Materials, Theie Taxonomy and Natural History 71 



diverse sources, producing stable and pliable aggregations of qualities which are 

 incessantly worked over, modified, recombined, and adjusted to newer con- 

 ditions from time to time, giving a trend of evolution and a multitude of species. 

 For us nature contains only other organic forms diverse in kind, intricate in 

 action, and all of most vital interest to us, since we are one of them and have 

 come into being through the same processes that gave rise to them. Phylogeny 

 and its schemes all too often lead to a static condition of mind and to orthodoxy 

 in biology. There exists only living matter with its qualities manifest in 

 diverse combinations. These species, genera, etc., of our scheme of cataloging, 

 lasting though they may be, are but expressions of the operation of the general 

 processes of germinal distintegration, synthetic recombination, and the rise of 

 new factors in the germinal complex, all interacting in an amazingly complex 

 series of operations. These are the centers of present inquiry because they are 

 the modus operandi of evolution. As for schemes of past evolution in these 

 materials, I have none and have no basis for building one. I know which species 

 are most alike and which are most different, but likeness does not always mean 

 nearness of kin, nor unlikeness remoteness of genetic relationship. They are 

 to me only so many kinds of living substance, each with its proper and restricted 

 qualities, attributes, and conditions, which I am able to use, like reagents in a 

 test-tube, for many operations of analysis and synthesis, and thereby help, I 

 hope, to add to our knowledge of the fundamental processes that are productive 

 of heterogeneity and evolution in organisms. 



