There were, however, some peculiarities among plants and animals which gradually forced a different conception to be entertained. They so nicely let themselves be arranged into a system which was first set up by the Swedish scientist Linnaeus. According to this system, the animals are divided into main divisions; these divisions are divided into classes, classes into orders, orders into families, families into species, each of which contain a few kinds. The more semblance there is in their characteristics, the nearer they stand towards each other in this system, and the smaller is the group to which they belong. All the animals classed as mammalian show the same general characteristics in their bodily frame. The herbivorous animals, and carnivorous animals, and monkeys, each of which belongs to a different order, are again differentiated. Bears, dogs, and cats, all of which are rapacious animals, have much more in common in bodily form than they have with horses or monkeys. This conformity is still more obvious when we examine varieties of the same species; the cat, tiger and lion resemble each other in many respects where they differ from dogs and bears. If we turn from the class of mammals to other classes, such as birds or fishes, we find greater differences than we find in the other class. There is still, however, a slight resemblance in the formation of the body, the skeleton and the nervous system are still there. These features first disappear when we turn from this main division, which embraces all the vertebrates, and go to the molluscs (soft bodied animals) or to the polyps. The entire animal world may thus be arranged into divisions and subdivisions. Had every different kind of animal been created entirely independent of all the others, there would be no reason why such orders should exist. There would be no reason why there should not be mammals having six paws. We would have to assume, then, that at the time of creation, God had taken Linnaeus’ system as a plan and created everything according to this plan. Happily we have another way of accounting for it. The likeness in the construction of the body may be due to a real family relationship. According to this conception, the conformity of peculiarities show how near or remote the relationship is; just as the resemblance of brothers and sisters is greater than between remote relatives. The animal classes were, therefore, not created individually, but descended one from another. They form one trunk that started with simple foundations and which has continually developed; the last and thin twigs are our present existing kinds. All species of cats descend from a primitive cat, which together with the primitive dog and the primitive bear, is the descendant of some primitive type of rapacious animal. The primitive rapacious animal, the primitive hoofed animal and the primitive monkey have descended from some primitive mammal, etc.