Miscellaneous, 221 



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 

 belonging 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 born from common ancestors change 

 the different categories of relationship which they bore primitively 

 to one another. While all that has thus far been shown is, that there 

 exists a considerable 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 with a recipe for 

 a ready identification of any chance specimen that may fall into their 

 hands. And the difficulties with which we may meet in attempting 

 to characterize species do not afford the least 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 trans- 

 mutation 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. But as long as no fact is adduced to 

 show that any one well-known species, among the many thousands 

 that are buried in the whole series of fossiliferous rocks, is actually 

 the parent of any one of the species now living, such arguments can 

 have no weight ; and thus far the supporters of the transmutation 

 theory have failed to produce any such facts. Instead of facts we 

 are treated with marvellous bear, cuckoo, and other stories. " Credat 

 Judseus Apella!" 



Had Mr. Darwin or his followers furnished a single fact to show 

 that individuals change, in the course of time, in such a manner as 

 to produce at last species different from those known before, the state 

 of the case might be different. But it stands recorded now, as before, 

 that the animals known to the ancients are still in existence, exhibiting 

 to this day the characters they exhibited of old. The geological 

 record, even with all its imperfections, exaggerated to distortion, tells 

 now, what it has told from the beginning, that the supposed inter- 

 mediate forms between the species of different geological periods are 

 imaginary beings, called up merely in support of a fanciful theory. 



