98 E VOL UTION AND DOGMA. 



ment the number of species; others diminish it. 

 Some make species out of what others regard as 

 only races or varieties ; whilst others again combine 

 in one what still others contend are demonstrably 

 two or more distinct species. 



Thus, we have it on the authority of Gray that 

 " In a flora so small as the British, one hundred and 

 eighty-two plants, generally reckoned as varieties, 

 have been ranked by some botanists as species. 

 Selecting the British genera which include the most 

 polymorphous forms, it appears that Babbington's 

 flora gives them two hundred and fifty-one species, 

 Bentham's only one hundred and twelve ; a differ- 

 ence of one hundred and thirty-nine doubtful forms. 

 These are nearly the extreme views, but they are 

 the views of two most capable and most experienced 

 judges in respect to one of the best-known floras of 

 the world. The fact is suggestive, that the best- 

 known countries furnish the greatest known number 

 of such doubtful cases." ' 



The relativity and variability of species are still 

 more strikingly illustrated in the case of the hawk- 

 weed, hieracium, of Germany. One author de- 

 scribes no fewer than three hundred species of this 

 plant, another makes the number one hundred and 

 six, a third reduces it to fifty-two, while a fourth is 

 equally positive that there are but twenty species 

 all told! 2 



1 "Darwiniana," p. 35. Cf. "The Origin of Species," chap. n. 



2 It was such difficulties of classification that led the natu- 

 ralist, Deslonchamps, to declare : "Plus on voit d'echantillons, 

 moins on fait d'especes." For a similar reason Darwin ex- 

 claims: "How painfully true it is that no one has a right to 



