ASPECTS OF THE SPECIES QUESTION 



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their purpose. Here we perceive one of the principles 

 which must control in the limitation of species. If we 

 multiply our species unduly we approach too near to the 

 individuals, and we are as much burdened as though we 

 had not invented species. On the other hand, if we make 

 too few species those we do make include so many varia- 

 tions from the type that confusion results again. We 

 must steer a course between these two extremes. 



I am well aware that every man who has split up 

 species upon any pretext will at once lay his hand upon 

 his heart and assure himself that he has done this very 

 thing of avoiding these extremes. I have yet to find a 

 man who has not felt that all of his species were con- 

 servatively made, and that had he been radically inclined 

 he could have made many more. And yet the fact re- 

 mains that much of the species-making of recent years 

 has rendered it vastly more difficult than formerly for 

 us to obtain a grasp of the flora of a region. Instead of 

 helping us, this perverted notion of the purpose and the 

 proper limitation of species has actually proved to be a 

 hindrance. How much, for example, docs the average 

 botanist know nowadays about the species of Crataegus! 

 It will not avail to say that "he knows as much as he ever 

 did," for once he did study them somewhat, but now he 

 is compelled to pass them by as quite too difficult for him 

 to undertake to distinguish with the time he has at his 

 command. The inordinate multiplication of species has 

 hindered instead of advanced our knowledge, and this 

 fact is sufficient to condemn it utterly. 



We are in danger of destroying the usefulness of tax- 

 onomy in our zeal for describing every differing form 

 as a separate species. We have lost sight of the prim- 

 itive reason for the formation of species, namely, that 

 we should have fewer things to hold in mind. Primitively 

 the aim was to have as few species as possible. Now 

 too often we look upon the addition of new species as a 

 contribution to knowledge, when, on the contrary, it may 

 be a hindrance. 



