270 NATURE [ Fed. 2; 1871 


have no means of recognising it as such. As a matter of 
fact, new plants and animals are constantly being dis- 
T is a remarkable illustration of the apparently fitful covered in all parts of the globe. Even in our own small 
manner in which our knowledve of Nature increases, | and well-searched island, the additions within the last 
that the event which has probably been more fruitful twenty years of more or less conspicuous flowering plants 
than any other during the present century in inducing to our native flora are not inconsiderable ; but no naturalist 
practical advances in the study of Natural History, was the | suggests any other interpretation of this, than that either 
promulgation of a pure theory, the publication, namely, by | they have been overlooked before, have been recently in- 
Mr. Darwin and Mr, Wallace, of the doctrine of the Origin | troduced from other countries, or that the seeds have been 
of Species by means of Natural Selection. We saya pure buried for ages in the soil. None the less, however, does 
theory, because the genesis of a new species is a phe-| it seem possible, or even probable, that we may eventually 
nomenon which never has yet, and probably never will, | arrive at a correct solution of the problem by a rigorous 
come consciously under the cognizance of man. We see induction from known facts. 
forms of animal and vegetable life die out before our eyes,| So recentlv as the date of the publication of the first edi- 
but their birth is not within our ken. As Mr. Darwin has | tion of the “ Origin of Species,” in 1859, Mr. Darwin wrote, 
pointed out, even should a new species suddenly arise, we | “ The great majority of naturalists believe that species are 

THE GENESIS OF SPECIES * 




Fic. 1.—Leaf Butterfly in Flight and Repose. : 
The lowest apparent leaf on the stem is in reality the under side of the wing of the same butterfly which is represented in 
the upper part of the pi-ture. 
immutable productions, and have been separately created ;” ; keen powers of reasoning and prodigious knowledge of 
and the statement has been repeated in subsequent edi- | Nature—Lamarck, Buffon, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Owen (in 
tions. We think, however, that it is impossible, at the | his earlier writings), and some others—who were bold 
present time, to sustain the correctness of this assertion. | enough to enunciate the theory that species have been 
A writer in the “ Botanische Zeitung” } has recently shown | created by a process of evolution from earlier closely- 
that there is some reason to believe that Linnzeus himself, | allied forms of life. Since the publication of the “ Origin 
in later years, considerably modified the rigidity of his | of Species,’ we may say that almost the whole body of 
adherence to the doctrine which he laid down so de- | the younger naturalists of this country and of Germany— 
cisively in his earlier writings: —“ Species tot numeramus | Von Baer, Huxley, Spencer, and Haeckel leading the way 
quot d verse forme in principio sunt create.” During the | aiter Darwin and Wallace—have given in their adhesion 
eighteenth and the first half of the present century, how- | to the doctrine of Evolution. It is only within the last 
ever, it was only a few naturalists of more than ordinarily | twelvemonth that the evolutionists can claim so great an 
accession to their strength as that distinguished systematist, 
we thes an of Pao By St. George Mivart, F.R.S. (London: | the President of the Linnean Society.* 
+ Botanische Zeitung, Sept. 9, 1870. * Bentham, “ On the Species of Cassia,” a paper read before the Linnean 
% Linn, Phil, Bot, Aphor. 157, p. 99- Society in 1870, but not yet published. 

