THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 



43 



tion of his conclusions. The times were riper than he 

 had realized. He has outlived nearly all his scientific 

 opponents, the greatest and perhaps the last of whom 

 was Agassiz. To-day there is not one whose scien- 

 tific studies have been such as to give him a right 

 to speak, whose views are not in substantial accord 

 with those of the Origin of Species. Darwin's work 

 has destroyed forever the closet-formed idea of a "spe- 

 cies" in biology as something fundamentally different 

 from a variety or a race. 



Let me take an illustration. Camille 

 The species of D areste> wr i t i n g of the hundred or 

 more alleged species of the true eel 

 (Angut'/ta), says : 



" There are at least four distinct types, resulting 

 from the combination of a certain number of characters ; 

 but the study of a very large number of specimens be- 

 longing to these four specific types has convinced me 

 that each of these characters may vary independently, 

 and that, consequently, certain individuals exhibit a com- 

 bination of characters belonging to two distinct types. 

 It is therefore possible to establish clearly defined bar- 

 riers separating these two types. The genus Anguilla 

 exhibits, then, a phenomenon which is found in many 

 other genera, and even in the genus Homo itself, and 

 which can be explained in only two ways : Either these 

 four forms have had a common origin and are races 

 merely, and not species ; or else they are distinct in 

 origin and are true species, but have been more or less 

 commingled, and have produced by their mingling inter- 

 mediate forms, which co-exist with those which are 

 primitive. Science is not in the position to decide be- 

 tween these two alternatives." 



It is on idle problems like this as to the reality of 

 species that the strength of the naturalists of the past 



