CH. XI] B. MORPHOLOGICAL 121 



the first ancestor of the whole family? Many of the families that 

 now exist go back unchanged through the fossil records to more 

 and more ancient times, or rather some of the larger and more 

 widely distributed ones (the older, by age and area) do. There is 

 no record of any preliminary stages in the development of a 

 family, so that to imagine its characters as having been handed 

 down from a first (single) ancestral form requires no stretch of 

 the imagination, though it is not quite in keeping with the views 

 derived from Darwinism. And as such large changes as the loss 

 (or gain) of whole whorls of stamens are admitted, there seems 

 no reason left why it should not be admitted that the family 

 ancestor can appear by a single mutation. 



One more example must suffice — the opening of the anther by 

 slits, by valves, or by pores. Here again, one of these characters 

 may be found in a whole family, in part of one, in a few genera, in 

 one, or even in some species only in one genus. But where does 

 natural selection get any leverage upon the character? In what 

 way can it possibly matter to a mature plant which of the methods 

 of anther dehiscence is employed, or to a young plant how its 

 anthers are going to open at a later period? And how can the 

 differences arise except by direct mutations? Gradual stages are 

 almost inconceivable. The only adaptational value ever suggested 

 is that the valve or pore might localise the pollen better upon a 

 visiting insect, but unless the stigma is also arranged so as to 

 touch the part bearing the pollen, there will be no gain, but rather 

 loss. And this brings up the question of correlated characters, 

 about which something must presently be said. 



It is a matter of very great difficulty to account for morpho- 

 logical uniformity unless it arise by direct mutation, and unless 

 it be handed down from above, as differentiation demands. How 

 did the widely distributed tap root come into existence in so 

 many flowering plants ? How did the pore of an anther come to be 

 like that of a fruit? How did leaves appear? Why have such a 

 vast number of them much the same dorsiventral anatomy? 

 Why are so many exactly opposite? Why are they in definite 

 phyllotaxies ? Why are some simple and some compound, why 

 are they entire or toothed, palmate or pinnate, and so on? How 

 could all the Cruciferae, and they only, get tetradynamous 

 stamens, which have incidentally no adaptational value, and 

 have these together with the other well-marked characters of 

 this family? Once more it must be admitted that morphology, or 

 what the selectionists call tendencies, can override natural 



