THE DOGMA OF SPECIES. 49 



systematic and descriptive natural history won for him 

 such high authority, followed in his footsteps, and without 

 further inquiry into the origin of organization, they assumed, 

 in the sense of Linnaeus, an independent creation of individual 

 species, in conformity with the Mosaic account of creation. 

 The foundation of their conception was based upon Lin- 

 naeus' words: "There are as many different species as there 

 were different forms created in the beginning by the Infinite 

 Being." We must here remark at once, without going 

 further into the definition of species, that all zoologists and 

 botanists in their classificatory systems, in the practical dis- 

 tinction and designation of species of animals and plants, 

 never troubled, or even could trouble, themselves in the 

 slightest degree about this assumed creation of the parent 

 forms. In reference to this, one of our first zoologists, the 

 ingenious Fritz Mliller, makes the following striking obser- 

 vation : " Just as in Christian countries there is a catechism 

 of morals, which every one knows by heart, but which no 

 one considers it his duty to follow, or expects to see foUowed 

 by others, — so zoology also has its dogmas, which are just 

 as generally professed as they are denied in practice." 

 (Fiir Darwin, p. 71.) ^^ 



Linnaeus' venerated dogma of species is just such an 

 irrational dogma, and for that very reason it is powerful. 

 Although most naturalists blindly submitted to it, yet they 

 were, of course, never in a position to demonstrate the descent 

 of individuals belonging to one species from the common, 

 originally created, primitive form. Zoologists and botanists, 

 in their systems of nomenclature, confined themselves 

 entirely to the similarity of forms, in order to distinguish 

 and name the different species. They placed in one species 



