| → when we look at 1859 1860 1861 1866 |
| OMIT 1869 1872 |
|
|
and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor,
in the same way as
→when we look at
any great mechanical invention
the summing up of the labour, the experience, the reason, and even the blunders of numerous workmen; when we thus view each organic being, how far more
I speak from
the study of natural history become! |
|
| A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be opened, on the causes and laws of variation, on
on the effects of use and disuse, on the direct action of external conditions, and so forth. The study of domestic productions will rise immensely in value. A new variety raised by man will be a
more important and interesting subject for study than one more species added to the infinitude of already recorded species. Our classifications will come to be, as far as they can be so made, genealogies; and will then truly give what may be called the plan of creation. The rules for classifying will no doubt become simpler when we have a definite object in view. We possess no pedigrees or armorial bearings; and we have to discover and trace the many diverging lines of descent in our natural genealogies, by characters of any kind which have long been inherited. Rudimentary organs will speak infallibly with respect to the nature of long-lost structures. Species and groups of
which are called aberrant, and which may fancifully be called living fossils, will aid us in forming a picture of the ancient forms of life. Embryology will
to us the structure, in some degree obscured, of the prototypes of each great class. |
|
| When we can feel assured that all the individuals of the same species, and all the closely allied species of most genera, have within a not very remote period
|
