CHARACTERS OF DISTINCT PAIRS 113 



is reminded of logical exercises, and suspects that 

 this theory, like other products of the imagination, 

 may bear but a very distant relation to actuality, 

 may discover that his suspicion is happily — to a large 

 extent, at any rate — without foundation by making 

 the cross which I have described, if he has a few 

 square yards of ground at his disposal ; when he 

 will obtain about once in every sixteen plants, in 

 the second hybrid generation, a plant bearing peas 

 in the seed-coats of which the two absences of 

 " maple " and " purple spot " are combined — peas 

 which can be seen and handled. 



We have dealt in this chapter with pairs of 

 characters which are inherited in complete independ- 

 ence of one another, i.e. with cases in which 

 characters belonging to one pair are unaffected by 

 characters belonging to another, and have come in 

 view of a simple theory of the nature of dominant 

 and recessive characters. The further consideration 

 of this theory will be dropped for the present, to be 

 resumed in the chapter after next. In the next 

 chapter we shall deal with cases in which characters, 

 belonging to one pair, are very profoundly affected 

 by characters belonging to another pair. 



