LAW OF GENERIC FOEMS. 431 



mestic horse bears the strongest resemblance. The obvious in- 

 ference is, that even in animals so high in the scale of 

 mammals as the solidungula, the young is a generic animal, 

 including in it the colour, proportions, movements, and habits 

 of the genus or natural family, of all its species, wherever 

 placed, and representing, more especially in this instance, a 

 wild species of that family, never domesticated nor subdued 

 by man. Even here, where we should expect specific and 

 other influences to have told strongly on the product that is, 

 the young, we find the generic law to be in full force, and 

 that the young of the domestic horse resembles a species pe- 

 culiar to another region of the earth. The natural family, 

 then, of the solidungula embraces in the young of each species 

 all the forms which it, the genus, can or has assumed on the 

 earth. The quagga and the zebra may become extinct ; but 

 their forms remain in the generic young of whatever spe- 

 cies still lives. The fossil horse belonged, no doubt, to the 

 same family ; as the exterior is lost, the precise species cannot 

 now be determined. That he belonged to any species now 

 living I do not believe ; but he was of the family, and may 

 appear again. Thus the successive appearance of new forms 

 or species is no new creation, but merely the development of 

 forms already existing in every natural family. The extinc- 

 tion of species which has gone on through millions of years 

 has led some to the belief that nature hastens onwards to the 

 extinction of life on the globe. It is possible ; but I lean to 

 the opposite opinion, believing that living nature will have no 

 end. That which has been may be again, the potentiality 

 existing in every species of every natural family ; and to this 

 creed point the infinite affiliations of germs, not confined to 

 natural families, but extending to all that lives. These are 

 speculations on which I do not enter. Primordial forms are 

 visible in all germs ; the germs themselves must be eternal. 



" If we inquire into the law of generic forms lower in the 

 scale, as in fishes, to which I have just alluded, we find still 

 stronger confirmation of the point I now seek to determine. 

 The natural family of the Salmonidse, as the one with which I 

 am best acquainted, was that fixed on for the inquiry. Look at 

 the young salmon when but a few inches in length, and you 

 will find that in its dentition, colouring, and proportions, it is 

 not a specific animal, but a generic i. e. it possesses (and is 

 therefore perfect) all the natural history characteristics of 

 the three sub-families into which the Salmonidae have been 



