Linnæus himself defined the idea of species in this manner by saying, “There are as many different species as there were different forms created in the beginning by the infinite Being.” (“Species tot sunt diversæ, quot diversas formas ab initio creavit infinitum ens.”) In this respect, therefore, he follows most closely the Mosaic history of creation, which in the same way maintains that animals and plants were created “each one after its kind.” Linnæus, accepting this, held that originally of each species of animals and plants either a single individual or a pair had been created; in fact a pair, or, as Moses says, “a male and a female” of those species which have separate sexes, but of those species in which each individual combines both sexual organs (hermaphrodites), as for instance the earthworm, the garden and vineyard snails, as well as the great majority of plants, a single individual. Linnæus further follows the Mosaic legend in regard to the flood, by supposing that the great general flood destroyed all existing organisms, except those few individuals of each species (seven pairs of the birds and of clean animals, one pair of unclean animals) which Noah saved in the ark, and which were placed again on land, on Mount Ararat, after the flood had subsided. He tried to explain the geographical difficulty of the living together of the most different animals and plants, as follows: Mount Ararat, in Armenia, being situated in a warm climate, and rising over 16,000 feet in height, combines in itself the conditions for a temporary common abode of such animals as live in different zones. Accordingly, animals accustomed to the polar regions could climb up the cold mountain ridges, those accustomed to a warm climate could go down to the foot of the mountain, and the inhabitants of a temperate zone could remain midway up the mountain. From this point it was possible for them to spread north and south over the earth. It is scarcely necessary to remark that this Linnæan hypothesis of creation, which evidently was intended to harmonize most closely with the prevailing belief in the Bible, requires no serious refutation. When we consider Linnæus’ clearness and sagacity in other matters, we may doubt whether he believed it himself. As to the simultaneous origin of all individuals of each species from one pair of ancestors respectively (or in the case of the hermaphrodite species, from one original hermaphrodite), it is clearly quite untenable; for, apart from other reasons, in the first days after the creation, the few animals of prey would have sufficed to have utterly demolished all the herbivorous animals, as the herbivorous animals must have destroyed the few individuals of the different species of plants. The existence of such an equilibrium in the economy of nature as obtains at present cannot possibly be conceived, if only one individual of each species, or only one pair, had originally and simultaneously been created.