DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. 167 



This is a genus, comprising a common chair (Sella vul- 

 garis\ arm or easy chair (S. cathedra), the rocking-chair 

 (S. oscillans) widely distributed in the United States 

 and some others, each of which has sported, as the 

 gardeners say, into many varieties. But now, as the 

 genus and the species have no material existence, how 

 can they vary ? If only individual chairs exist, how can 

 the differences which may be observed among them 

 prove the variability of the species ? To which we re- 

 ply by asking, Which does the question refer to, the 

 category of thought, or the individual embodiment? 

 If the former, then we would remark that our cate- 

 gories of thought vary from time to time in the readi- 

 est manner. And, although the Divine thoughts are 

 eternal, yet they are manifested to us in time and suc- 

 cession, and by their manifestation only can we know 

 them, how imperfectly ! Allowing that what has no 

 material existence can have had no material connection 

 or variation, we should yet infer that what has intel- 

 lectual existence and connection might have intellectual 

 variation ; and, turning to the individuals, which repre- 

 sent the species, we do not see how all this shows that 

 they may not vary. Observation shows us that they 

 do. "Wherefore, taught by fact that successive indi- 

 viduals do vary, we safely infer that the idea must 

 have varied, and that this variation of the individual 

 representatives proves the variability of the species, 

 whether objectively or subjectively regarded. 



Each species or sort of chair, as we have said, has 

 its varieties, and one species shades off by gradations 

 into another. And note it well these numerous 

 and successively slight variations and gradations, far 



