The Darwinian theory of the transmutation of species / examined by a graduate of the University of Cambridge.

  • Beverley, R. M. (Robert Mackenzie), 1797 or 1798-1868.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Darwinian theory of the transmutation of species / examined by a graduate of the University of Cambridge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    39/408 (page 23)
    CHAPTER III. mr darwin’s censure oe species. We have seen Mr Darwin’s statement of species, and have considered also the opinions of several celebrated naturalists on the same subject; we now have to examine Mr Darwin’s arguments for opposing the received opinion. His first exception to the acknowledgment of species is based on the great difficulty which he affirms there is in determining correctly the species of several plants,c there are genera in which the species present an inordinate amount of variation; and hardly two naturalists can agree which forms to rank as species, and which as varieties. We may instance Rubus, Rosa, and Hieracium among plants, and se- veral genera of insects ’ (48). On this theme—the perplexity of the naturalists—he much enlarges : ‘ Mr IT. C. Watson has marked forme 182 British plants, which are considered as varieties, but which nevertheless have been ranked by botanists as species. Under genera Mr Babington gives 251 species, whereas Mr Bentham gives only 112, a differ- ence of 139 doubtful forms.’ Well, let it be so. Let these learned gentlemen and a great many more puzzle themselves in framing their decrees about the species of plants; but are we then to come to this conclusion, that