VARIATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 131 



for their bulk, offered small hope of novelty. The subject 

 was both extremely trite and extremely difficult. Happily it 

 occurred to De Candolle that an interest might be imparted 

 to an onerous undertaking, and a work of necessity be turned 

 to good account for science, by studying the Oaks in view of 

 the question of Species. 



"What this term Species means, or should mean, in natural 

 history, what the limits of species, inter se or chronologically, 

 or in geographical distribution, their modifications, actual or 

 probable, their origin, and their destiny, — these are ques- 

 tions which surge up from time to time ; and now and then in 

 the progress of science they come to assume a new and hope- 

 ful interest. Botany and Zoology, Geology, and what our 

 author, feeling the want of a new term, proposes to name 

 Epiontology} all lead up to and converge into this class of 

 questions, while recent theories shape and point the discus- 

 sion. So we look with eager interest to see what light the 

 study of Oaks, by a very careful, experienced, and conserva- 

 tive botanist, particularly conversant with the geographical 

 relation of plants, may throw upon the subject. 



The course of investigation in this instance does not differ 

 from that ordinarily pursued by working botanists ; nor, in- 

 deed, are the theoretical conclusions other than those to which 

 a similar study of other orders might not have equally led. 

 The Oaks afford a very good occasion for the discussion of 

 questions which press upon our attention, and perhaps they 

 offer peculiarly good materials on account of the number of 

 fossil species. 



Preconceived notions about species being laid aside, the 



1 A name which, at the close of his article, De Candolle proposes for 

 the study of the succession of organized beings, to comprehend, therefore, 

 palaeontology and everything included under what is called geographical 

 botany and geographical zoology, — the whole forming a science parallel 

 to geology, — the latter devoted to the history of unorganized bodies, the 

 former, to that of organized beings, as respects origin, distribution, and 

 succession. We are not satisfied with the word, notwithstanding the prece- 

 dent of palaeontology ; since ontology, the science of being, has an estab- 

 lished meaning as referring to mental existence, — i. e., is a synonym or 

 a department of metaphysics. 



