On Species, S 1 1 



rily be most pliant, was fitted to take tlie -^vLole earth as Lis do- 

 minionj and live under every zone. And surely it would have 

 been a very clumsy method of accomplishing the same result, 

 to have made him of many species, all admitting of indefinite 

 or nearly indefinite hybridization, in direct opposition to a grand 

 principle elsewhere recognized in the organic kingdoms. It 



would have been using a process that produces impotence or 

 nothing among animals for the perpetuation and progress of the 

 human race. 

 There are other ways of accounting for the limited produc- 



tiveness of the mulatto, without appeahng to a distinction of 



species. There are causes, independent of mixture, which are 

 naaking the Indian to melt away before the white man, the Sand- 

 wich Islander and all savage people to sink into the ground be- 

 fore the power and energy of higher intelligence. They disap- 

 ear like plants beneath those of stronger root and growth, being 

 epressed morally, intellecTOally and physically, contaminated by 

 new vices, tainted variously by foreign disease, and dwindled in 

 all their hopes and aims and means of progress, through an 

 overshadowing race. 



We have therefore reason to believe from man's fertile inter- 

 niixture, that he is one in species; and that all organic species 

 are divine appointments which cannot be obliterated, unless by 

 annihilating the individuals representing the species. 



It may be said, that different species in the inorganic world 

 combine so as to form new units, and why may^ they not in the 

 organic ? It is true they combine, but not by indefinite blend- 

 i«gs. There is a definite law of multiples, and this is the central 

 idea in the system of inorganic nature. In organic nature, such 

 a law of multiples, if existing, would be general, as in the inor- 

 ganic; it would be an essential part of the system and should 

 be easily verified, while, in fact, observation lends it no support, 

 not even enough to have suggested the hypothesis. 



In one kingdom, the inorganic^ there is multiplication of kinds 

 of units by combination, according to the law of multiples, and no 

 reproduction ; while in the organic, there is reproduction of like 

 from like and no multiplication of kinds by combination. And 

 thus the two departments of living and dead nature wideljy^ diverge. 



Neither does the possibility of mere mixture among inorganic 

 substances afford any analogy to sustain the idea of possible 

 l^ybrid mixture indefinitely perpetuated, among living beings. 

 The mechanical aggregation of units that make up ordinary mix- 

 ture, is one thing; and the combination that would alter a genn, 

 one of the units in organic species, even to its fundamental na- 

 ture, is quite another. This last is not aggregation. It is as 

 different from mere mixture as is chemical combination and 

 stands somewhat in the same relation, so that the analogy has 

 BO bearing on the question. 



