268 BREEDING 



to Dr. Reid and his adherents, the mode of inheritance 

 by which sexual characters are transmitted is the 

 real starting-point, and Mendelian phenomena are 

 anomalous occurrences caused by certain varietal 

 characters taking to be inherited by the sexual mode 

 of transmission, and occupying a mere cul-de-sac in 

 the stream of evolution. " It has been suggested," 

 says Dr. Eeid, " that the inheritance of sexual 

 characters is Mendehan ; we shall be nearer the 

 truth if we say that the inheritance of MendeUan 

 characters is sexual." By this he simply means 

 that the sexual and not the Mendelian mode of 

 inheritance is the phenomenon in the light of which 

 the other must be interpreted. According to his view 

 both sexes are bipotential, each sex contains the 

 opposite one, in potentia ; this he calls alternative 

 latency and potency ; there is no such thing as 

 alternative inheritance, which is the distribution of 

 characters to the germ- cells in such a way that one 

 germ- cell may receive a character in its entirety and 

 another not at all. The illusion of alternative in- 

 heritance is created by the occurrence in about 

 half the individuals, of a species, of a particular sex 

 in a patent and the other sex in a latent state ; and, in 

 the other half, of the same sex in a latent, but the 

 other sex in a patent state. This view resembles 

 that of Castle in that, according to it, both sexes 

 have the same constitution — that is, they contain 

 the potentiality of both sexes — and only differ from 

 one another in the matter of which sex happens 

 to be uppermost, or patent. 



