I9I0.] THROUGH HYBRIDIZATION. 285 



Mendelian phenomena. Every thremmatologist is too familiar 

 with the facts of ontogeny to give the shghtest credence to anything 

 approaching the old emboitement hypothesis, but he must accept as 

 a philosophical necessity the fact that there can be no action without 

 an agent. There can be no " strength " without something to be 

 strong. Preformation and epigenesis are simply inseparable phases 

 of a single philosophical unity and any attempt to separate them 

 is fallacious. 



The statement that the "nature of present Mendelian interpre- 

 tation and description inextricably commits to the * doctrine of 

 particles/ " presents Mendelism and its investigators in a false light, 

 as no such commitment is involved. Despite the enormous activity 

 and splendid progress that has been made in these ten years in trac- 

 ing the Mendelian behavior until it has become evident that it is a 

 well-nigh universal phenomenon, — no doubt practically co-extensive 

 with sexual reproduction, — the changes in descriptive terminology to. 

 which Dr. Riddle deprecatingly refers, have been remarkably slight, 

 and one reads IMendel's original account with wonder that it should 

 still be so modern. Mendel's genius grasped the essentials of this 

 type of inheritance so completely and presented it with such fulness 

 and clarity, that it may doubtless always serve as a good elementary 

 presentation of the subject. But while Mendel's paper is in such 

 essential accord with " present interpretation " as to seem strictly 

 modern, there occurs throughout his whole admirable discussion, 

 not one word of suggestion that he attributes the occurrence of any 

 external character to the presence of an internal particle. 



Modern Mendelians as a rule have specifically declined to postu- 

 late the presence of material "particles" as the physical bases of 

 unit-characters. Bateson, who has done more than any other to 

 demonstrate the wide applicability of the Mendelian method, clearly 

 placed himself from the first in opposition to any purely morpho- 

 logical interpretation of Mendelian phenomena by giving to his 

 reports to the evolution committee the title : " Experimental Studies 

 in the Physiology of Heredity," and he has from first to last care- 

 fully guarded all statements with reference to the nature of the 

 genes, in such manner as to be entirely non-committal. Other in- 

 vestigators have either wholly ignored the question, or have usually 



