NOTE-BOOK OF 1837. 3^ 



one stock, and since distributed by such means as we can 

 recognise, may be thought to explain nothing. 



"Astronomers might formerly have said that God fore- 

 ordered each planet to move in its particular destiny. In the 

 same manner God orders each animal created with certain 

 forms in certain countries, but how much more simple and 

 sublime [a] power — let attraction act according to certain 

 law, such are inevitable consequences — let animals be cre- 

 ated, then by the fixed laws of generation, such will be their 

 successors. 



" Let the powers of transportal be such, and so will be the 

 forms of one country to another — let geological changes go 

 at such a rate, so will be the number and distribution of the 

 species ! ! " 



The three next extracts are of miscellaneous interest : — 



" When one sees nipple on man's breast, one does not say 

 some use, but sex not having been determined — so with use- 

 less wings under elytra of beetles — born from beetles with 

 wings, and modified — if simple creation merely, would have 

 been born without them." 



"In a decreasing population at any one moment fewer 

 closely related (few species of genera) ; ultimately few genera 

 (for otherwise the relationship would converge sooner), and 

 lastly, perhaps, some one single one. Will not this account 

 for the odd genera with few species which stand between 

 great groups, which we are bound to consider the increasing 

 ones ? " 



The last extract which I shall quote gives the germ of his 

 theory of the relation between alpine plants in various parts 

 of the world, in the publication of which he was forestalled 

 by E. Forbes (see vol. i. p. 72). He says, in the 1837 note- 

 book, that alpine plants, "formerly descended lower, there- 

 fore [they are] species of lower genera altered, or northern 

 plants." 



When we turn to the Sketch of his theory, written in 1844 

 (still therefore before the second edition of the ' Journal ' was 

 completed), we find an enormous advance made on the note- 



