Post 22707
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In considering the wide distribution of certain genera, we should bear in mind that some are extremely ancient, and must have branched off from a common parent at a remote epoch; so that in such cases there will have been ample time for great climatal and geographical changes and for accidents of transport; and consequently for the migration of some of the species into allquarters of the world, where they may have become slightly modified in relation to their new conditions. There is, also, some reason to believe from geological evidence that organisms low in the scale within each great class, generally change at a slower rate than the higher forms; and consequently the lower forms will have had a better chance of ranging widely and of still retaining the same specific character. This fact, together with the seeds and eggs of many low forms being very minute and better fitted for distant transportation, probably accounts for a law which has long been observed, and which has lately been admirably discussed by Alph. de Candolle in regard to plants, namely, that the lower any group of organisms is, the more widely it is apt to range.
The relations just discussed,–namely, low and slowly-changing organisms ranging more widely than the high,–some of the species of widely-ranging genera themselves ranging widely,–such facts, as alpine, lacustrine, and marsh productions being related (with the exceptions before specified) to those on the surrounding low lands and dry lands, though these stations are so different,–the very close relation of the distinct species which inhabit the islets of the same archipelago,–and especially the striking relation of the inhabitants of each whole archipelago or island to those of the nearest mainland,–are, I think, utterly inexplicable on the ordinary view of the independent creation of each species, but are explicable on the view of colonisation from the nearest or readiest source, together with the subsequent modification and better adaptation of the colonists to their new homes.
In these chapters I have endeavoured to show, that if we make due allowance for our ignorance of the full effects of allthe changes of climate and of the level of the land, which have certainly occurred within the recent period, and of other similar changes which may have occurred within the same period; if we remember how profoundly ignorant we are with respect to the many and curious means of occasional transport,–a subject which has hardly ever been properly experimentised on; if we bear in mind how often a species may have ranged continuously over a wide area, and then have become extinct in the intermediate tracts, I think the difficulties in believing that all the individuals of the same species, wherever located, have descended from the same parents, are not insuperable. And we are led to this conclusion, which has been arrived at by many naturalists under the designation of single centres of creation, by some general considerations, more especially from the importance of barriers and from the analogical distribution of sub-genera, genera, and families.