670 
DE. CAEPENTEE’S EESEAECHES ON THE EOEAISnNIFEEA. 
group of natural objects, in which such ready comparison of great numbers of individuals 
can be made ; and I am much mistaken if there be a single specimen of Plant or Ammah 
of which the range of variation has been studied by the collocation and comparison 
under one survey of so large a number of specimens as have passed under the re%iew of 
Professor Williamson, Messrs. Paekee and Eupeet Jones, and myself, in our studies of 
the types to which we have respectively given our principal attention*. 
236. The general fact which I desire to bring prominently forward as the result of 
recent investigations into this group, is, that in all the types possessing a wide geogra- 
phical distribution, which have been specially studied by myself or by others, the range of 
variation has also been very wide ; so that not only what would commonly be considered 
as specific, but such as have been regarded as generic, and in some cases even as ordinal 
differences, present themselves among organisms, which, from the intimacy of the 
relationship that is evinced by the gradational character of those differences as well as 
by the variations presented by the several parts of one and the same organism, must in 
all probability have had a common origin. And it appears to me to be a justifiable 
inference from this fact, that the tvide range of forms which this group contains is more 
likely to have come into existence as a result of modifications successively occimring in 
the course of descent from a small number of origmal types, than by the vast number of 
origmally distinct creations which on the ordinary hypothesis would be required to 
accotmt for itf. 
2.37. The greater part of my First Memoir was devoted to the investigation of the 
single type Orhitolites ; and I there showed that not only as regards the size, shape, and 
other external characters of the organism as a whole, but even as regards the size and 
form of its elementary parts (in which greater constancy might be expected), is there so 
great a variation, — the most marked diversities being apparent even in different parts of 
the same individual, — that all attempts to found specific distinctions upon such variations 
are utterly futile. But further, I showed that a distinction on which almost any Natu- 
ralist would feel justified in relying as of at least specific if not of generic value, — that 
between the simple type in which the chambers are arranged on only one plane, and the 
complex type in which there are two superficial planes more or less strongly difierentiated 
from the median, — is no less invalid. For although these types are usually distinguish- 
* I have the authority of M. Deshates for the belief, that the excessive miiltiplicatiou of generic and 
specific distinctions which so greatly impairs the value of the late M. d’Okbtgxt’s labours upon this group, 
was due to his having based these distinctions upon specimens selected for him as fi/^icaJ, and to his having 
disregarded the transitional forms which any large collection of tliese organisms is sure to exhibit in 
abimdance, — thus, to use the admirably discriminating phrase of the late Prince of Caxtxo, “ describing 
specimens rather than species." 
t In order to avoid misapprehension, I would here remark that the production of any organism seems to 
me just as much to require the exertion of Divine Power Avhen it takes place in the ordinary course of 
generation, as it would do if that organism were to be caUed into existence de novo ; the question being in 
reality, whether such exertion takes place in the way of continuous exercise according to a settled and com- 
prehensive plan, or by a series of disconnected eftbrts. 
