SPECIES AXD BREEDS. 139 



the family form, the ordinal complication of 

 structure, tlie mode of execution of the Class, 

 and the plan of structure of the Branch, all of 

 which are embodied in the frame of each individ- 

 ual in each Species, even though all these indi- 

 viduals are constantly reproducing others and 

 dying away ; so that the specific characters have 

 no more permanency in the individuals than 

 those which characterize the Genus, the Family, 

 the Order, the Class, and the Branch. I believe, 

 therefore, that naturalists have been entirely 

 wrong in considering the more comprehensive 

 groups to be theoretical, and in a measure arbi- 

 trary, — that is, an attempt of certain men to 

 classify the Animal Kingdom according to their 

 individual views, — while they have ascribed to 

 Species, as contrasted with the other divisions, a 

 more positive existence in Nature. 



No further argument is needed to show that it 

 is not only the Species that lives in the individ- 

 ual, but that every individual, though belonging 

 to a distinct Species, is built upon a precise and 

 definite plan which characterizes its Branch,- — 

 that that plan is executed in each individual in a 

 particular way which characterizes its Class, -- 

 that every individual with its kindred occupies a 

 definite position in a series of structural compli- 

 cations which characterizes its O'.'der, — that in 

 •very individual all these structural features are 



