274 Mr Bernard, On the Unit of Classification 



ally imposed upon our forefathers and still impose upon us, 

 whereas it is the form in the abstract which they reproduce 

 which alone concerns the evolutionist and it is a matter of 

 absolute indifference to him, however interesting it may be to 

 the biologist, whether any particular form has been reproduced 

 only twice or millions of times. Evolutionary classification has to 

 endeavour to arrange each particular form in its order of develop- 

 ment above the forms from which it can be derived and below 

 those to which it has itself given rise. 



And here in passing I should like to remark that I am only 

 developing the teaching of my honoured friend and teacher Prof. 

 Ernst Haeckel, who 30 years ago in his Biologie der Kalk 

 Schwdmme insisted that classification was worthless unless based 

 upon profound morphological study. It is the neglect of this 

 teaching which has made modern Systematic Zoology what Dr 

 Dohrn calls it 1 , an Augean stable. 



Now some may maintain that they really mean the abstract 

 form when they say the species, thereby maintaining that the 

 two can be practically treated as one and the same thing. This, 

 however, is only true in the few accidental cases of exceptionable 

 stability combined with complete morphological isolation, so that 

 the form features of any single individual actually represent those 

 of the whole group. But we cannot allow these rare cases to 

 supply us with a rule of work for all the rest of the organic world. 

 We know that no genetic group is absolutely stable and that, 

 therefore, the form of no single individual can be arbitrarily 

 selected as a type of the rest without covering up and hiding 

 exactly what it is the aim of our classification eventually to 

 reveal to us, viz. the variations in the form features and their 

 evolutionary interrelationships. The present plan of grouping a 

 number of individuals which appear only slightly to differ from 

 one another round a type would be vicious enough even if our 

 types were selected after a careful survey of all the known facts, — 

 at least until the available facts are very much more numerous 

 than they now are. But, instead of our types being even selected, 

 they are purely arbitrary ; the specimen which is accidentally first 

 described becomes a type. This type is given special prominence 

 and other specimens are more or less indiscriminately and solely 

 according to the subjective feelings — or better, the morphological 

 insight — of the individual worker associated with it as mere 

 varieties. In the case of the more stable groups and of those 

 easier to examine, the mischief done is not so great as it is in 

 the case of the less stable and more difficult groups. There, the 

 resulting confusion can not be described; it has to be experienced 2 . 



1 In a private letter to Mr F. Jeffrey Bell. 



2 I need hardly remind the reader that the description of every apparently varying 



