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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLIX 



the bean, 4 the fly, 5 the mollusc, 6 the titanothere, 7 and 

 man 8 are doubtless identical. 



Accordingly my second purpose in this address is to show 

 that there is a certain harmony in the results obtained in 

 widely different fields of research although some of these 

 results may appear at first to be entirely unrelated and 

 even discordant. 



In this attempt to discover an underlying harmony let 

 us first glance at the " character" conception in the older 

 natural sciences of animals and plants. Character is 

 the most frequently used term in the vocabulary of zool- 

 ogy and botany. It occurs far more often than any other 

 word. It has been used millions of times in systematic 

 definition since Linnaeus. Yet I do not know of any 

 attempt to clearly define or analyze the meaning of the 

 word character in its biologic sense while hundreds of 

 attempts have been made to define the word species. 

 Here again the greater is involved in the less and when- 

 ever we shall succeed in clearly defining " character" the 

 definition of species will follow as an incidental result. 



The derivation of the word is from the Greek xdpafcrrfp 

 properly an instrument for marking or graving; as ap- 

 plied to a person, an engraver; as commonly used, any 

 mark engraved or impressed, the impress or stamp on 

 coins and seals. It passes into the word characteristic, 

 which means a distinguishing feature. 



The use of the word is not only universal among sys- 

 tematists and experimentalists of our day, but it has be- 

 come one of the most elastic words in our language ; the 

 "character" may be as comprehensive as the general 

 habit of an entire organism, as where we speak of the 

 lethargic character of the sloth, or as restricted as a single 

 minute cuspule on a fossil tooth, or the barely visible 

 outgrowth on the surface of a fossil shell. The speed of 

 the race horse is a character, its tractability or viciousness 

 are characters, the position of the horse's tail in running 



