LINNEZUS HISTORY OF CREATION. 45 
sufficed to haveutterly demolished all the herbivorous animals, 
as the herbivorous animals must have destroyed the few 
individuals of the different species of plants. The existence 
of such an equilibrium in the economy of nature as obtains 
at present cannot possibly be conceived, if only one individual 
of each species, or only one pair, had originally and simul- 
taneously been created. : 
Moreover, how little importance Linnzeus himself attached 
to this untenable hypothesis of creation is clear, among 
other things, from the fact that he recognized Hybridism 
(crossing) as a source of the production of new species. 
He assumed that a great number of independent new 
species had originated by the interbreeding of two different 
species. Indeed, such hybrids are not at all rare in nature, 
and it is now proved that a great number of species, for 
example, of the genus Rubus (bramble), mullen (Verbascum), 
willow (Salix), thistle (Cirsium), are hybrids of different 
species of these genera. We also know of hybrids between 
hares and rabbits (two species of the genus Lepus), further 
of hybrids between different species of dog (genus Canis), 
ete., which can be propagated as independent species. 
It is certainly very remarkable that Linnzeus asserted 
the physiological (therefore mechanical) origin of new species 
in this process of hybridism. It clearly stands in direct 
opposition to the supernatural origin of the other species by 
creation, which he accepted as put forward in the Mosaic 
account. The one set of species would therefore have 
originated by dualistic (teleological) creation, the other by 
monistic (mechanical) development. 
The great and well merited authority which Linnzus 
gained by his systematic classification and by his other 
