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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: as the original species (I) differed largely from (A), standing nearly at
the extreme points of the original genus, the six descendants from (I)
will, owing to inheritance, differ considerably from the eight descendants
from (A); the two groups, moreover, are supposed to have gone on diverging
in different directions. The intermediate species, also (and this is a
very important consideration), which connected the original species (A) and
(I), have all become, excepting (F), extinct, and have left no descendants.
Hence the six new species descended from (I), and the eight descended from
(A), will have to be ranked as very distinct genera, or even as distinct
sub-families.
Thus it is, as I believe, that two or more genera are produced by descent,
On the Origin of Species |
