110 STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE. 



yet the naturalists who maintain the fixity of spe- 

 cies constantly talk as if species existed independ- 

 ently of the individual" animals. Instead of saying 

 that by the word species is indicated a certain group 

 of characters, and that whenever we meet with this 

 group we say, here is an animal of the same spe- 

 cies, they explicitly declare, or tacitly imply, that al- 

 though an individual dog may vary, there is some- 

 thing above all individuals — the species — and that 

 can not vary. As it is possible some readers may 

 protest that no respectable authority in modern 

 times ever held the opinion here imputed to a 

 school, I will quote the very explicit language of 

 one of Guvier's disciples — -the last editor of Buffon 

 — who, no later than 1856, could declare that " spe- 

 cies are the primitive forms of Nature. Individu- 

 als are nothing but the representatives — the copies 

 of these forms : Les espices sont les formes primitives 

 de la Nature. Les individus n'en sont que des repre- 

 sentations, des copies"* According to this very ex- 

 plicit but very extravagant statement, an individual 

 dog is nothing but a copy of the primitive form — 

 the typical dog — the idea of a dog, as Plato would 

 say ; and, of course, if this be true, it matters little 

 how widely individual dogs may vary, the type, or 

 species, of which it is the representative, remains 

 unaltered. Indeed, it is on this ground that many 

 physiologists explain the fact of hereditary trans- 

 mission : the individual may vary, it is said, but 



* Flouebnb : Cmrs de Physialogie Comparee, 1856, p. 9. 



