ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 135 



to the origin of species. The opinions of scientific men are 

 still divided upon this subject ; and it will be sufficient to 

 give an outline of the two more important hypotheses, with- 

 out adducing any of the reasoning upon which they are 

 based.* 



I. DOCTRINE OF SPECIAL CREATION. Upon this doctrine 

 of the origin of species, it is believed that species are to all 

 practical intents and purposes immutable productions, each 

 of which has been specially created at some point within the 

 area in which we now find it, subsequently spreading from 

 this spot as far as the conditions of life were suitable for it. 

 Each species upon this view has a " specific centre," where 

 it was primitively created, and from which it extended itself 

 over a larger or smaller area, until its progress was stopped 

 by unsuitable conditions. Upon this theory, therefore, if a 

 species is found occupying two widely remote areas, this 

 can only be in consequence of some geological change 

 by which the original area became divided, or in conse- 

 quence of the species having been carried in some acci- 

 dental manner to a considerable distance from its original 

 home. 



II. DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION. On the other hand, it is 

 believed that species are not permanent and immutable, but 

 that they " undergo modification, and that the existing forms 

 of life are the descendants by true generation of pre-existing 

 forms " (Darwin). Upon this view the resemblances which 

 we express by the terms species, genus, family, order, and 

 the like, indicate really the existence of a true blood-relation- 

 ship between the organisms thus grouped together, each 

 group denoting a less and less close degree of relationship 

 as we recede from the ''species" in the direction of the 

 " sub-kingdom." Whilst most naturalists are inclined to 

 admit the truth of the general doctrine of Evolution, as 



* The author would ask his readers to remember that the mere state- 

 ment of the leading propositions of two opposing theories in no way 

 commits the writer to the support or rejection of either. 



