than thirteen species have been described in a peloric condition.[[135]] On this view of the nature of peloric flowers, and bearing in mind what has been said with respect to certain monstrosities in the animal kingdom, we must conclude that the progenitors of most plants and animals, though widely different in structure, have left an impression capable of redevelopment on the germs of their descendants.
The fertilised germ of one of the higher animals, subjected as it is to so vast a series of changes from the germinal cell to old age,—incessantly agitated by what Quatrefages well calls the tourbillon vital,—is perhaps the most wonderful object in nature. It is probable that hardly a change of any kind affects either parent, without some mark being left on the germ. But on the doctrine of reversion, as given in this chapter, the germ becomes a far more marvellous object, for, besides the visible changes to which it is subjected, we must believe that it is crowded with invisible characters, proper to both sexes, to both the right and left side of the body, and to a long line of male and female ancestors separated by hundreds or even thousands of generations from the present time; and these characters, like those written on paper with invisible ink, all lie ready to be evolved under certain known or unknown conditions.
CHAPTER XIV.
INHERITANCE continued—FIXEDNESS OF CHARACTER—PREPOTENCY—SEXUAL LIMITATION—CORRESPONDENCE OF AGE.
FIXEDNESS OF CHARACTER APPARENTLY NOT DUE TO ANTIQUITY OF INHERITANCE—PREPOTENCY OF TRANSMISSION IN INDIVIDUALS OF THE SAME FAMILY, IN CROSSED BREEDS AND SPECIES; OFTEN STRONGER IN ONE SEX THAN THE OTHER; SOMETIMES DUE TO THE SAME CHARACTER BEING PRESENT AND VISIBLE IN ONE BREED AND LATENT IN THE OTHER—INHERITANCE AS LIMITED BY SEX—NEWLY-ACQUIRED CHARACTERS IN OUR DOMESTICATED ANIMALS OFTEN TRANSMITTED BY ONE SEX ALONE, SOMETIMES LOST BY ONE SEX ALONE—INHERITANCE AT CORRESPONDING PERIODS OF LIFE—THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PRINCIPLE WITH RESPECT TO EMBRYOLOGY; AS EXHIBITED IN DOMESTICATED ANIMALS; AS EXHIBITED IN THE APPEARANCE AND DISAPPEARANCE OF INHERITED DISEASES; SOMETIMES SUPERVENING EARLIER IN THE CHILD THAN IN THE PARENT—SUMMARY OF THE THREE PRECEDING CHAPTERS.
In the two last chapters the nature and force of Inheritance, the circumstances which interfere with its power, and the tendency to Reversion, with its many remarkable contingencies, were discussed. In the present chapter some other related phenomena will be treated of, as fully as my materials permit.
Fixedness of Character.
It is a general belief amongst breeders that the longer any character has been transmitted by a breed, the more firmly it will continue to be transmitted. I do not wish to dispute the truth of the proposition, that inheritance gains strength simply through long continuance, but I doubt whether it can be proved. In one sense the proposition is little better than a truism; if any character has remained constant during many generations, it will obviously be little likely, the conditions of life remaining the same, to vary during the next generation. So, again, in improving a breed, if care be taken for a length of time to exclude all inferior individuals, the breed will obviously tend to become truer, as it will not have been crossed during many generations by an inferior animal. We have previously seen,