( xli ) 



Wl' are aware tliat a gnod many systematists, botli among amateurs and 

 jirof'essiouals, have no higher object than naming and arranging the material in 

 their collections, and maybe istsning liooks to enable others also to name and 

 arrange the specimens, the knowledge aimed at being a knowledge of some 

 distinguishing characters, and especially the name of the " species." However, 

 the knowledge of tlie alphabet does not carry with it the knowledge of the 

 language, and lie wlio knows the words and speaks a language is not yet a 

 philologist. So there is also in classification a higher object to be attained than 

 merely describing, baptising, and arranging in some arbitrary order the forms of 

 animated nature. Tliis higher object is to understand tlie ])hylogenetic relation 

 between the forms, and on this understanding the scientific classifier bases 

 his system. 



In order to comi)rehend the connection between tiie forms, it is necessary 

 to know what it is that separates them. It was the one kind of difference to 

 which we have referred before, separating the animals which e.\ist side by side, 

 the one effective barrier consisting of differences in the organisation of the 

 animals themselves, which was the keynote to the Linnean Reforniation of 

 Natural Science and to the Darwinian Revolution. The individuals within the 

 barrier form an entity which has an existence indejjendent of all the other 

 entities. Each entity was in the Linnean classificatioii understood to be a special 

 creation, and the effective barrier to be intended to ])revent fusion of the entities. 

 This was the conception to which Linn6 applied the term species. And this 

 was again the conception which formed the subject of Darwin's Origin of Species. 

 The great mystery which the theory of descent sought to explain was the fact 

 of the co-existence of such innumerable independent species, all separated by 

 that gap which we know to keep the species apart. How did this specific 

 barrier come into existence, if not erected by special creation ? That is the 

 fundamental question which is before scientists. The question is not solved by 

 looking it straight in the face and then shelving it by applying the term 

 " species " to something else than what it originally meant. No friend of true 

 research should let pass unchallenged what so many classifiers nowadays try to 

 do — namely, to sul)stitute for true species the geograpliical form. We know that 

 a specific barrier exists between synoecic animals ; we know that there is 

 a morpliological distinction between geographical representatives. Can the one 

 barrier which we know to be specific honestly be replaced by the geographical 

 difference which at the highest may be assumed to be specific, and of which 

 we know tiiat it is not always specific? We shall oppose any such attempt at 

 uiulerh;ind sliiftiug of tlie meaning of the term " species," which would misguide 

 the public and prevent the student himself from seeing clearly the question 

 at issue. 



If the specific barrier is the result of the evolution of the organic world 

 by natural causes ; if, further, the multitude of species is the outcome of the 

 divergent development of species into a greater number of species, — then we 

 have to search for the rudiment (= beginning) of the specific barrier among 



