III. 



The origin of species, like all origination, like the 

 institution of any other natural state or order, is be- 

 yond our immediate ken. We see or may learn how 

 things go on ; we can only frame hypotheses as to how 

 they began. 



Two hypotheses divide the scientific world, very 

 unequally, upon the origin of the existing diversity 

 of the plants and animals which surround us. One 

 assumes that the actual kinds are primordial ; the other, 

 that they are derivative. One, that all kinds origi- 

 nated supernaturally and directly as such, and have 

 continued unchanged in the order of Nature ; the 

 other, that the present kinds appeared in some sort of 

 genealogical connection with other and earlier kinds, 

 that they became what they now are in the course of 

 time and in the order of Nature. 



Or, bringing in the word species, which is well 

 defined as " the perennial succession of individuals," 

 commonly of very like individuals — as a close corpora- 

 tion of individuals perpetuated by generation, instead 

 of election — and reducing the question to mathemati- 

 cal simplicity of statement : species are lines of individ- 

 uals coming down from the past and running on to 

 the future ; lines receding, therefore, from our view in 

 either direction. Within our limited observation they 



