182 SPECIES NOT 



CHAPTER X. 



THE next chapter is devoted to the considera- 

 tion of hybridism; and Mr. Darwin draws the 

 conclusion that there is no distinction between 

 varieties and species, because "forms known to 

 be varieties, or sufficiently alike to be considered 

 as varieties, and their mongrel offspring are very 

 generally, but not quite, universally fertile." I 

 shall content myself, in answer to this, by quoting 

 the remarks of the greatest known authority upon 

 the subject, M. Isidore Geoffry St. Hilaire, who, 

 in presenting the last volume of his great work, 

 "On the General Natural History of the Organic 

 Kingdoms," to the Academy of Sciences, in Paris, 

 took occasion to discuss this very subject; and 

 after stating that lie had arrived at opinions 

 intermediate between those of Haller, Bonnet, 

 Blumeubach, and Meckel on the one side, and 

 of Morton on the other, finishes thus : "The 

 conclusion at which I have arrived is the following : 

 -There are a great number of hybrids sterile, 

 and also a great number imperfectly fertile. But 

 there are others which fully partake of the power 

 of reproduction, either with original species or 

 among themselves. What has been called the 

 principle of Buffon, but which was in reality that 

 of Pliny, (for Buffon, after having admitted it, 

 condemned it three several times as a foolish 



