Principles of Heredity 135 



The character of the cross-bred zygote may be anything. 

 It may be something we have seen before in one or other of 

 the parents, it may be intermediate between the two, or it 

 may be something new. All these possibilities were known 

 to Mendel and he is perfectly aware that his principle is 

 equally applicable to all. The first case is his " dominance." 

 That he is ready for the second is sufficiently shown by his 

 brief reference to time of flowering considered as a character 

 (p. 65). The hybrids, he says, flower at a time almost 

 exactly intermediate between the flowering times of the 

 parents, and he remarks that the development of the 

 hybrids in this case probably happens in the same way as 

 it does in the case of the other characters*. 



That he was thoroughly prepared for the third possibility 

 appears constantly through the paper, notably in the 

 argument based on the Phaseolus hybrids, and in the 

 statement that the hybrid between tails and dwarfs is 

 generally taller than the tall parent, having increased 

 height as its " hybrid -character." 



All this Professor Weldon has missed. In place of it 

 he offers us the sententia that no one can expect to 

 understand these phenomena if he neglect ancestry. This 

 is the idle gloss of the scribe, which, if we erase it not 

 thoroughly, may pass into the text. 



Enough has been said to show how greatly Mendel's 

 conception of heredity was in advance of those which 

 pass current at the present day ; I have here attempted 



* " Ueber die BliltJiezeit der Hybriden sind die Versuche nock nicht 

 abgeschlossen. So viel kann indessen schon anf/egcben werden, dass 

 dieselbe fast genau in der Mitte zwischen jener der Samen- und 

 Pollenpflanze steht, und die Entwicklung der Hybriden beziiylich 

 dieses MerJtmales wahrscheinlich in der ntimlichen Weise erfolgt, wie es 

 fiir die iibrigen Merkmale der Fall ist." Mendel, p. 23. 



