I think I have said enough to prove that after all, those curiosities collected from observation of Sweet Peas and Canaries have no remote bearing on some very fascinating problems of human life.
Lastly I suppose it is self-evident that they have a bearing on the problem of Evolution. The facts of heredity and variation are the materials out of which all theories of Evolution are constructed. At last by genetic methods we are beginning to obtain such facts of unimpeachable quality, and free from the flaws that were inevitable in older collections. From a survey of these materials we see something of the changes which will have to be made in the orthodox edifice to admit of their incorporation, but he must be rash indeed who would now attempt a comprehensive reconstruction. The results of genetic research are so bewilderingly novel that we need time and an exhaustive study of their inter-relations before we can hope to see them in proper value and perspective. In all the discussions of the stability and fitness of species who ever contemplated the possibility of a wild species having one of its sexes permanently hybrid? When I spoke of adventures to be encountered in genetic research I was thinking of such astonishing discoveries as that.
There are others no less disconcerting. Who would have supposed it possible that the pollen-cells of a plant could be all of one type, and its egg-cells of two types? Yet Miss Saunders' experiments have provided definite proof that this is the condition of certain Stocks, of which the pollen grains all bear doubleness, while the egg-cells are some singles and some doubles. We cannot think yet of interpreting these complex phenomena in terms of a common plan. All that we know is that there is now open for our scrutiny a world of varied, orderly and specific physiological wonders into which we have as yet only peeped. To lay down positive propositions as to the origin and inter-relation of species in general, now, would be a task as fruitless as that of a chemist must have been who had tried to state the relationship of the elements before their properties had been investigated.
For the first time Variation and Reversion have a concrete, palpable meaning. Hitherto they have stood by in all evolutionary debates, convenient genii, ready to perform as little or as much as might be desired by the conjuror. That vaporous stage of their existence is over; and we see Variation shaping itself as a definite, physiological event, the addition or omission of one or more definite elements; and Reversion as that particular addition or subtraction which brings the total of the elements back to something it had been before in the history of the race.
The time for discussion of Evolution as a problem at large is closed. We face that problem now as one soluble by minute, critical analysis. Lord Acton in his inaugural lecture said that in the study of history we are at the beginning of the documentary age. No one will charge me with disrespect to the great name we commemorate this year, if I apply those words to the history of Evolution: Darwin, it was, who first showed us that the species have a history that can be read at all. If in the new reading of that history, there be found departures from the text laid down in his first recension, it is not to his fearless spirit that they will bring dismay.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The investigation of this remarkable family was made originally by Cunier. The facts have been reexamined and the pedigree much extended by Nettleship. The numerical results are somewhat irregular, but it is especially interesting as being the largest pedigree of human disease or defect yet made. It contains 2121 persons, extending over ten generations. Of these persons, 135 are known to have been night-blind. In no single case was the peculiarity transmitted through an unaffected member. It should be mentioned that for night-blindness such a system of descent is peculiar. More usually it follows the scheme described for colour-blindness. It is not known wherein the peculiarity of this family consists.
[2] We have knowledge now of seven colour-blind women, having, in all, 17 sons who are all colour-blind. Most of these cases have been collected by Mr Nettleship.
[3] An alternative and perhaps more satisfactory interpretation of the same facts has been proposed by Doncaster (Jour. Genetics I, Pt 4, p. 377). Until more progress has been made with the analysis of sexual differentiation it is not possible to decide which of the two interpretations is correct. The numerical results predicted on both systems are the same; but by introducing a more complicated though quite reasonable formula for the representation of the sex-differences Doncaster's method shows that colour-blindness may be a recessive due to the absence of a factor which produces normal colour-vision.