sparities are less great, we know that the default in question
does not occur.

"But this cause only suffices to create, step by step, varieties
which finally become races, and which, with time, constitute what we
call _species_.

"To decide whether the idea which is formed of the _species_ has any
real foundation, let us return to the considerations which I have
already explained; they lead us to see:

"1. That all the organized bodies of our globe are true productions
of Nature, which she has successively formed after the lapse of much
time;

"2. That, in her course. Nature has begun, and begins over again
every day, to form the simplest organisms, and that she directly
creates only those, namely, which are the first germs (_ebauches_)
of organization, which are designated by the expression of
_spontaneous generations_;

"3. That the first germs of the animal and plant having been formed
in appropriate places and circumstances, the faculties of a
beginning life and of an organic movement established, have
necessarily gradually developed the organs, and that with time they
have diversified them, as also the parts;

"4. That the power of growth in each part of the organized body
being inherent in the first created forms of life, it has given rise
to different modes of multiplication and of regeneration of
individuals; and that consequently the progress acquired in the
composition of the organization and in the shape and diversity of
the parts has been preserved;

"5. That with the aid of sufficient time, of circumstances which
have been necessarily favorable, of changes of condition that every
part of the earth's surface has successively undergone--in a word,
by the power which new situations and new habits have of modifying
the organs of living beings, all those which now exist have been
gradually formed such as we now see them;

"6. Finally, that, according to a similar order of things, living
beings having undergone each of the more or less great changes in
the condition of their structure and parts, that which we call a
_species_ among them has been gradually and successively so formed,
having only a relative constancy in its condition, and not being as
old as Nature herself.

"But, it will be said, when it is supposed that by the aid of much
time and of an infinite variation in circumstances, Nature has
gradually formed t