# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1860_S189
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Toward the Grounding of a New Physico-Theology. 189

"Taken all together" — says the author at the end of this section — "natural history must become, to a good degree, the analysis of the thoughts of the Creator of the universe as they manifest themselves in the animal and plant kingdoms; it can therefore not seem strange that these relations to the Creator are touched upon in a treatise on the classification of animals, since they stand in so close a connection with our possible insight into the general plan of creation."

An extremely remarkable sign of the times, and highly interesting for a comparison of the reading and book-buying public between Europe and America, is the history of the origin of the work, which the author gives in the preface, dated October 3, 1857. Since his arrival in America, now eleven years ago, the author relates, he has let no opportunity pass to collect, and so has brought together a rich museum of purely American species, which served him for numerous studies. For this, however, he had to make such great sacrifices of money that it was impossible for him to expend further sums on publication, and he had believed that perhaps, after his death, his collection and papers might serve others as a guide and thus be of use to science in America. In a conversation with his friend Sir Francis Gray in Boston — who has since died, and to whom the work is also dedicated — the latter became convinced of the value of the material and was thereafter tirelessly intent on making the publication of the manuscripts possible in every way — through personal participation and encouragement, through letters, through journal articles, and so forth. Five hundred subscribers seemed necessary to begin the publication; they had hoped for seven to eight hundred, but at present as many as 2,500 have already come forward; in short, Agassiz says that he has received a measure of support such as no researcher for purely scientific purposes has ever before received without support from a government. From every capital, from towns and villages in the West that did not even exist a few years ago, from California, from every corner of the United States, came offers of assistance for collections and reports on the distribution and mode of life of animals, which proved to be of the greatest importance for the progress of the work. Through this the possibility was brought about that the author could double the number of figures and undertake further additions and generalizations, which go far beyond the original plan of giving a purely descriptive zoology of North America, and now extend rather to a revision of the systematics of the entire animal kingdom. Agassiz describes it as his task to give young American naturalists, above all, guidance as to how they may further advance the future progress of zoology without losing themselves in mere species-mongering. May they — says the author — set themselves more philosophical tasks and direct their attention to the study of the mode of life of American animals, their geographic distribution,