18441858] J. C. PRICHARD 45 



beings lay a foundation for the existence of diversified races, originating 

 from the same primitive stock and within the limits of identical species." 



On the following page (p. 243) a passage (not marked by Mr. Darwin) 

 emphasises the limitation which Prichard ascribed to the results of 

 variation and inheritance : 



"Even those physiologists who contend for what is termed the 

 indefinite nature of species admit that they have limits at present and 

 under ordinary circumstances. Whatever diversities take place happen 

 without breaking in upon the characteristic type of the species. This is 

 transmitted from generation to generation : goats produce goats, and 

 sheep, sheep." 



The passage on p. 242 occurs in the reprint of the 1836-7 edition 

 which forms part of the 1841-51 edition, but is not there marked by 

 Mr. Darwin. He notes at the end of Vol. I. of the 1836-7 edition : 

 " March, 1857. I have not looked through all these \i.e. marked passages], 

 but I have gone through the later edition " ; and a similar entry is in 

 Vol. II. of the third edition. It is therefore easy to understand how he 

 came to overlook the passage on p. 242 when he began the fuller state- 

 ment of his species theory which is referred to in the Life and Letters as 

 the " unfinished book." In the historical sketch prefixed to the Origin of 

 Species writers are named as precursors whose claims are less strong than 

 Prichard's, and it is certain that Mr. Darwin would have given an account 

 of him if he had thought of him as an evolutionist. 



The two following passages will show that Mr. Darwin was, from his 

 knowledge of Prichard's books, justified in classing him among those 

 who did not believe in the mutability of species : 



" The various tribes of organised beings were originally placed by the 

 Creator in certain regions, for which they are by their nature peculiarly 

 adapted. Each species had only one beginning in a single stock : pro- 

 bably a single pair, as Linnaeus supposed, was first called into being 

 in some particular spot, and the progeny left to disperse themselves to 

 as great a distance from the original centre of their existence as the 

 locomotive powers bestowed on them, or their capability of bearing 

 changes of climate and other physical agencies, may have enabled them 

 to wander." l 



The second passage is annotated by Mr. Darwin with a shower of 

 exclamation marks : 



" The meaning attached to the term species in natural history is very 

 definite and intelligible. It includes only the following conditions 

 namely, separate origin and distinctness of race, evinced by the constant 

 transmission of some characteristic peculiarity of organisation. A race 

 of animals or of plants marked by any peculiar character which has 

 always been constant and undeviating constitutes a species ; and two 

 races are considered as specifically different, if they are distinguished 

 from each other by some characteristic which one cannot be supposed to 



1 Prichard, third edition, 1836-7, Vol. L, p. 96. 



