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many contrivances, each useful to its possessor, in 

 the same way, as any great mechanical 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 in- 

 teresting, I speak from experience, does the study of 

 natural history become." One can imagine, in com- 

 parison with this feeling, the comparative difference 

 with which the naturalist views the history of an or- 

 ganism, in all its parts, useful or rudimentary, which 

 he believes was created outright. Such an one does 

 not try to find the genetic history of his specimen, for 

 an origin given, shuts out all interest in any other; 

 nor do extraordinary structures strike such a natu- 

 ralist with any wonder or curiosity. As a classifier, 

 Linneus must have had a tedious and monotonous 

 round of labor, compared with the interesting investi- 

 gations of Darwin, after the latter began to study 

 organisms with reference to their affinity, by descent, 

 and modification. The reader of the two naturalists 

 can form a reasonable idea of this difference in their 

 work, which perhaps would be similar, to the two 

 ways in which their writings interest, and please the 

 reader. The evolutionary theory is not only very much 

 more attractive and entertaining, it is equally more 

 reasonable, and satisfactory. It is interesting to know 

 that species are constantly changing in form and func- 

 tion. The generation which will succeed the present 

 one will be unlike, in several characteristics, the pres- 

 ent one. We are living in the quarternary epoch. This 

 succeeded the tertiary, and the flora and fauna now, 

 is decidedly different in many ways from those of any 

 preceding epoch. The earth is a little different in 

 many ways. The present, or the past can never be 



