94 Prof. A. Gray on Species considered as to 



notwithstanding some endeavours to the contrary, to allow de- 

 rivative hypotheses to stand or fall upon their own merits, to 

 have, indeed, upon philosophical grounds, certain presumptions 

 in their favour, and to be, perhaps, quite as capable of being 

 turned to good account as to bad account in natural theo- 

 logy*. 



Among the leading naturalists, indeed, such views, taken in 

 the widest sense, have one (and, so far as we are now aware, only 

 one) thoroughgoing and thoroughly consistent opponent, viz. 

 M. Agassiz. 



Most naturalists take into their very conception of a species, 

 explicitly or by implication, the notion of a material connexion 

 resulting from the descent of the individuals composing it from 

 a common stock, of local origin. M. Agassiz wholly eliminates 

 community of descent from his idea of species, and even con- 

 ceives a species to have been as numerous in individuals and as 

 widespread over space, or as segregated in discontinuous spaces, 

 from the first as at a later period. 



The station which it inhabits, therefore, is with other natu- 

 ralists in nowise essential to the species, and may not have been 

 the region of its origin. In M. Agassiz's view the habitat is 

 supposed to mark the origin, and to be a part of the character, 

 of the species. The habitat is not merely the place where it is, 

 but a part of what it is. 



Most naturalists recognize varieties of species; and many, 

 like DeCandoIle, have come to conclude that varieties of the 

 highest grade, or races, so far partake of the characteristics of 

 species, and are so far governed by the same laws, that it is often 

 very difficult to draw a clear and certain distinction between the 

 two. M. Agassiz will not allow that varieties or races exist in 

 nature, apart from man^s agency. 



Most naturalists believe that the origin of species is super- 

 natural, their dispersion or particular geographical area natural, 

 and their extinction, when they disappear, also the result of 

 physical causes. In the view of M. Agassiz, if rightly under- 



. * What the Rev. Principal Tulloch remarks in respect to the philosophy 

 of miracles has a pertinent application here. We quote at secondhand : — 

 " The stoutest advocates of interference can mean nothing more than 

 that the Supreme Will has so moved the hidden springs of nature that a 

 new issue arises on given circumstances. The ordinary issue is supplanted 

 by a higher issue. The essential facts before us are a certain set of phe- 

 nomena, and a Higher Will moving them. How moving them ? is a ques- 

 tion for human definition, the answer to which does not and cannot affect 

 the divine meaning of the change. Yet when we reflect that this Higher 

 Will is everywhere reason and wisdom, it seems a juster as well as a more 

 comprehensive view to regard it as operating by subordination and evolu- 

 tion, rather than by interference or violation." 



