SPECIES AND BREEDS. 139 
the family form, the ordinal complication of 
structure, the mode of execution of the Class, 
and the plan of structure of the Branch, all of 
which are embodied in the frame of each individ- 
ual in each Species, even though all these indi- 
viduals are constantly reproducing others and 
dying away; so that the specific characters have 
no more permanency in the individuals than 
those which characterize the Genus, the Family, 
the Order, the Class, and the Branch. 1 believe, 
therefore, that naturalists have been entirely 
wrong in considering the more comprehensive 
groups to be theoretical, and in a measure arbi- 
trary, —that is, an attempt of certain men to 
classify the Animal Kingdom according to their 
individual views, — while they have ascribed to 
Species, as contrasted with the other divisions, a 
more positive existence in Nature. 
No further argument is needed to show that it 
is not only the Species that lives in the individ- 
ual, but that every individual, though belonging 
to a distinct Species, is built upon a precise and 
definite plan which characterizes its Branch, — 
that that plan is executed in each individual in a 
particular way which characterizes its Class, — 
that every individual with its kindred occupies a 
definite position in a series of structural compli- 
cations which characterizes its Order, —that in 
every individual all these structural features are 
