322
likeness does not admit of considerable difference, and
vice versâ ; and any definition of the fixity of species
which makes species to depend upon continuous fertility
of the offspring, and not on likeness, is really only a
statement of the transmutation of species, in other and
somewhat perplexing terms.
It seems to me to be a far more reasonable definition
of species to declare that it is a distinction introduced
by man in his attempt to classify the different kinds of
living creatures which may be, and often has been, a
merely provisional classification. In this case there can
be no doubt that the transmutation of a whole species
involves the extinction of ancestral forms and the sub
stitution of what is, in effect, a new species. In this
sense, the poet salutes aspiring man as “ the herald of a
higher race,” and bids him to—
. . “ move upward, working out the beast,
And let the ape and tiger die.”
Moreover, this fact in itself only testifies to a quasi ex
tinction of species as the precursor and accompaniment
of transmutation of species. It does not necessarily sug
gest any proof as to the manner in which transmutation
has been brought about. It would be a mere begging
of the question to assert that, because transmutation has
been accompanied by extinction, such extinction may be
cited as a proof of the action of Natural Selection.
In the second place, the extinction of a whole species
in the ordinary sense of that word, by whatever cause
it may be brought about, prevents the transmutation of
that species.
“ He that fights and runs away
May turn and fight another day ;
But he that is in battle slain
Will never rise to fight again.”—(Ray.)