104 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



upon that quality or property which most vitally con- 

 ditions it, and is common to all subsequent groups 

 which may be contained within it. To illustrate: A 

 natural classification of man must be based upon life, 

 which, from a scientific point of view at least, is the 

 most vital and fundamental property of the being under 

 consideration. The next stage in the classification 

 would be a division into the animal and vegetable life, 

 and the third the placing of man in the vertebrate series 

 of animals. It will be observed that this third process 

 of division is simply a particular form of the funda- 

 mental property with which we started. Continuing in 

 this same mariner, we should ultimately get a classifica- 

 tion of men into the various races, Caucasian, Ethio- 

 pian, Mongolian, etc., and a subdivision of each of 

 these into the various tribes or nationalities, as Ger- 

 mans, French, Italians, Americans. It is possible to go 

 even a stage farther, and divide Americans into Yan- 

 kees, New Yorkers, Southerners, etc., but a point is 

 ultimately reached where no further division is j^ossible 

 because no characteristic can be found of any number 

 of individuals which is a more special expression of 

 some more universal and necessary property of their 

 being. 



The point to be emphasized in this discussion is the 

 fact that logically any group, however extensive or re- 

 stricted, may be regarded as a species in relation to the 

 next more inclusive group which contains it, and con- 

 stitutes its genus. Thus, logically, the vertebrates form 

 one species of the genus animal. Furthermore, science 

 is more or less arbitrary in the making of species, unless 

 only the most ultimate and special division of a group 

 be considered as such. Such a distinction of species 

 is never made, however, for what scientist would ven- 

 ture to make the Yankee a distinct species, americanus, 



