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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: attain the rank of species. They may whilst in this incipient state become
extinct, or they may endure as varieties for very long periods, as has been
shown to be the case by Mr. Wollaston with the varieties of certain fossil
land-shells in Madeira. If a variety were to flourish so as to exceed in
numbers the parent species, it would then rank as the species, and the
species as the variety; or it might come to supplant and exterminate the
parent species; or both might co-exist, and both rank as independent
species. But we shall hereafter have to return to this subject.
From these remarks it will be seen that I look at the term species, as one
arbitrarily given for the sake of convenience to a set of individuals
closely resembling each other, and that it does not essentially differ from
On the Origin of Species |
