IGG ESSAY ON CLASSIFICATION. Part I. 



ent breeds of the same species are less iiicliued to mingle than individuals of the 

 same breed. For my own part, I cannot conceive how moral philosophers, who 

 urge the unity of origin of Man as one of the fundamental principles of their 

 religion, can at the same time justify the necessity which it involves of a sexual 

 intercourse between the nearest blood relations of that assumed first and unique 

 human family, when such a connection is revolting even to the savage. Then again, 

 there are innumerable species in which vast numbers of individuals are never 

 developed sexually, others in which sexual individuals appear only now and then 

 at remote intervals, while many intermediate generations are produced without any 

 sexual connection, and others still which multiply more extensively by budding 

 than by sexual generation. I need not again allude here to the phenomena of 

 alternate generation, now so well known among Acalephs and Worms, nor to 

 the joolymorphism of many other types. Not to acknowledge the significance of 

 such facts, would amount to the absurd pretension, that distinctions and definitions, 

 introduced in our science during its infancy, are to be taken as standards for 

 our appreciation of the phenomena in nature, instead of framing and remodelhng 

 our standards, according to the laws of nature, as our knowledge extends. It is, 

 \ for instance, a specific character of the Horse and the Ass to be able to con- 



nect sexually with each other, and thus to produce an offspring different from that 

 which they bring forth among themselves. It is characteristic of the Mare, as 

 the representative of its species, to bring forth a Mule with the Jackass, and of 

 the Stallion to procreate Hinnies with the She-ass. It is equally characteristic of 

 them to produce still other kinds of halfbreeds with the Zebra, the Daw, etc. And 

 yet in face of all these facts, which render sexual reproduction, or at least pro- 

 miscuous intercourse among the representatives of the same species, so questionable 

 a criterion of specific identity, there are still naturalists who would represent it as 

 V; an unfailing test, only that they may sustain one single position, that all men are 



derived from one single pair. 



These facts, with other facts which go to show more extensively every day the 

 great probability of the indej)endent origin of individuals of the same species in 

 disconnected geographical areas, force us to remove from the philosophic definition 

 of species the idea of a community of origin, and consequently, also, the idea of 

 a necessary genealogical connection. The evidence that all animals have originated 

 in large numbers is growing so strong, that the idea that every species existed in 

 \ / the beginning in single pairs, may be said to be given up almost entirely by 



naturalists. Now if tliis is the case, sexual derivation does not constitute a neces- 

 sary specific character, even though sexual connection be the natural process of 

 their reproduction and multiplication. If we are led to admit as the beginning of 

 each species, the simultaneous origin of a large number of individuals, if the same 



