Il8 THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT. 



the most distinct remains of organic creatures which were 

 unable to perpetuate themselves by, active reproduction," 

 exclude his having accepted generally the immediate 

 connection, based on direct reproduction, of the animal 

 world with fossil races entirely differing in struc- 

 ture. For it is quite true that many species, genera and 

 groups, passed through, not their prime only, but also 

 their decline and total extinction antecedent to the 

 present era. 



Yet more. In " Aphoristic Annotations," which he 

 terms problems, written previous to the year 1823, he 

 speaks of " characterless races, which it is scarcely per- 

 missible to assign to a species, as they lose themselves in 

 boundless varieties," and he contrasts them " with races 

 possessed of a character, which they exhibit afresh in all 

 their species, so that they may be ascertained in a rational 

 method." Goethe rests on this fact to illustrate his idea 

 of metamorphosis; and we have no right to explain the 

 characterless or " disorderly " races in a Darwinian sense, 

 as being those of which the forms are not established, 

 while those which possess a character are divided into 

 easily distinguishable species, because a host of interme- 

 diate forms have succumbed in the struggle for existence. 

 He gave this problem to his intelligent young friend, 

 Ernst Mayer, that he might work it out, and impart his 

 reflections to his instructor. 



Mayer says: " The more readily the former (the gen- 

 era possessing character) are arranged, the more diffi- 

 cult it is to dispose of the latter (those which possess no 

 character). But any one who observes them with 

 earnestness and persevering zeal, and is not totally de- 

 ficient in intuitive tact, cultivated by exercise, far from 



