Remarks on the Nature and Definition of Species. 57 



in its turn the subject matter of the systematist and needs its 

 label. It is of little moment to him that Leontopodium alpinum 

 changes in a changed habitat ; that does not affect the primary 

 fact that Leontopodium alpinum exists and continues to exist 

 so long as the appropriate en\'ironment offers itself. 



To the present day systematist species are no more than a 

 series of packets into which he sorts objects. About x, the 

 intimate constitution of these objects, he makes neither as- 

 sumptions nor prophecies; but, iix x y (the en\'ironment) = xy 

 (the observed object), he needs only to define the two latter terms 

 as clearly as possible, and, if he can develop quantitative 

 methods of assessment \rith which to do it, so much the better. 

 Do not let it be thought however that it is any more scientific 

 or that it assists in the delimitation of the species, to describe 

 the various ecads formed by the organism in an arbitrary 

 selection of different en\4ronments out of the innumerable possi- 

 bilities, rather than to confine oneself to the most rigid possible 

 definition of the exact natural habitat or habitats in which 

 the form in question spontaneously occurs. These ecads may 

 be the beginnings of independent species, as we have seen, and 

 there must be infinite gradations of rank between one extreme 

 and the other. 



Classification is confessedly a subjective matter: but our 

 intellectual limitations require it in order that we may \*iew 

 this universe through some sort of grille of co-ordinate axes, 

 which \rill enable us to relate its multifarious outlines as har- 

 moniously as possible to those elementary ideas with which 

 alone we are capable of dealing. That there never is, nor can be, 

 a perfect correspondence, need not put us greatly about so 

 long as our end is ser^'ed; for, in the ordinars^ acceptation of 

 that term. Natural S^^stem is there none. 



The expressions made use of bv Farlow* are as true to-day 

 as they were a quarter of a century ago and they convey the 

 same opinions as those here maintained, so forcibly that some 

 of his phrases may be effectively quoted in the present con- 

 nection : 



" Our so-called species are merely snap-shots at the procession 

 of nature as it passes along before us. The picture may be clear 

 or obscure, natural or distorted, according to our skill and care, 

 but in any case it represents a temporary phase, and in a short 

 time \rill no longer be a faithful picture of what really lies before 

 us, for we must not forget that the procession is mo\ing con- 

 stantly onward and at a more rapid rate than some suspect." 



"We should not allow ourselves to be deluded by the hope 



* Farlow, W. G., The conception of species as affected by recent investiga- 

 tions on fungi. Bot. Sect. Amer. Ass. Adv. Sci. (i8g8). 



