The fate of “clade,” both as concept and word, is reconstructed here beginning with its first appearance in 1866 as “Cladus,” in Haeckel’s Generelle Morphologie, continuing up to the present. Although central to phylogenetics, the concept of clade is paradoxical since it has been ambiguously understood or even misunderstood by its own promoters. Writings by Ernst Haeckel, Lucien Cuénot, and Julian Huxley, the three authors who discussed the notion of clade at length, are analyzed here in detail as a means of exploring this paradox. First conceived as a rank for a higher-level category, and later as a taxon, the clade is understood today in connection with Hennig’s definition of a monophyletic group rather than through Huxley’s successful but somehow ambiguous formalization. The inability of these authors to formulate a clear-cut exposition of the concept is considered here within three contexts: firstly, the burden of pre-Darwinian classifications based on similarity; secondly, the underestimation of Darwin’s description of a genealogical group; and thirdly, the predominance of thinking in process (vs thinking in pattern), which was the basis of evolutionary systematics in the mid-twentieth century.

“进化枝”的命运，无论是作为概念还是词，都在这里被重构，从 1866 年在海克尔的 Generelle Morphologie中首次出现为“克劳德斯”开始，一直持续到现在。尽管进化枝的核心是系统发育学，但进化枝的概念是自相矛盾的，因为它被自己的推动者模糊理解甚至误解。Ernst Haeckel、Lucien Cuénot 和 Julian Huxley 这三位详细讨论了进化枝概念的作者的著作在此进行了详细分析，以作为探索这一悖论的一种手段。首先被认为是更高级别类别的等级，后来作为分类群，今天的进化枝被理解为与 Hennig 对单系群的定义有关，而不是通过赫胥黎成功但不知何故模棱两可的形式化。这些作者无法对这一概念进行清晰的阐述，在这三个背景下被考虑：首先，基于相似性的前达尔文分类的负担；其次，低估了达尔文对族谱群的描述；第三，过程中的思维（相对于模式中的思维）的优势，这是二十世纪中叶进化系统学的基础。