CHAPTER XIV 



THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES AND GENERA ^ 



The meaning of the term — now become a household 

 word in science — " the origin of species/' is often entirely 

 misapprehended. It is very generally thought to mean 

 the origin of life and of living things, and people are sur- 

 prised and almost incredulous when told that Mr. Darwin 

 himself, in the latest edition of his celebrated work, still 

 refers that origin to divine agency. Such however is 

 undoubtedly the case, as shown by the following passage 

 which concludes the volume : " There is grandeur in this 

 view of life, with its several powers, having been origin- 

 ally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one ; 

 and that, while this planet has gone cycling on according 

 to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, 

 endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have 

 been, and are being, evolved." ^ 



The mistake above alluded to has arisen from ignorance 

 of the meaning of the word " species," the " origin " of 

 which Mr. Darwin undertakes to show. A species may be 

 defined as a group of individuals of animals or plants 

 which breed together freely and reproduce their like; 

 whence it follows that all the individuals of a species, now 

 living or which have lived, have descended from a few 

 common ancestors, or perhaps from a single pair. Thus all 



1 In a letter to Sir Joseph Hooker in 1863, Darwin explains that in 

 using the term "Creator" he really meant "appeared by some wholly 

 unknown process," — adding — "It is mere rubbish thinking at present of 

 the origin of life ; one might as well think of the origin of matter " 

 {Life and Letters, iii., p. 18.) 



