CONCLUSION. 471 



gradations between any two forms, we shall be led to weigh, 

 more carefully and to value higher the actual amount of 

 difference between them. It is quite possible that forms 

 now generally acknowledged to be merely varieties may 

 hereafter be thought worthy of specific names ; and in this 

 case scientific and common language will come into accord- 

 ance. In short, we shall have to treat species in the same 

 manner as those naturalists treat genera, who admit that 

 genera are merely artificial combinations made for conve- 

 nience. This may not be a cheering prospect ; but we shall 

 at least be freed from the vain search for the undiscovered 

 and undiscoverable essence of the term species. 



The other and more general departments of natural history 

 will rise greatly in interest. The terms used by naturalists, 

 of affinity, relationship, community of type, paternity, mor- 

 phology, adaptive characters, rudimentary and aborted organs, 

 etc., will cease to be metaphorical, and will have a plain 

 signification. When we no longer look at an organic being 

 as a savage looks at a ship, as something wholly beyond his 

 comprehension ; when we regard every production of nature 

 as one which has had a long history ; when we contemplate 

 every complex structure and instinct as the summing up of 

 many contrivances, each useful to the possessor, in the same 

 way as any great mechanical invention is the summing 

 up of the labor, the experience, the reason, and even the 

 blunders of numerous workmen ; when we thus view each 

 organic being, how far more interesting — I speak from 

 experience — does the study of natural history become ! 



A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be 

 opened, on the causes and laws of variation, on correlation, 

 on the effects of use and disuse, on the direct action of 

 external conditions, and so forth. The study of domestic 

 productions will rise immensely in value. A new variety 

 raised by man will be a more important and interesting sub- 

 ject for study than one more species added to the infinitude 

 of already recorded species. Our classifications will come 

 to be, as far as they can be so made, genealogies ; and will 

 then truly give what may be called the plan of creation. 

 The rules for classifying will no doubt become simpler when 

 we have a definite object in view. We possess no pedigree 

 or armorial bearings ; and we have to discover and trace the 

 many diverging lines of descent in our natural genealogies, 

 by characters of any kind which have long been inherited. 

 Rudimentary organs will speak infallibly with respect to 



