442 Scientific Intelligence. 
Among the ae naturalists, indeed, such views—taken in the widest 
sense—lave one and, so far as we are now — only one thorough- 
going and thoroughly. eee opponent, viz. gassiz. 
Most naturalists take into their very conception o a species, explicitly 
or by implication, the mica n of a material i resulting from the 
descent of the sige composing it from a common stock, of local 
origin, Mr, Agassiz wholly eliminates community of descent from his 
idea of species, oe even conceives a species to have been as numerous in 
individuals and as wide spread over de or as segregated in discontin- 
uous spaces, from the first as at a later perioc 
The station which it inhabits, —- is with other naturalists in no 
wise essential to the species, and may not have been the region of its 
origin. In Mr. Agassiz’s view the ea anes is supposed to mark the origin, 
and to be a part of the character of the species. The habitat is not 
merely the place where it is, but a part of what it i 
Most naturalists recognize varieties of species ; sek many, like DeCan- 
dolle, have come to conclude that varieties of the highest grade, or races, 
so far partake of the characteristics of species, and are so far governed 
by the sama laws, that. it is often very difficult to draw a clear and certain 
distinction between the two. Mr. Agassiz will not allow that varieties or 
races exist in nature, apart from man’s a 
Most naturalists Saleh that the origin of species is supernatural, their 
dispersion or particular geographical area, natural, and their ex paris 
when they disappear, also the result of physical causes. In t 
Mr. at if op vaderstood, all — are el independent of 
nuinber of species as seen survived from one epoch to t the 
through more than one formation, especially from the Tertiary into the 
Post-tertiary period, and from that to the present age. nega 
s at ea 
understood to believe in total extinctions and total new creation 
successive epoch, and even to reco _ no —— species co- 
temporary with extinct ones, except i recent exterminations. 
These peculiar views, if sustained, will effectually dispose of every form 
of ot hypothesis. 
Returning for a moment to DeCandolle’s article, - are disposed "4 
notice his wees of Linnzeus’s ‘definition bs the m species (PI ha 
Bot., No. 157): Species tot numeramus quot diverse me moe in principio 
sunt create,—which he declares — pee and the — that 
has been propounded. “So, to determine if a form is specific, it 
sary to go back - * origin, wake is impossible: A defiaition by 8 
character which ca er be verified is no definition at all.” 
f it species. ‘On which nay A. Pi Jussie 
cling a aga definition : :—* nunc rectius definitur perennis indivi 
