98 DARWimANA. 



moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and onr own solitary moon, 

 but gradually and peacefully detached by divergent 

 variation. That such, closely-related species may be 

 only varieties of higher grade, earlier origin, or more 

 favored evolution, is not a very violent supposition. 

 Anyhow, it was a supposition sure to be made. 



3. The actual geographical distribution of species 

 upon the earth's surface tends to suggest the same 

 notion. For, as a general thing, all or most of the 

 species of a peculiar genus or other type are grouped 

 in the same country, or occupy continuous, proximate, 

 or accessible areas. So well does this rule hold, so 

 general is the implication that kindred species are or 

 were associated geographically, that most trustworthy 

 naturalists, quite free from hypotheses of transmuta- 

 tion, are constantly inferring former geographical 

 continuity between parts of the world now widely 

 disjoined, in order to account thereby for certain 

 generic similarities among their inhabitants; just as 

 philologists infer former connection of races, and a 

 parent language, to account for generic similarities 

 among existing languages. Yet no scientific explana- 

 tion has been offei'ed to account for the geographical 

 association of kindred species, except the hypothesis 

 of a common origin. 



4. Here the fact of the antiquity of creation, and 

 in particular of the present kinds of the earth's inhab- 

 itants, or of a large part of them, comes in to rebut 

 the objection that there has not been time enough 

 for any marked diversification of living things through 

 divergent variation — not time enough for varieties to 

 have diverged into what we call species. 



