NATURAL HISTORY. 



cies, are no longer able to produce with those of their 

 o.wn kind, but are even degenerated to such ;i degree 

 that they can only produce together ; and also, whal 

 a prodigious immensity of combination j ;ire necessary 

 that the production of these two degenerated animals 

 should follow exactly the same laws which are ob- 

 served in the production of perfect animals; for a de- 

 generated animal is itself a vitiated production ; and 

 how can a vitiated, depraved origin, become a stock, 

 and not only produce a constant succession of beings, 

 but even produce them in the same manner, and fol- 

 lowing the same laws, which in effect reproduce the 

 Animal, the origin of which is pure ? 



Although we cannot demonstrate that the production 

 of a species, by degeneration, is a tiling impossible in 

 nature, yet the number of probabilities on the contrary 

 is so great, that we can no longer doubt of it. For 

 if some species have been produced by the degcm ra- 

 tion of others, if the species of the ass is derived fiojn 

 ijie species of the horse, this can only have happened 

 (successively. By degrees, therefore, there would havti 

 been, between the horse and the ass, a great number 

 of intermediate animals, the h'rst of which would have 

 4iffcrcd but slightly in its nature from the horse, and 

 the latter would lujve approached by degrees to that 

 of the ass. Why then do we not si-e the n i pr> 

 tjves, the descendants of the intermediate s; i 

 why do only the two extremes remain? 



The ass is then an ass, and not a horse degenerated. 

 He is neither a stranger, an intruder, nor a bastard. 

 He has hjs family, his species, and his rank. I lib 

 blood is pure; and although his nobility is less illus- 

 trious, yet it is equally good, equally ancient with 

 that of the horse. Why, then, have we so much con- 



