A mind nourished on anatomical study is of course permeated with the
suggestion of the vagueness and instability of biological species. A
biological species is quite obviously a great number of unique
individuals which is separable from other biological species only by the
fact that an enormous number of other linking individuals are
inaccessible in time--are in other words dead and gone--and each new
individual in that species does, in the distinction of its own
individuality, break away in however infinitesimal degree from the
previous average properties of the species. There is no property of any
species, even the properties that constitute the specific definition,
that is not a matter of more or less.
If, for example, as species be distinguished by a single large red spot
on the back, you will find if you go over a great number of specimens
that red spot shrinking here to nothing, expanding there to a more
general redness, weakening to pink, deepening to russet and brown,
shading into crimson, and so on and so on. And this is true not only of
biological species.
Pages:
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44