372 ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



the grand fact in natural history of the subordination 

 of group under group, which, from its familiarity, does 

 not always sufficiently strike us, is in my judgment 

 explained. 



Naturalists try to arrange the species, genera, and 

 families in each class, on what is called the Natural 

 System. But what is meant by this system? Some 

 authors look at it merely as a scheme for arranging to- 

 gether those living objects which are most alike, and for 

 separating those which are most unlike ; or as an artificial 

 means for enunciating, as briefly as possible, general ] 

 propositions, — that is, by one sentence to give the 

 characters common, for instance, to all mammals, by 

 another those common to all carnivora, by another ; 

 those common to the dog-genus, and then by adding a 

 single sentence, a full description is given of each kind 

 of dog. The ingenuity and utility of this system are 

 indisputable. But many naturalists think that some- 

 thing more is meant by the Natural System ; they 

 believe that it reveals the plan of the Creator ; but 

 unless it be specified whether order in time or space, 

 or what else is meant by the plan of the Creator, it 

 seems to me that nothing is thus added to our 

 knowledge. Such expressions as that famous one of 

 Linnaeus, and which we often meet with in a more 01 

 less concealed form, that the characters do not make th« 

 genus, but that the genus gives the characters, seem 

 imply that something more is included in our classifk 

 tion, than mere resemblance. I believe that somethii 

 more is included ; and that propinquity of descent, — th< 

 only known cause of the similarity of organic beings,- 

 is the bond, hidden as it is by various degrees of modifi- 

 cation, which is partially revealed to us by our classifi- 

 cations. 



Let us now consider the rules followed in classi- 

 fication, and the difficulties which are encountered 01 

 the view that classification either gives some unknot 

 plan of creation, or is simply a scheme for enunciatii 

 general propositions and of placing together the fori 

 most like each other. It might have been thought (an< 



