The Discovery of Natural Selection 



of limbs and boughs and minute twigs and scattered leaves 

 is what we have to place in order, and determine the true 

 position each originally occupied with regard to the others, 

 the whole difficulty of the true Natural System of classifi- 

 cation becomes apparent to us. 



We shall thus find ourselves obliged to reject all those 

 systems of classification w^hich arrange species or groups 

 in circles, as well as those which fix a definite number for 

 the division of eiich group. . . . We have . . . never been 

 able to find a case in which the circle has been closed by 

 a direct affinity. In most cases a palpable analogy has 

 been substituted, in others the affinity is very obscure or 

 altogether doubtful. ... 



If we now consider the geographical distribution of . 

 animals and plants upon the earth, we shall find all the 

 facts beautifully in accordance w^ith, and readily explained 

 by, the present hypothesis. A country having species, 

 genera, and whole families peculiar to it will be the 

 necessary result of its having been isolated for a long 

 period, sufficient for many series of species to have been 

 created on the type of pre-existing ones, which, as well as 

 many of the earlier-formed species, have become extinct, 

 and made the groups appear isolated. . . . 



Such phenomena as are exhibited by the Galapagos r 

 Islands, which contain little groups of plants and animals 

 peculiar to themselves, but most nearly allied to those of 

 South America, have not hitherto received any, even a 

 conjectural explanation. The Galapagos are a volcanic 

 group of high antiquity and have probably never been 

 more closely connected with the continent than they are 

 at present. 



He then proceeds at some length to explain how the 

 Galapagos must have been at first '' peopled ... by the 

 action of winds and currents,'* and that the modified 

 prototypes remaining are the " new species '* which have 

 been ^' created in each on the plan of the pre-existing 

 ones.'* This is followed by a graphic sketch of the general 

 H 97 



