LINN^US AS AN EVOLUTIONIST 83 



evolutionists of the twentieth century would 

 be likely to affirm. He remarks a very close 

 superficial likeness between them; so close 

 that, were that all, he would declare them 

 to be specifically one and the same; but, in 

 the characters of their little seed pods or 

 capsules they are so unlike that on this account 

 separate specific rank must be accorded both, 

 and so he places them; concluding, however, 

 with this thoroughly evolutionistic query: 

 "May not the Venetian species have sprung 

 from the Virginian?" 1 The more probable 

 theory of the evolutionist of our time would be, 

 that both are descendants from some common 

 ancestor that had a more general distribution 

 and is now extinct. But that Linnaeus was 

 disposed to regard the Virginian species as 

 having been created such as it is, and the 

 Venetian as having originated from that in 

 after times, is enough to warrant our regarding 

 him as an evolutionist. 



I shall cite but one more instance of Lin- 

 nseus's tacit acceptance of species as derived 

 from other species through altered environ- 

 ment. The case is that of the cultivated 

 beet. The genus Beta, in his view, consists 



1 Species Plantarum, 2 ed., p. 981. 



