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. But further, if the species of animals and plants are to be distinguished only by propagation, must I go to
the Indies to see the sire and dam of the one, and the plant from which the seed was gathered that produced the
other, to know whether this be a tiger or that tea?
