XI PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE 407 



you have that monstrosity or variation diluted 

 in the first instance by an admixture with 

 a female of normal construction, and you would 

 naturally expect that, in the results of such an 

 union, the monstrosity, if repeated, would be in 

 equal proportion with the normal type ; that is to 

 say, that the children would be half and half, some 

 taking the peculiarity of the father, and the others 

 being of the purely normal type of the mother ; 

 but you see we have a great preponderance of the 

 abnormal type. Well, this comes to be mixed once 

 more with the pure, the normal type, and the ab- 

 normal is again produced in large proportion, not- 

 withstanding the second dilution. Now what 

 would have happened if these abnormal types had 

 intermarried with each other ; that is to say, sup- 

 pose the two boys of Salvator had taken it into 

 their heads to marry their first cousins, the two 

 first girls of George, their uncle ? You will remem- 

 ber that these are all of the abnormal type of their 

 grandfather. The result would probably have been, 

 that their offspring would have been in every case 

 a further development of that abnormal type. You 

 see it is only in the fourth, in the person of Marie, 

 that the tendency, when it appears but slightly in 

 the second generation, is washed out in the third, 

 while the progeny of Andre, who escaped in the 

 first instance, escape altogether. 



We have in this case a good example of nature's 

 tendency to the perpetuation of a variation. Here 

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