192 The Question of Orgamec Evolution. (April, 
Geotrupide found in Britain, some entomologists resolve 
them into ten species, and others only into two. 
Pages might be filled with cases where certain forms have 
been classified as distinct species, till the discovery of a 
series of intermediate individuals has reduced them to one. 
Haeckel points out that the calcareous sponges may be 
either comprised under one species, or, with equal justice, 
divided into 591. Certain characteristics are supposed 
sufficient to prove specific diversity among the true cats,* 
whilst in the genus homo more essential features are held, 
merely to indicate ‘‘ varieties” or ‘‘ races.” 
The stern logic of faéts, therefore, compels us to admit 
that ‘‘species” is not capable of rigid definition; that be- 
tween it and “‘race,” or “variety,” there is no absolute 
demarcation, the one passing by insensible gradations into 
the other; the one as well as the other signifying merely a 
group of beings, simultaneous or successive, which resemble 
each other more closely than they resemble anything else. 
Yet this ill-defined something the old school call upon us to 
admit as, in its essence, immutable ! 
It is still urged that vague, indefinable, and subjective 
as the idea of a species may be, we have never witnessed 
one species actually transmuted into another. This objec- 
tion is, however, little better than irrational. An ephe- 
meron may never have witnessed the evolution of the frog 
from the tadpole. Is the change the less real on that 
account? When we shall be able to compare series of 
specimens, anatomical preparations, and carefully-executed 
photographs of animal species extending at least over a few 
thousand years, it will be quite early enough to raise this point. 
To draw any conclusion from the identity of the domestic 
animals as preserved in Egyptian mummies or figured on 
Egyptian monuments, with the same species as now found 
in modern Europe, is presumptuous in the extreme. 
But the question may be retorted: who has ever known 
any organic being produced by the alternative method, a 
direct and immediate act of special creation? The stone 
record tells us of species that have disappeared, and of 
others that sprung up in their stead. Have the latter 
arisen in full maturity from the ground, or been condensed 
* The domestic cat occasionally exhibits all the range of colour and design 
found in the genus Felis, exclusive of the Lynxes. We find concolorous indi- 
viduals reminding us of the lion, puma, and black tiger; others with vertical, 
tiger-like stripes; others, again, with the cloudings of the ocelot, and others 
with bands of spots closely resembling those of the leopard. If irregular 
crossing were prevented, there can be little doubt but each of these types 
could be distinctly developed. 
