SPECIES. 255 



kinds of lialfbreeds with the Zebra, the Daw, etc. And 

 yet, in face of all these facts, which render sexual repro- 

 duction, or at least promiscuous intercourse among the 

 representatives of the same species, so questionable a 

 criterion of specific identity, there are still naturalists 

 who would represent it as an unfailing test, only that 

 they may sustain one single position, that all men are de- 

 rived from one single pair. 



These facts, with other facts which every day go more 

 extensively to show the great probability of the inde- 

 pendent origin of individuals of the same species in dis- 

 connected geographical areas, force us to remove from the 

 philosophic definition of species the idea of a community 

 of origin, and consequently, also, the idea of a necessary 

 genealogical connection. The evidence, that all animals 

 have originated in large numbers, is growing so strong 

 that the idea that every species existed in the beginning 

 in single pairs may be said to be given up almost entirely 

 by naturalists. Now if this is the case, sexual derivation 

 does not constitute a necessary specific character, even 

 though sexual connection be the natural process of their 

 reproduction and multiplication. If we are led to admit 

 as the beginning of each species the simultaneous origin 

 of a large number of individuals, and if the same species 

 may originate at the same time in different localities, 

 these first representatives of each species, at least, were 

 not connected by sexual derivation ; and as this applies 

 equally to any first pair, this fancied test criterion of 

 specific identity must at all ev.ents be given up ; and with 

 it goes also the pretended real existence of the species, in 

 contradistinction to the mode of existence of genera, 

 families, orders, classes, and types ; for what really exist 

 are individuals, not species. We may, at the utmost, 



