THE DESCENT OB ORIGIN OF MAN 233 



(Desmoulins), twenty-two (Morton), sixty (Crawfurd), or as 

 ^xty-three, according to Burke." This diversity of judg- 

 ment does not prove that the races ought not to be ranked 

 as species, but it shows that they graduate into each other, 

 and that it is hardly possible to discover clear distinctive 

 characters between them. 



Every naturalist who has had the misfortune to under- 

 take the description of a group of highly varying organisms 

 has encountered cases (I speak after experience) precisely 

 like that of man, and if of a cautious disposition, he will 

 end by uniting all the forms which graduate into each other 

 under a single species; for he will say to himself that he has 

 no right to give names to objects which he cannot define. 

 Cases of this kind occur in the Order which includes man, 

 namely, in certain genera of monkeys ; while in other genera, 

 as in Cercopithecus, most of the species can be determined 

 with certainty. In the American genus Cebus, the various 

 forms are ranked by some naturalists as species, by others 

 as mere geographical races. Now if numerous specimens of 

 Cebus were collected from all parts of South America, and 

 those forms which at present appear to be specifically dis- 

 tinct were found to graduate into each other by close steps, 

 they would usually be ranked as mere varieties or races; 

 and this course has been followed by most naturalists with 

 respect to the races of man. Nevertheless, it must be con- 

 fessed that there are forms, at least in the vegetable king- 

 dom," which we cannot avoid naming as species, but which 

 are connected together by numberless gradations, indepen- 

 dently of intercrossing. 



Some naturalists have lately employed the term "sub- 

 species" to designate forms which possess many of the 



'8 See a good discussion on this subject in Waitz, "Introduct. to Anthro- 

 pology," Eng. translat., 1863, pp. 198-208, 227. I have taken some of the 

 above statements from H. Tuttle's "Origin and Antiquity of Physical Man," 

 Boston, 1866, p. 36. 



" Prof. Nageli has carefully described several striking cases in his 

 "Botanische Mittheilungen, " B. ii., 1866, s. 294-369. _ Prof. Asa Gray has 

 made analogous remarks on some intermediate forms in the Gompositse of 

 North America. 



