_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 set by nature to the variations of
animals have no existence in society. When Buffon describes the lion, he
dismisses the lioness with a few phrases; but in society a wife is not
always the female of the male. There may be two perfectly dissimilar
beings in one household. The wife of a shopkeeper is sometimes worthy of
a prince, and the wife of a prince is often worthless compared with the
wife of an artisan. The social state has freaks which Nature does not
allow herself; it is nature _plus_ society. The description of social
species would thus be at least double that of animal species, merely in
view of the two sexes. Then, among anim