8. But this leads us to consider the final and crowning incongruities which have been dealt with in the present chapter. For here we have seen, not only that our opponents thus draw a hard and fast line between "varieties" and "species" in regard to "necessary origin" and "necessary utility," but that they further draw a similar line between "species" and "genera" in the same respects. Yet, in accordance with the general theory of evolution, it is plainly as impossible to draw any such line in the one case as it is to do so in the other. Just as fixed varieties are what Darwin called "incipient species," so are species incipient genera, genera incipient families, and so on. Evolutionists must believe that the process of evolution is everywhere the same. Nevertheless, while admitting all this, the school of Huxley contradicts itself by alleging some unintelligible exception in the case of "species," while the school of Wallace presses this exception so as to embrace "specific characters." Indeed Mr. Wallace, while maintaining that all specific characters must necessarily be useful, maintains at the same time that any number of varietal characters on the one hand, and a good half of generic characters on the other, are probably useless. Thus he contradicts his argument from the "constancy of specific characters" (seeing that generic characters are still more constant), as later on we saw that he contradicts his deductive generalization touching their necessary utility, by giving a non-utilitarian explanation of whole multitudes of specific characters. I need not, however, again go over the ground so recently traversed; but will conclude by once more recurring to the only explanation which I have been able to devise of the otherwise inexplicable fact, that in regard to this subject so many naturalists still continue to entangle themselves in the meshes of absurdity and contradiction. * * * * *