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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: descent into his classification; for he includes in his lowest grade, or
that of a species, the two sexes; and how enormously these sometimes differ
in the most important characters, is known to every naturalist: scarcely a
single fact can be predicated in common of the males and hermaphrodites of
certain cirripedes, when adult, and yet no one dreams of separating them.
The naturalist includes as one species the several larval stages of the
same individual, however much they may differ from each other and from the
adult; as he likewise includes the so-called alternate generations of
Steenstrup, which can only in a technical sense be considered as the same
individual. He includes monsters; he includes varieties, not solely
because they closely resemble the parent-form, but because they are
On the Origin of Species |
