12 THE NATURALIST, 



iii. — ^To constitute a species the Linnean school requires very decided char- 



acters ; but why these decided characters rather than less striking ones. 



iv. ^ — The Linnean species have, for the pledge of their value, but a limited 



number of well conducted experiments on cultivation ; thus it follows 

 that the greater part of these species can only be provisionally admitted 

 to the title of true species. 



v. — The partisans of this school cannot therefore be logically dogmatic on 



the question of these species. 



vi. — There is nothing to j)"ove that a great many of these species are not 



assemblages of true species. 



vii. — Already many of the species called Linnean, which were at first admit- 



ted as true units, have been acknowledged, even by the partisans of the 

 Linnean school, to be composed of several units. 



viii. — Certain partisans of the Linnean school, being under the false idea 



that the great part of the European floras are sufficiently well known, 

 and that no European form remains to be discovered, have contented 

 themselves with investigating known species, and have neglected the 

 attentive study of that multitude of forms which they consider as simple 

 varieties or variations. 



ix. — Following out this erroneous opinion, they have refused to believe in the 



specific distinction of a certain number of forms which had been neg- 

 lected, and which nevertheless possess characters quite as decided as the 

 best types adopted by them. 

 X. — The repugnance which certain partisans of the Linnean school have 

 shewn for the species created in these days, has its origin in their com- 

 plete ignorance of facts. 



xi. — Many of the reductions made by the Linnean school are the result of 



ignorance of facts, and ought to be considered as null and void. 



xii. — Those reductions cannot have any real value which are not based upon 



experiments in cultivation, or on the existence of transitory forms estab- 

 lishing an insensible gradation between the pretended distinct species. 



xiii. — ^The new school makes all its species to repose on a single practical 



criterium — the persistence of characters continued by seed. 



xiv. — The criterium of the new school, good in itself, is practised incompletely, 



from which it follows that the species of this school can only be 

 provisionally admitted as units. 

 XV. — Any form v^^hatever remaining stable with certain characters, for five, 

 ten, fifteen, or twenty successive generations, cannot therefore be 



