The terms used by naturalists, of affinity, relationship,
community of type, paternity, morphology, adaptive characters, rudimentary
and aborted organs, etc., will cease to be metaphorical and will have a
plain signification. When we no longer look at an organic being as a
savage looks at a ship, as something wholly beyond his comprehension; when
we regard every production of nature as one which has had a long history;
when we contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the summing up
of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor, in the same way as any
great mechanical invention is 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 interesting--I speak from experience--does
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 correlation, 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 far 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.
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