312 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



as any great raechanieal invention is the summing up of 

 the labor, the experience, the reason, and even the 

 blunders of numerous workmen; when we thus view 

 each organic being, how far more interesting — I speak 

 from experience— does the study of natural history be- 

 come ! 



A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will 

 be opened, on the causes and laws of variation, on cor- 

 relation, on the effects of use and disuse, on the direct 

 action of external conditions, and so forth. The study 

 of domestic productions will rise immensely in value. 

 A new variety raised by man will be a more important 

 and interesting subject for study than one more species 

 added to the infinitude of already recorded species./ Our 

 classifications will come to be, as far as they can be so 

 made, genealogies; and will then truly give what may 

 be called the plan of creation. The rules for classifying 

 will no doubt become simpler when we have a definite 

 object in view. We possess no pedigrees or armorial 

 bearings; and we have to discover and trace the many 

 diverging lines of descent in our natural genealogies, by 

 characters of any kind which have long been inherited. 

 Eudimentary organs will speak infallibly with respect to 

 the nature of long-lost structures. Species and groups of 

 species which are called aberrant, and which may fanci- 

 fully be called living fossils, will aid us in forming a 

 picture of the ancient forms of life. Embryology will 

 often reveal to us the structure, in some degree obscured, 

 of the prototypes of each great class. 



When we can feel assured that all the individuals 

 of the same species, and all the closely allied species 

 of most genera, have within a not very remote period 



