THE EVOLUTION OF LIVING BEINGS. 19 



One neglected all experiments and frequently does 

 so yet. 



Evenaslate as icjOI,Wettstein says in his Handbuch 

 der Systematischen Botanik p. 13: 



„Man wird daher als Art die Gesamtheit der Indivi- 

 „duen bezeichnen konnen, welche in alien, dem Beo- 

 „bachter wesentlich erscheinenden, Merkmalen unter 

 „einander und mit ihren Nachkommen uebereinstim-, 

 „men." 



It is true that he adds : „und mit ihren Nachkommen 

 uebereinstimmen," but the systematical praxis takes 

 now as little notice of this as it did in 1886 and is per- 

 fectly content to establish species on morphological 

 characters only. 



Essential („wesentliche") characters are considered 

 to be specific characters, minor ones : varietal charac- 

 ters, but which characters are essential, which minor 

 ones, nobody says. 



Such minor forms are called varieties, formae, ra- 

 ces, lusus and tutti quanti and if, which happens rare- 

 ly, one or another investigator takes the trouble to 

 sow seeds of any of them, and finds to his surprise that 

 these „minor" forms reproduce their kind faithfully, 

 this causes not the slightest change in his opinion as to 

 their varietal or racial rank (these two designations 

 usually being used indiscriminately.). 



Yet, Jordan has already in 1855 ridiculed this casus 

 positionis in such a scathing manner, that it is hard to 

 understand how this view could be held so long. 

 He said: 



Selon les partisans de cette theorie (of the variabili- 



