56 MODES OF RESEARCH IN GENETICS 



race, variety, species, or larger group. These 

 methods fail because they are fundamentally 

 and necessarily incapable of giving a description 

 of the group (whatever its magnitude) in terms 

 of anything but the individuals which compose it. 

 That is to say, they have no way of getting at a 

 description of a group (e.g., a species) as a whole or 

 as such, in terms of its (the group's) attributes 

 and qualities. Let an illustration make this 

 point clear. The purpose of systematic zoology 

 is to classify and arrange animals in natural 

 groups. As a necessary step in the carrying out 

 of this purpose it is obliged to attempt to define, 

 which means describe, these groups. But its 

 whole way of going about this process is a con- 

 fession of the fundamental inadequacy of the 

 method. The systematist frankly makes no at- 

 tempt whatever to describe or define a particular 

 species as a species (i.e., as a group of animals) 

 in terms of its (the species') qualities. Instead 

 he describes one individual animal belonging to 

 this species; affirms either expressly or tacitly 

 that all other individuals belonging to the species 

 are "about" or "generally" like the individual 

 described, and then calls the net result the defi- 

 nition or description of the species. But now 

 surely this is not a description of the species at 

 all. An adequate description of the species will 

 be one which takes account of its peculiarities as 

 a unit, and indicates how it as a unit or as a whole 



