72 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



eties compare with what scientific men call species. And here 

 let me request you to distinguish between the sense of the word 

 " species," as it is used in science, and the vernacular use of 

 the word, by which any different thing, whatever may be the 

 nature of the thing, may be called a species of that thing or 

 another thing. That is not the meaning in which science uses 

 the word species. The word species in natural history desig- 

 nates a certain kind of existence which is definite, and applies 

 to animals and plants having certain properties ; for instance, 

 that of reproducing themselves with the same essential charac- 

 teristics. That is a species ; and at once the question arises : 

 "Where are the limits of species, and what constitutes variety ? 

 and how are species derived, how is variety produced, and is it 

 possible to originate new species by the development of varieties ? 

 If it were possible to originate new species by the development 

 of varieties, you see at once that man might be able to enlarge 

 both the animal and vegetable kingdom, and become a creator. 

 And the doctrine is at this moment very generally received 

 throughout the scientific world, and actually maintained, that 

 not only man, but those general influences which act in nature 

 as the stimulants to the growth of animals and plants, may so 

 modify any living being, animal or plant, which has once had 

 an existence, as to change its essential nature, and bring out, in 

 consequence of those influences, new forms, so permanent, so 

 distinct, and so essentially different from those that existed 

 before, that they should be considered like species ; that, in fact, 

 in that way, all the variety in nature has been produced, and 

 that original creation amounted to nothing but giving an 

 impulse to life ; so that, life being once called into existence, all 

 this variety has been derived in that way, by successive influences 

 of secondary causes. That is the doctrine ; and that being the 

 case, we are of course the lineal descendants of monkeys ; the 

 monkeys the lineal descendants of the next lower race of quadru- 

 peds, and these the lineal descendants of lower and lower beings, 

 and we come at last to the assumption that there was at the begin- 

 ning a very simple form of life called into existence, from which 

 has sprung all these diversities. And this mode of argument is 

 legitimate, as soon as you tell us that you can produce some- 

 thing different from what there is primitively and naturally in 

 the plant you cultivate or in the animal you raise. But if you 



