52 



the origin of species, desired to know first of all — what 

 was meant by a species. 



He would naturally look for the definition of species 

 first among the higher animals, and expect it to be best 

 defined in those which were best known. And being- 

 referred for satisfaction to the 226th page of the first 

 volume of Mr. Darwin's " Descent of Man," he would find 

 this passage : — 



"Man has been studied more carefully than any other 

 organic being, and yet there is the greatest possible 

 diversity among capable judges, whether he should be 

 classed as a single species or race, or as two (Yirey), as 

 three (Jacquinot), as four (Kant), five (Blumenbach), six 

 (Buffon), seven (Hunter), eight (Agassiz), eleven (Picker- 

 ing), fifteen (Bory St. Yincent), sixteen (Desmoulins), 

 twenty-two (Morton), sixty (Crawford), or as sixty- three 

 according to Burke." 



And in the meantime, while your men of science are 

 thus vacillating, in the definition of the species of the only 

 animal they have the opportunity of studying inside and 

 out, between one and sixty-three ; and disj^uting about 

 the origin, in past ages, of what they cannot define in the 

 present one ; and deciphering the filthy heraldries which 

 record the relation of humanity to the ascidian and the 

 crocodile, you have ceased utterly to distinguish between 

 the two species of man, evermore separate by infinite 

 separation : of whom the one, capable of loyalty and of 

 love, can at least conceive spiritual natures which have no 



