The Cornhill Magazine (Vol. I, No. 5, May 1860)Various
General
The Cornhill Magazine (Vol. I, No. 5, May 1860)
Various
England -- Periodicals; English literature -- Periodicals; Short stories, English -- Periodicals
Let us never forget that Species have no existence. Only individuals
exist, and these _all vary_ more or less from each other. When the
variations are slight, they have no name; when they are more marked,
and are transmitted from one generation to another, they constitute
particular Faces, or Varieties; when the differences are still more
marked they constitute Sub-species; but, as Mr. Darwin says, “Certainly
no clear line of demarcation has yet been drawn between Species and
Sub-species; that is, the forms which in the opinion of some naturalists
come very near to, but do not quite arrive at the rank of Species; or
again, between Sub-species and well-marked Varieties, or between lesser
Varieties and individual differences. These differences blend into each
other in an insensible series; and a series impresses the mind with the
idea of an actual passage.” But the same process of divergence which
establishes Varieties out of individual differences, and Species out
of Varieties, also serves to establish Genera out of Species, Orders
out of Genera, and Classes out of Orders. It is, doubtless, difficult
to conceive by what process of modification, two animals of distinct
Genera, say a dog and a cat, were produced from a common stock; but
organic analogies in abundance render it easy of belief. If we knew as
much of zoology as we do of embryology, in respect of the affinities
of divergent forms, it would be far less surprising that two different
Genera should arise from a common stock, than that all the various parts
of the skeleton should arise from a common osseous element. We know
that the jaws are identical with arms and legs—both being divergent
modifications of a common osseous structure. We know that the arm of a
man is identical with the fin of a whale, or the wing of a bird. The
differences here in form, size, and function are much greater than the
differences which establish orders and classes in the animal series.
Unless animal forms were modifications of some common type, it would be
difficult to explain their remarkable affinities. As Mr. Darwin says, “It
is a truly wonderful fact—the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from
familiarity—that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space
should be related to each other in group, subordinate to group, in the
manner which we everywhere behold, namely, varieties of the same species
most closely related together, species of the same genus less closely
and unequally related together, forming sections and sub-genera, species
of distinct genera much less closely related, and genera related in
different degrees, forming sub-families, families, orders, sub-classes,
and classes. The several subordinate groups in any class cannot be ranked
in a single file, but seem rather to be clustered round points, and these
round other points, and so on in almost endless circles. On the view that
each species has been independently created, I can see no explanation
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