Principles of Heredity 207 



appearance and are rigorously hoed out every year before 

 seeding. 



To appreciate the meaning of these facts we must go 

 back to what was said above on the nature of compound 

 characters. We can perceive that, as Mendel showed, the 

 integral characters of the varieties can be dissociated and 

 re-combined in any combination. More than that; certain 

 integral characters can be resolved into further integral 

 components, by analytical variations. What is taking 

 place in this process of resolution we cannot surmise, but 

 we may liken the consequences of that process to various 

 phenomena of analysis seen elsewhere. To continue the 

 metaphor we may speak of return to the vetch-like type as 

 a synthetical variation : well remembering that we know 

 nothing of any substance being subtracted in the former 

 case or added in the latter, and that the phenomenon is 

 more likely to be primarily one of alteration in arrangement 

 than in substance. 



A final proof that nothing is to be looked for from an 

 appeal to ancestry is provided by the fact of which the 

 literature of variation contains numerous illustrations- 

 that such newly synthesised forms, instead of themselves 

 producing a large proportion of the high class variety which 

 may have been their ancestor for a hundred generations, 

 may produce almost nothing but individuals like themselves. 

 A subject fraught with extraordinary interest will be the 

 determination whether by crossing these newly synthesised 

 forms with their parent, or another pure form, we may not 

 succeed in reproducing a great part of the known series of 

 components afresh. The pure parental form, produced, or 

 extracted, by " analytical " breeding, would not in ordinary 

 circumstances be capable of producing the other components 

 from which it has been separated ; but by crossing it with 



