Mr. Bichend's Paper on Systems and Methods. 203 



You favour us with the Linnean definition of a species, and 

 then think proper to throw doubt on its accuracy, because, as 

 I conceive, you happened not at the moment to turn over a 

 page or two more of the Philosophia Botanica. I am not suf- 

 ficient Botanist, perhaps, to understand the difficulties which 

 appear to have beset you in the particular department of Na- 

 tural History which you have studied ; but I may state, that 

 when similar difficulties occur in Zoology, and species are as- 

 certained " to run one into another" we are accustomed to 

 doubt the fact of their being distinct species; we call them va- 

 rieties, and search for some general characteristic which will 

 include and insulate the whole of these varieties, and then call 

 that the specific character. If I may trust the evidence of my 

 eyes, the \^'hite and Negro races of the human species "run 

 into one another by imperceptible shades unappreciable by 

 human sense, so as to render it impossible to circumscribe 

 them." Nay, there are " empirical characters" which distin- 

 guish even a Frenchman from an Englishman, and " which 

 can only be perceived by long and familiar experience, and 

 cannot be described by words ; yet no one hitherto has been 

 bold enough to declare them distinct species. It seems, ne- 

 vertheless, that there are certain persons " who think it advi- 

 sable to break up" the old species into many new ones; but 

 you evidently consider such persons as angels in comparison 

 to the wretches who would dare to subdivide a Linnean genus, 

 a crime which you have ever held in the utmost abhorrence. 

 Yet, as I understand the matter, if there be any groupe in 

 Natural History more truly insulated than another, it is a 

 species; and the division of this natural groupe of individuals 

 ought scarcely, therefore, to be less blamed than that of a 

 genus which may have only rested on the good pleasure or 

 ignorance of Linnaaus, or on that of some blind worshipper of 

 his infallibility. Not indeed that I would have those poor 

 species-makers attacked ; for I care very little one way or the 

 other about them, although for all that 1 know, even they may 

 be doing good in their generation, by pointing out differences. 



By the bye,'on the subject of Species you settle the question 

 by deciding that " in cases of difficulty the assumed law ought 

 to be brought to tlie test of experiment, or the species should 

 be rejected." Now I find it to be a case of some difficulty to 

 understand this advice, since on looking back, the only "as- 

 sumcd law" I can perceive mentioned is as follows: " A spe- 

 cies shall be that distinct form originally so created, and pro- 

 ducing, by certain laws of generation, others like itself;" and 

 unfortunately you have Ibrgotlen to inl()rm us how we are to 

 ascertain l)v experiment, "a distinct form originally so cre- 

 2 D 2 aled.' 



