MATURE NOTES. 
1 66 
Thus, similarly, Mr. Henslow, in his article on “ Survivals ” 
(Nature Notes, vol. ii. p. 105), uses the phrases “reasonable 
grounds for believing,” “ probably,” “ sufficiently ” and so 
forth. He begins by telling us that according to its “ environ- 
ment ” — in plain English, its surroundings — so is the effect on 
the creature (which he calls the “ living protoplasm ”) itself 
surrounded, as every living creature I suppose must be sur- 
rounded, by something or other. Who has ever denied it ? The 
question is not whether it is so or otherwise, but whether a 
new species is produced thereby ? Look at the Negro and the 
Neapolitan, the Pigmy and the Patagonian, the Chinese and 
the Circassian. What does he call them, one species or half a 
dozen ? How do his so-called species of plants compare with 
them ? How as to fertility ? “ There’s the rub ! ” 
To say that nature “brings into existence new species by 
their surroundings” is mere assertion, and begs the whole 
question. The evolutionist who makes this assertion, then con- 
veniently tells us, that if it has not been so it is because the 
“environments” have not been “very” different, or “not 
sufficiently so,” which is the same argument over again in other 
words. 
In some, however, they do (I mean we are told so) “ acquire” 
“certain specific characters,” and keep them for “incalculable 
ages.” In what book of chronology has he found this calcula- 
tion ? In more or less large genera, he tells us there is at least 
one such “ survival.” What has become, I should like to know, 
of all their predecessors ? for Darwin tells us that in all im- 
proved species the said inferior predecessors have been “exter- 
minated” — improved off the face of the earth; and how have the 
others, such hundreds of thousands of real species, sprung into 
existence up to the present day? I repeat, the question is, has a 
single new species been thus formed, one which will be infertile 
with all others ? The varieties produced by “ breeders of cattle 
and cultivators of plants,” are none of them new species, or any 
other than what they were before, however “plastic” they may 
be — that is the word — their “ plastic tendencies;” tendencies to 
what, to variety or to specification ? Let us be told this plainly. 
L. O. Morris. 
[In accordance with the Rev. P. O. Morris’s request, we 
insert his vigorous paper, as any wish of Mr. Morris, who, as 
we have before said in these columns, has done invaluable 
service to one of the causes which Selbornians have at heart, 
we are anxious to gratify ; but we cannot open the already 
crowded pages of Nature Notes to a discussion on the general 
principle of evolution. Whole libraries have been written on 
the subject, and the controversy is still carried on in the pages 
of many journals. The object of our magazine is not at all so 
ambitious as to attempt to rediscuss great philosophical ques- 
tions. The name “Nature Notes,” is intended to express what is 
the character of work which we wish to do. Observations on 
