Origin of Species Variorum

→as far as is possible on paper, →in the diagram, but in much too simple a manner. If →a branching diagram had not been used, and only the names of the groups had been →written in a linear series,

the representation

would have been still less →possible to have given a natural arrangement; and it is notoriously not possible to represent in a series, on a flat surface, the affinities which we discover in nature amongst the beings of the same group. Thus,

the →view which I hold, the natural system is genealogical in its

arrange- ment,

arrangement,

like a

pedigree:

pedigree;

but the

amount

degrees

of modification which the different groups have

undergone

undergone,

has

have

to be expressed by ranking them under different so-called genera, sub-families, families, sections, orders, and classes.

It may be worth while to illustrate this view of classification, by taking the case of languages. If we possessed a perfect pedigree of mankind, a genealogical arrangement of the races of man would afford the best classification of the various languages now spoken throughout the world; and if all extinct languages, and all intermediate and slowly changing dialects,

were

had

to be included, such an arrangement

would,

would

I think,

....

be the only possible one. Yet it might be that some →very ancient language had altered

little

little,

and had given rise to few new languages, whilst others →(owing to the

spreading,