508 * OKIGIN ' AND ' TASMANIAN FLORA ' 



direct knowledge of the origin of any wild species ; that many 

 are separated by numerous structural peculiarities from all 

 other plants ; that some of them invariably propagate their 

 like ; and that a few have retained their characters unchanged 

 under very different conditions and through geological epochs. 



If we conclude from such arguments that species are immut- 

 able, all further enquiry is a waste of time, until the origin of 

 life itself is brought to light. 



The most important of these facts is that of genetic resem- 

 blance. To the tyro in Natural History all similar plants may 

 have had one parent, but all dissimilar plants must have had 

 dissimilar parents. Daily experience demonstrates the first 

 position, but it takes years of observation to prove that the 

 second is not always true. 



And the systematic study of the classification of species, 

 which are fixed ideas, draws off the mind of the botanist from 

 the history of the ideas themselves, i.e. the species, with which 

 he works. ^ 



If it be urged that the origin of species by variation of 

 pre-existing species be a hasty inference from a few facts 

 in the life of a few variable plants, it appears to me that 

 the opposite theory, which demands an independent creative 

 act for each species, is an equally hasty inference from a few 

 negative facts in the life of certain species. 



Worse still, the doctrine of immutability leads to the denial 

 of a rational relationship between the phenomena involved 

 and of any vital rationale of classification. All is swallowed 

 up in the gigantic conception of a power intermittently exercised 

 m the development, out of inorganic elements, of organisms the 

 most bulky and complex as well as the most minute and simple. 

 Such a conception is unreaHsable : the boldest speculator 

 cannot conceive of its occurrence in any field of his own careful 

 observation ; the most cautious advocate hesitates to assert 



^ Darwin (M.L. i. 175) found the same difficulty in convincing naturalists ; 

 they had ' a bigoted idea of the term species.' His ideas were more easily 

 understood as a rule by intelligent people who were not professed naturalists. 

 Among scientific men, they were accepted most commonly by geologists, next 

 by botanists, and least by zoologists (to de Quatrefages : M.L. i. 187). 



