what has been done, to inquire if possible how it has been done, rather
than to ask what is possible for the Deity, since we can know that only by
what actually exists;" and also when he extends the argument for the
intervention in Nature of a creative mind to its legitimate application in
the inorganic world; which, he remarks, "considered in the same light,
would not fail also to exhibit unexpected evidence of thought, in the
character of the laws regulating the chemical combinations, the action of
physical forces, etc., etc." [I-6] Mr. Agassiz, however, pronounces that
"the connection between the facts is only intellectual"--an opinion which
the analogy of the inorganic world, just referred to, does not confirm, for
there a material connection between the facts is justly held to be
consistent with an intellectual--and which the most analogous cases we can
think of in the organic world do not favor; for there is a material
connection between the grub, the pupa, and the butterfly, between the
tadpole and the frog, or, still better, between those distinct animals
which succeed each other in alternate and very dissimilar generations. So
that mere analogy might rather suggest a natural connection than the
contrary; and the contrary cannot be demonstrated until the possibilities of
Nature under the Deity are fathomed.

But, the intellectual connection being undoubted, Mr. Agassiz properly
refers the whole to "the agency of Intellect as its first cause." In doing
so, however, he is not supposed to be offering a scientific explanation of
the phenomena. Evidently he is considering only the ultimate why, not the
proximate why or how.

Now the latter is just what Mr. Darwin is considering. He conceives of a
physical connection between allied species; but we suppose he does not deny
their intellectual connection, as related to a supreme intelligence.
Certainly we see no reason why he should, and many reasons why he should