SCOPE OF GENETICS 37 



work presents. Untroubled by any itch to 

 make potatoes larger or bread cheaper, he set 

 himself in the quiet of a cloister garden to find 

 out the laws of hybridity, and so struck a mine 

 of truth, inexhaustible in brilliancy and profit. 

 I will now suggest to you that it is by no 

 means unlikely that even in an inquiry so re- 

 mote as that which I just described in the 

 case of the Sweet Pea, we may have the clue 

 to a mystery which concerns us all in the 

 closest possible way. I mean the problem of 

 the physiological nature of Sex. In speaking 

 of the interpretation of sexual difference sug- 

 gested by our experimental work as of some 

 practical moment, I do not imply that as in 

 the other instances I have given, the know- 

 ledge is likely to be of immediate use to our 

 species ; but only that if true it makes a con- 

 tribution to the stock of human ideas which 

 no one can regard as insignificant. 



