SPECIES AND SUBSPECIES. 237 



be found that there is a point, symbolised by the Linnean type, 

 beyond which synthesis cannot be carried. The number of elements 

 into which these varieties are divided varies indefinitely from 

 the extreme sub-division advocated by Jordan, to the smallest 

 possible number of parts, but whatever the number, it is (it may be 

 said) invariably co-extensive with the Linnean type, the existence of 

 which is recognised, if not as a species, at least as a group of species, 

 or as a section or sub -division of a genus. The conclusion to which 

 we are thus led has already been arrived at in another way by Dr. 

 Hooker, who of all botanists at home or abroad, has given most 

 thought to the question of the limitation of species. In his essay on 

 the Arctic Flora in the 23rd volume of the Linnean Transactions, he 

 tells us that every attempt to carry out his investigations regarding 

 the distribution of Arctic plants was unsatisfactory so long as he 

 kept before him the critical species, which are perhaps more numer- 

 ous in that Flora than in any other, in consequence of the wide area 

 over which most of the species are spread. It was only by having 

 recourse to synthesis, by bringing together as much as possible, into 

 one whole, all the closely allied forms and regarding them as one, 

 that he was able to arrive at any clear views on the distribution of 

 Arctic plants. 



The considerations which we thus urge upon naturalists do not 

 apply to systematic botany alone, but with equal force to Zoology. 

 Till naturalists have acquired a thorough conviction that the increase 

 of sub-division is necessarily progressive, and almost infinite, there 

 mil be no change in their mode of working. A complete change 

 in the mode of looking at the general question of species is there- 

 fore an essential preliminary to a change of practice. For the 

 present anything like unanimity in such matters is out of the 

 question. It is, however, worthy of enquiry whether it be equally 

 impossible to make some alteration in the mode of naming plants 

 (and animals) which shall enable all schools of naturalists to com- 

 pare their results more readily than they now can. At present 

 there is an absolute want of a common medium of communication 

 between those botanists, who take a comprehensive view of the 

 value of a species, and those who restrict its meaning. The 

 binomial system of Linneus was undoubtedly an enormous boon to 

 science. The cumbrous nomenclature in previous use made it 

 difficult to talk of plants. The phrases which took the place of a 

 specific name varied according to the caprice of the namer, and when 



