308 On Species. 



Tlie species is not tlie adult resultant of growtlij nor the initial 

 germ-cell, nor its condition at any other point; it comprises the 

 whole history of the development. Each species has its own 

 special mode of development as well as ultimate form or result, 

 its serial unfolding, inworking and outflowing; so that the pre- 

 cise nature of the potentiality in each is expressed by the line of 

 historical progress from the germ to the full expansion of its 

 powers, and the realization of the end of its being. We com- 

 prehend the type-idea only when we understand the cycle of 

 evolution through all its laAvs of progress, both as regards the 

 living structure under development within, and its successive 

 relations to the external world. 



2, Permanence of si^ecies. 



What now may we infer with regard to the permanence or 

 fixedness of species from a general sui*vey of nature? 



Let us turn ae^ain to the inorganic world. Do we there find 



aesiroyins^ powers, are 



oxygen blending by indefinite shadings with hydrogen or with 

 any other element? Is its combining number, its potential 

 equivalent, a varjnng number, — usually 8, but at times 8 and a 

 fraction, 9, and so on? Far from this, the number is as fixed as 

 the universe. There are no indefinite blendings of elements. 

 There are combinations by multiples or submultiples, but these 

 prove the dominance and fixedness of the combining numbers. 



But further than this, fixed numbers, definite in value and de- 

 fiant of all 



nature from its basement to its top-stone. We find them in 

 combinations by volume as well as weight, that is, in all the re- 

 lations of chemical attraction; in the mathematical forms of 

 crystals and the simple ratios in their modifications, — evidence 

 of a numerical basis to cohesive attraction ; in the laws of light, 

 neat, and sound. Indeed, the whole constitution of inorganic 

 nature, and of our minds with reference to nature, as Professor 

 Peirce has well illustrated, involves fixed numbers; and tlie uni- 

 verse is not only based on mathematics, but on finite determinate 

 numbers in the very natures of all its elemental forces. Thus 

 the temple of nature is made, we may say, of hewn and meas- 

 ured stones, so that, although reaching to the heavens, we may 

 measure, and thus use the finite to rise toward the infinite. 



This being true for inorganic nature, it is necessarily the law 

 for all nature, for the ideas that pervade the universe are not 

 ideas of contrariety but of unity and universality beneath and 

 through diversity. 



The units of the inorganic world, are the weighed elements 

 and their definite compounds or their molecules. The units ol 

 the organic are species, which exhibit themselves in their simplest 

 condition in the germ-cell state. The kingdoms of life in all 

 their magnificent proportions are made from these units. Were 



