RECEPTION OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES/ i8i 



PROFESSOR AGASSIZ ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.* 



Since the arguments presented by Darwin in favor of a universal 

 derivation from one primary form, of all the peculiarities existing now 

 among living beings have not made the slightest impression on my 

 mind, nor modified in any way the views I have already propounded, I 

 may fairly refer the reader to the paragraphs alluded to above as con- 

 taining sufficient evidence of their correctness, and I will here only 

 add a single argument, which seems to leave the question where I have 

 placed it. 



It seems to me that there is much confusion of ideas in the general 

 statement of the variability of species so often repeated lately. If 

 species do not exist at all, as the supporters of the transmutation 

 theory maintain, how can they vary? and if individuals alone exist, 

 how can the differences which may be observed among them prove the 

 variability of species? The fact seems to me to be that while species 

 are based upon definite relations among individuals which differ in 

 various ways among themselves, each individual, as a distinct being, 

 has a definite course to run from the time of its first formation to the 

 end of its existence, during which it never loses its identity nor 

 changes its individuality, nor its relations to other individuals belong- 

 ing to the same species, but preserves all the categories of relationship 

 which constitute specific or generic or family affinity, or any other kind 

 or degree of affinity. To prove that species vary it should be proved 

 that individuals horn from common ancestors change the different 

 categories of relationship ivhich they bore primitively to one another. 

 While all that has thus far been shown is, that there exists a con- 

 siderable difference among individuals of one and the same species. 

 This may be new to those who have looked upon every individual 

 picked up at random, as affording the means of describing satisfactorily 

 any species; but no naturalist who has studied carefully any of the 

 species now best known, can have failed to perceive that it requires 

 extensive series of specimens accurately to describe a species, and that 

 the more complete such series are, the more precise appear the limits 

 which separate species. Surely the aim of science cannot be to furnish 

 amateur zoologists or collectors a recipe for a ready identification of 

 any chance specimen that may fall into their hands. And the diffi- 

 culties with which we may meet in attempting to characterize species 

 do not afford the first indication that species do not exist at all, as long 

 as most of them can be distinguished, as such, almost at first sight. 

 I foresee that some convert to the transmutation creed will at once 

 object that the facility with which species may be distinguished is no 

 evidence that they were not derived from other species. It may be so. 



* From a review in 'The American Journal of Science and Arts,' July, 1860. 



