HEREDITY AND RADIUM AT DUBLIN 181 



was the overwhelming interest aroused by The Origin of 

 Species. At the jubilee of that work the positions are reversed. 

 This strange exception to the Darwinian laws is filling the 

 minds of men of science the world over. "Dominant" and 

 " recessive " are words rapidly leaking out into popular speech, 

 and will soon be rivals to the blessed word " evolution." 

 There is of course, too, a conscious rivalry. The President's 

 address, in some respects ultra-Darwinian, was perhaps more 

 severely dealt with in private discussion than any speech of 

 recent years. The inheritance of acquired characters is, as he 

 said, for the moment a lost cause. Many felt this ; but only 

 the Mendelians came into the open on the subject. Professor 

 Bateson interrupted a lucid exegesis of the law to beg his 

 audience not to follow the vague philosophies of the President, 

 but to believe that the only path of real advance was by close 

 and faithful observation of such facts as were occupying Men- 

 delians in all parts of the world. He waved his triple branch 

 of sweet peas as a fragrant wand of protection against all who 

 were not within the Mendelian pale, and not even Professor 

 Poulton, who was the most potent enemy present, took up 

 the challenge. The three sweet peas are, if one may say so, the 

 trump card — better winners of tricks even than the blue Anda- 

 lusian fowls, whose blue blood must surrender to the plebeian 

 stock from which it sprang. From the Invincible sweet pea 

 spring, do what you will, Painted Lady and Duke of West- 

 minster ; and what in the world becomes of cell-memory before 

 the due proportional recurrence of these different but persistent 

 forms ? 



Professor Bateson's speech was as eagerly expected as any 

 at the meeting. Since the Association Meeting of 1904 he has 

 been our Mendelian protagonist. We were also expecting 

 momentous announcements of the results of the year's work. 

 And from the Board of Agriculture itself had issued rumours of 

 saccharine turnips and heavy-wooled sheep, which were about 

 to prove to the practical world of farmers that Science was their 

 friend. But Professor Bateson, partly because he had lost his 

 slides, partly because he thought that his duty was to talk down 

 to the young intelligence of the youngest of the sub-sections, 

 did no more than give an elementary sketch of the meaning 

 of the law. The whole of the ground of his lecture was 

 covered at Leicester last year, and very clearly given by Mr. 



