genera on the other, where is the consistency in maintaining that it must "necessarily" hold as regards the intermediate division, species? Truly the shade of Darwin may exclaim, "Save me from my friends." And truly against logic of this description a follower of Darwin must find it difficult to argue. If one's opponents were believers in special creation, and therefore stood upon some definite ground while maintaining this difference between species and all other taxonomic divisions, there would at least be some issue to argue about. But when on the one hand it is conceded that species are merely arbitrary divisions, which differ in no respect as to the process of their evolution from either varieties or genera, while on the other hand it is affirmed that there is thus so great a difference in the result, all we can say is that our opponents are entangling themselves in the meshes of a sheer contradiction. Or, otherwise stated, specific characters differ from varietal characters in being, as a rule, more pronounced and more constant: on this account advocates of utility as universal apply the doctrine to species, while they do not feel the "necessity" of applying it to varieties. But now, generic and all higher characters are even more constant and more pronounced than specific characters--not to say, in many cases, more generally diffused over a larger number of organisms usually occupying larger areas. Therefore, _a fortiori_, if for the reasons above stated evolutionists regard it as a necessary deduction from the theory of natural selection that all specific characters must be useful, much more ought it to be a necessary deduction from this theory that all generic, and still more all higher, characters must be useful. But, as we have seen, this is not maintained by our opponents. On the contrary, they draw the sharpest distinction between specific and all other characters in this respect, freely conceding that both those below and those above them need not--and very often do not--present any utilitarian significance. Although it appears to me that this doctrine is self-contradictory, and on this ground alone might be summarily dismissed, as it is now held in one or other of its forms by many naturalists, I will give it a more detailed consideration in both its parts--namely, first with respect to the distinction between varieties and species, and next with respect to the distinction between species and genera. * * * * *