524 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



on the same lines, we should .by now have advanced far into the un- 

 known. More than this: if a knowledge of what those men actually 

 accomplished had not passed away from the memory of our generation, 

 we should now be able to appeal to an informed public mind, having 

 some practical acquaintance with the phenomena, and possessing suffi- 

 cient experience of these matters to recognize absurdity in statement 

 and deduction, ready to provide that healthy atmosphere of instructed 

 criticism most friendly to the growth of truth. 



Elsewhere I have noted the paradox that the appearance of the 

 work of Darwin, which crowns the great period in the study of the 

 phenomena of species, was the signal for a general halt. The ' Origin, 

 of Species,' the treatise which for the first time brought the problem 

 of species fairly within the range of human intelligence, so influenced 

 the course of scientific thought that the study of this particular phe- 

 nomenon — specific difference — almost entirely ceased. That this was 

 largely due to the simultaneous opening up of lines of research in many 

 other directions may be granted; but in greater measure, I believe, it 

 is to be ascribed to the substitution of a conception of species which, 

 with all the elements of truth it contains, is yet barren and unnatural. 

 It is not wonderful that those who held that specific difference must 

 be a phenomenon of slowest accumulation, proceeding by steps needing 

 generations for their perception, should turn their attention to subjects 

 deemed more amenable to human enterprise. 



The indiscriminate confounding of all divergences from type into 

 one heterogeneous heap under the name ' Variation ' effectually con- 

 cealed those features of order which the phenomena severally present, 

 creating an enduring obstacle to the progress of evolutionary science. 

 Specific normality and distinctness being regarded as an accidental 

 product of exigency, it was thought safe to treat departures from such 

 normality as comparable differences : all were ' variations ' alike. Let 

 us illustrate the consequences. Princess of Wales is a large modern 

 violet, single, with stalks a foot long or more. Marie Louise is an- 

 other, with large double flowers, pale color, short stalks, peculiar scent, 

 leaf, etc. We call these ' varieties,' and we speak of the various fixed 

 differences between these two, and between them and wild odorata, as 

 due to variation ; and, again, the transient differences between the same 

 odorata in poor, dry soil, or in a rich hedge-bank, we call variation, 

 using but the one term for differences, quantitative or qualitative, 

 permanent or transitory, in size, number of parts, chemistry, and the 

 rest. We might as well use one term to denote the differences between 

 a bar of silver, a stick of lunar caustic, a shilling or a teaspoon. No 

 wonder that the ignorant tell us they can find no order in variation. 



This prodigious confusion, Avhich has spread obscurity over every 

 part of these inquiries, is traceable to the original misconception of 

 the nature of specific difference, as a thing imposed and not inherent. 



