ed 



Ch. xxxv.i 



LINNiEUS ON SPECIES. 



2G7 



Linnccus on species.— Linnaeus in one of his treatises had 

 said that classes and orders are the inventions of science, 

 but species are the work of nature.^ In another place he 

 went so far as to declare that genera, like species, are 

 primordial creations, f 



Expressions may doubtless be found in some of his specu- 

 lative essays, implying that he thought that some species at 

 least were the daughters of time, ' temporis JIUcb,' J and we 

 shall see in Chap. XXXVII. that when a great number of 

 closely allied species existed in the same region, he strongly 



mi 



^nt oe aerivea ironi otlier species — pos- 

 sibly that tliej were lijbrids^ and liad become so far perma- 

 nent as to require to be treated as distinct species. But liis 

 deliberate opinion was contained in the following aphorism : 

 ' We reckon just so many species as there were different forms 

 created in the beginning.' § Blumenbach declared that *^no 

 general rule can be laid down for determining the distinctness 

 of species^ as there is no particular class of characters which 

 can serve as a criterion. In each case we 



analogy ^nd probability .^ 



must 



In former 



from 



om 



om 



limits 



The 



being variable, but only within certain fixed 



mystery in which the origin of each species was involved 



me 



of all 



B 



to 



enomena on the earth is shrouded. But I 



undertook to show that the gradual extinction of species one 

 after another was part of the constant and regular course of 

 nature, and must have been so throucfhout all p-eolog-ical 



climate 



and all the principal conditions of the organic and inorganic 

 world, are always, and have been always, undergoing change. 



amon 



and the increase and spread of some of them, must 



^*;Classis et Ordo est sapientise, 

 fepecies naturae opus.' 



t * Genus omne est naturale, in prl- 

 mordio tale creatum/ &e. (Phil. Bot. 

 159. See also Ibid. § 162.)' 



jTlora Suecica, ed. 2, 266, and Species 

 Plantarum 770. 



' Species tot numeramus quot di- 

 versse formse in principio sunt creatse.' 

 (Phil. Bot. § 157.) 



