RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION 437 



may hereafter be thought worthy of specific names, 

 as with the primrose and cowslip ; 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 convenience. 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, morphology, 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 at 

 something wholly beyond his comprehension ; when we 

 regard every production of nature as one which has had 

 a history; when we contemplate every complex structure 

 and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances, 

 each useful to the possessor, nearly in the same way as 

 when we look at any great mechanical invention as the 

 summing up of the labour, the experience, the reason, 

 and even the blunders of numerous workmen; when wo 

 thus view each organic being, how far more interesting; 

 I speak from experience, will 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 corre- 

 lation of growth, 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 subject for study than one 

 more species added to the infinitude of already re- 

 corded species. Our classifications will come to be, a9 

 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 



