THE DOGMA OF SPECIES. A9 
systematic and descriptive natural history won for him 
such high authority, followed in his footsteps, and without 
further inquiry into the origin of organization, they assumed, 
in the sense of Linnzeus, an independent creation of individual 
species, in conformity with the Mosaic account of creation. 
The foundation of their conception was based upon Lin- 
nzeus’ words: “There are as many different species as there 
were different forms created in the beginning by the Infinite 
Being.” We must here remark at once, without going 
further into the definition of species, that all zoologists and 
botanists in their classificatory systems, in the practical dis- 
tinction and designation of species of animals and plants, 
never troubled, or even could trouble, themselves in the 
slightest degree about this assumed creation of the parent 
forms. In reference to this, one of our first zoologists, the 
ingenious Fritz Miiller, makes the following striking obser- 
vation: “ Just as in Christian countries there is a catechism 
of morals, which every one knows by heart, but which no 
one considers it his duty to follow, or expects to see followed 
by others—so zoology also has its dogmas, which are just 
as generally professed as they are denied in practice.” 
(Fiir Darwin, p. 71.) 1° 
Linnzeus’ venerated dogma of species is just such an 
irrational dogma, and for that very reason it is powerful. 
Although most naturalists blindly submitted to it, yet they 
were, of course, never in a position to demonstrate the descent 
of individuals belonging to one species from the common> 
originally created, primitive form. Zoologists and botanists, 
in their systems of nomenclature, confined themselves 
entirely to the similarity of forms, in order to distinguish . 
and name the different species. They placed in one species 
VOL, I. K 
