( xxviii ) 



This is wroiip, as tlic siiriiii;--form is no more the species than is tlie 

 snramer-form. 



Wlmt we have said here in regard to seasonal varieties, applies also to 

 geogrniiliical and individnal varieties. Which of the conoponents of a species 

 is the first-described and -named form dejjcnds in nearly every case entirely 

 n]MHi accident. The first-named form may be the most aberrant and the very 

 youngest development of the sjiecies, having originated from one of the later- 

 described coraponnds of the si)ecies. To call this accidentally first-named 

 portion of a species the species and the later-named forms varieties of the first, 

 is a ludicrons confusion of facts. And yet, systematic work, from mammals 

 downwards, teems with this glaring misconception. 



As nomenclature is a convenient auxiliary to classification, as it is sub- 

 servient to .science, and must therefore be accommodated to the latter, it should 

 not form a hard-and-fast structure, into the compartments of which the results 

 of classificatory research have to be squeezed somehow. The distinction between 

 the scientific part and tlie accessory nomenclatorial side of classification should 

 never be lost sight of. 



The aim of scientific research is to discover and elncidate the phenomena 

 of nature. Classification, as part of science, aims at an understanding of the 

 connection between the individuals. To attain this object it relies on facts 

 discovered by two lines of research : firstly, on the facts relating to the body ; 

 and, secondly, on the facts relating to life. And here, as in all scientific 

 research, we find the primary question underlying all investigations to be 

 difference or no diiference, because science is always comparative, consciously or 

 uucouscionsly. Morphology and anatomy provide the classifier with the knowledge 

 of the body. In a vast number of instances there is no other knowledge available 

 than this, to build a classification upon. The corporeal facts of the morphologist 

 and anatomist are, however, no absolutely trustworthy basis for a superstructure. 

 For the primary units of the classifier, the individuals, are always different from 

 one another to a certain extent, and therefore cannot be proved to be classi- 

 ficatorially identical by eoriwreal comparison alone. As in inanimate nature 

 identity can be establisiied by action and reac'tion, so also in animated nature. 

 The observed differences and ajiparent identities in the bodies of the individuals 

 have to pass the higher criticism of the knowledge of the i)henomena of life. 

 Two individuals may a{)pear very different to the morj)hologist ; but the classifier, 

 who knows from observation of the living animals that one is the offspring of 

 the other, cannot establish any other connection between them than that of parent 

 and offspring, however conspicuous the bodily differences may be. The differences 

 between young and adult, male and female, parent and offspring, brothers and 

 sisters, however i)rominent they are,- lose all the classificatory importance which 

 the morpliologist and anatomist (and the classifier misled by him) thought they 

 had, when biology estaldishes the true relationshi[i of such individuals. On the 

 other hand, apparently insignificant corporeal differences, which the morpliologist 

 may scarcely deem worth noticing, often turn out to be differences between 



