[18 THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT. 



now existing from extinct "ancestral races," was not 

 unfamiliar to him. Nor would his remark, " For we 

 have the most distinct remains of organic creatures 

 which were unable to perpetuate themselves by active 

 reproduction," exclude his having accepted generally 

 the immediate connection, based on direct reproduction, 

 of the animal world with fossil races entirely differing 

 in structure. For it is quite true that many species, 

 genera and groups, passed through, not their prime only, 

 but also their decline and total extinction antecedent to 

 the present era. 



Yet more. In "Aphoristic Annotations," which he 

 terms problems, written previous to the year 1823, he 

 speaks of " characterless races, which it is scarcely per- 

 missible to assign to a species, as they lose themselves in 

 boundless varieties," and he contrasts them " with races 

 possessed of a character, which they exhibit afresh in 

 all their species, so that they may be ascertained in a 

 rational method." Goethe rests on this fact to illustrate 

 his idea of metamorphosis ; and we have no right to 

 explain the characterless or "disorderly" races in a 

 Darwinian sense, as being those of which the forms 

 are not established, while those which possess a character 

 are divided into easily distinguishable species, because a 

 host of intermediate forms have succumbed in the 

 struggle for existence. He gave this problem to his 

 intelligent young friend, Ernst Mayer, that he might 

 work it out, and impart his reflections to his instructor. 



Mayer says : " The more readily the former (the 

 genera possessing character) are arranged, the more 

 difficult it is to dispose of the latter (those which possess 

 no character). But any one who observes them with 



