Prof. Owen on Life and Species. 51 
admissible in the lower sphere of Radiate life. It is consis- 
tent with facts that a quadripartite coral might bud out, or 
otherwise generate, a variety with a greater number of radia- 
ting laminee. Some varieties, like those expressed by the mod- 
ern generic terms Porites, Millepora, especially the M. com- 
planata, with its strong vertical plates, were better adapted to 
bear the brunt of the breakers, and flourish in the surf, under 
the protection of the coating Nullipore. But to how small an 
exception is this relation applicable! Of the 120 kinds of 
coral enumerated by Ehrenberg in the Red Sea,* 100, at least, 
exist under the same conditions, The majority of species, 
originating in uncalled-for, unstimulated, unselected depar- 
tures from parental structure, establish themselves and flourish 
independently of external influences. All classes of animals 
exemplify this independence : the Cetaceans, under an extra- 
ordinary and nicely graduated range of generic and _ specific 
modifications ; and the same may be said of most Fishes. 
So, being unable to accept the volitional hypothesis, or that 
of impulse from within, or the selective force exerted by out- 
ward circumstances, I deem an innate tendency to deviate 
from parental type, operating through periods of adequate du- 
ration, to be the most probable nature, or way of operation, of 
the secondary law, whereby species have been derived one from 
e other 
It operates, and has operated, in the surface-zones where the 
chambered cephalopods floated, and at the depths where the | 
. d 4 - * 
Intrigue with the specious chaos, and dispart 
Its most ambiguous atoms with sure art; 
have been found by his followers to be but varieties of a sin- _ 
gle type ; and even this, too inconstant to come under the de- ; 
finition of a species given in p. 7. The departure from pa- 
tal form, producing the beautiful varieties of perforate and 
Bhieopods, and which exemplify each group, re= 
spectively, under the Lagenine, Nummulinine, Globigerme, 
* ccoxrx’’, p. 46. t xorx’, p. 44. ie 
