23. Species in animals not distinguished by generation. Nor let
any one say, that the power of propagation in animals by the mixture
of male and female, and in plants by seeds, keeps the supposed real
species distinct and entire. For, granting this to be true, it would
help us in the distinction of the species of things no further than
the tribes of animals and vegetables. What must we do for the rest?
But in those too it is not sufficient: for if history lie not, women
have conceived by drills; and what real species, by that measure, such
a production will be in nature will be a new question: and we have
reason to think this is not impossible, since mules and jumarts, the
one from the mixture of an ass and a mare, the other from the
mixture of a bull and a mare, are so frequent in the world. I once saw
a creature that was the issue of a cat and a rat, and had the plain
marks of both about it; wherein nature appeared to have followed the
pattern of neither sort alone, but to have jumbled them both together.
To which he that shall add the monstrous productions that are so
frequently to be met with in nature, will find it hard, even in the
race of animals, to determine by the pedigree of what species every
animal's issue is; and be at a loss about the real essence, which he
thinks certainly conveyed by generation, and has alone a right to
the specific name.
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