165 



at any rate, arise out of an apparent defect in the bino- 

 mial process, for the inconveniences which they com- 

 plained of are real ones ; and, having felt them practi- 

 cally, they aspired to sweep them away by remodelling 

 the whole system afresh. But, had it not been for an 

 evident misconception of the generic theory, in the 

 abstract, the trial would in all probability have never 

 been made ; and we should have been spared the downfall 

 of a contrivance which has had but little to recommend 

 it beyond the ingenuity of its machinery and detail. If 

 we analyse the motives for this experiment, we shall find 

 that it originated from a belief, that genera are either 

 purely imaginary, or else that they must (like species) 

 have a definite and isolated existence. Now both of 

 these conclusions appear to be equally gratuitous and 

 untenable ; and such as a lack of observation could alone 

 beget. Genera are not mere phantoms of the brain (as 

 most naturalists will readily admit) ; but they are, like- 

 wise, by no means abrupt, or well-marked, on their 

 outer limits (except indeed by accident, of which here- 

 after), but merge into each other by gradations, more 

 or less slow and perceptible. Such being the case, we 

 can easily understand why it is that the followers of the 

 ' Methode Mononomique' (who, paralysed by the fact that 

 genera are seldom clearly defined at their extremes, would 

 seem to repudiate them in toto) have rashly regarded the 

 binomial system as intolerable. Finding that it was 

 possible for numerous species, whose structural charac- 

 teristics were less conspicuously pronounced than those 



