No. 514] 



ABE SPECIES BEAUTIES? 



509 



question by recognition of the fact that species . . . have 

 no real existence, but are merely man-made concepts, 

 purely arbitrary and conventional. ' ' 



Is this the dictum of biological science to-day.' This 

 by-product of early triumphant Darwinism, with the fear 

 of special creation still upon it, this handy postulate of 

 the sorters of dried birdskins and dried plants, eager to 

 affix tag and title to the whole fauna and flora of a conti- 

 nent-is this the last word of science t Or is it even the 

 limit toward which we are tending.' To the writer the 

 reply is unhesitatingly in the negative. 



species.' What reasons have been offered to support it.' 

 i nfortnnatoly none. Often suggested in the past, it has 

 been suggested only, and it is now put forward as a self- 

 evident proposition, heavily weighted with authority in 

 lieu of evidence. 



Forced by my interest in the subject I have been obliged 

 myself to seek the evidence on both sides of the propo- 

 sition. I can find but two possible reasons, or rather 

 causes, why species are, or may be, thought unreal. These 

 I wish to state and analyze briefly. Be it fully stated 

 here, however, that I do not for a moment impute these 

 reasons to the minds of scientists whose view of species 

 I am calling into controversy. I find it very difficult to 

 imagine what considerations may have influenced them to 

 the adoption of an hypothesis which seems to me not only 

 fundamentally incorrect but highly injurious to scientific 

 thought and experimentation. I simply assert that, after 

 years of consideration, I can find no other causes for such 

 an assumption and I deem the setting forth of the error 

 in these a useful piece of work. 



First of all, then, I think that the unreality of species 

 is frequently assumed, at least by young and careless 

 thinkers, because of what I will term lapses into un- 



thought which we know to be erroneous, but which, just 

 at the times when we feel most certain of ourselves, creep 



