WHAT IS A SPECIES ? 43 
descendants of one and the same original primary form. , 
The different kinds of pine mentioned above would accord- 
ingly have originated from a single primeval form of pine. 
In like manner the origin of all the species of cat 
mentioned above would be traced to a’single common form 
of Felis, the ancestor of the whole genus. But further, 
in accordance with the Doctrine of Descent, all the 
different genera of one and the same order ought also to 
be descended from one common primary ancestor, and so, in 
like manner, all ordres of a class from a single primary form. 
On the other hand, according to the idea of Darwin’s 
opponents, all species of animals and plants are quite in- 
dependent of each other, and only the individuals of each 
species have originated from a single primary form. But if 
we ask them how they conceive these original primary forms 
of each species to have come into existence, they answer 
with a leap into the incomprehensible, “They were created.” 
Linnzus himself defined the idea of species in this 
manner by saying, “There are as many different species as 
there were different forms created in the beginning by the 
infinite Being.” (“Species tot sunt diverse, quot diversas 
formas ab initio creavit infinitum ens.”) In this respect, 
therefore, he follows most closely the Mosaic history of 
creation, which in the same way maintains that animals 
and plants were created “each one after its kind.” Linnzeus, 
accepting this, held that originally of each species of 
animals and plants either a single individual or a pair had 
been created ; in fact a pair, or, as Moses says, “a male 
and a female” of those species which have separate sexes, 
but of those species in which each individual combines both 
sexual organs (hermaphrodites), as for instance the earth- 
