificent work by
attempting to represent in a book the whole realm of zoology, was
there not room for a work of the same kind on society? But the limits