508 * ORIGIN ' AND ' TASMANIAN FLORA ' 
direct knowledge of the origin of any wild species ; that many 
are separated by numerous structural peculiarities from all 
other plants ; that some of them invariably propagate their 
like ; and that a few have retained their characters unchanged 
under very different conditions and through geological epochs. 
If we conclude from such arguments that species are immut- 
able, all further enquiry is a waste of time, until the origin of 
life itself is brought to light. 
The most important of these facts is that of genetic resem- 
blance. To the tyro in Natural History all similar plants may 
have had one parent, but all dissimilar plants must have had 
dissimilar parents. Daily experience demonstrates the first 
position, but it takes years of observation to prove that the 
second is not always true. 
And the systematic study of the classification of species, 
which are fixed ideas, draws off the mind of the botanist from 
the history of the ideas themselves, i.e. the species, with which 
he works. ^ 
If it be urged that the origin of species by variation of 
pre-existing species be a hasty inference from a few facts 
in the life of a few variable plants, it appears to me that 
the opposite theory, which demands an independent creative 
act for each species, is an equally hasty inference from a few 
negative facts in the life of certain species. 
Worse still, the doctrine of immutability leads to the denial 
of a rational relationship between the phenomena involved 
and of any vital rationale of classification. All is swallowed 
up in the gigantic conception of a power intermittently exercised 
m the development, out of inorganic elements, of organisms the 
most bulky and complex as well as the most minute and simple. 
Such a conception is unrealisable : the boldest speculator 
cannot conceive of its occurrence in any field of his own careful 
observation ; the most cautious advocate hesitates to assert 
^ Darwin (M.L. i. 175) found the srme difficulty in convincing naturalists ; 
they had ' a bigoted idea of the term species.' His ideas were more easily 
understood as a rule by intelligent people who were not professed naturalists. 
Among scientific men, the}'- were accepted most commonly by geologists, next 
by botanists, and least by zoologists (to de Quatrefages : M.L. i. 187). 
