86 SPECIES NOT 



between the speculations of Mr. Darwin and the 

 doctrine of special creation of living beings. If 

 the former is adopted, the latter must be given 

 up. What we have to decide is Dimply which 

 doctrine stands upon the broadest and soundest 

 basis. This is the question at issue, and that 

 which naturalists must settle without delay. 



At the end of the fourth chapter, Mr. Darwin 

 attempts to illustrate his subject by the simile 

 of a large tree. "The green and budding twigs 

 may represent existing species; and those produced 

 during each former year, may represent a long 

 succession of extinct species. At each period of 

 growth, all the growing twigs have tried to branch 

 out on all sides, and to overtop and kill the 

 surrounding twigs and branches, in the sninc 

 manner as species have tried to overmaster other 

 species in the great battle for life. The limbs 

 were once budding twigs, and this connexion of 

 the former and present buds may well represent 

 the classification of all extinct and living species 

 in groups subordinate to groups. Of the many 

 twigs which flourished when the tree was young, 

 only two or three, now grown into great branches, 

 yet survive and bear all the other branches; so 

 with the species which lived during long past 

 geological periods, very few now have living and 

 modified descendants. 



From the first growth of the tree, many a limb 

 and branch has decayed and dropped off; and 

 those lost branches of various sizes may represent 

 those whole orders, families, and genera, which 



