260 The Idea of Evolution. 



with frequent!}- four and fi\e leaflets. He grew plants from the 

 seeds of those, and gradually, by selecting those with the 

 greatest number of leaflets, he obtained plants in which there 

 were 29 per cent, of the leaves with seven leaflets. Clover with 

 seven leaflets had never been seen by anybody, and in all 

 probability it had never extended to the world at all. And 

 if this botanist could produce a seven-leaved clover in this way 

 in the course of a few years, he saw no reason that Nature 

 should not be able to produce anything in the plant world in 

 the course of a few centuries. Then there was the usual back- 

 ward trend again, the usual trough of the w-ave following after 

 Galton's and Pearson's discoveries, and that was an appeal to 

 garden sports and \-ariations. Everybody who had been at all 

 observant in the fields or in gardens must ha\e noticed a tendency 

 for extraordinary and peculiar forms to develop apparently 

 without any reason at all. These sports or bud variations were 

 carefully examined by Dr Bateson and others, and the theory 

 which Bateson was most inclined to follow was that evolution, 

 instead of following in this gradual way, step by step and line by 

 line, had come about by a series of sudden leaps or jumps. The 

 question was more important from every point of view than it 

 looked, because it came to be — Was progress due to a struggle 

 for existence under evil circumstances and bad conditions, or 

 were these great advances due to overfeeding ? These bud 

 variations were due to too much food and nourishment, whereas 

 the small minor variations such as we found in such a case as 

 this were due to the natural hard lines in which every plant 

 found itself. The point he thought most conclusive of this ques- 

 tion was this : — In any museum they would find instances of 

 sheep with a supernumerary eye in the middle of the forehead 

 or an extra leg tacked on somewhere on the middle of the back. 

 They found cattle occasionally with two heads, and also in 

 plants they found continual instances in which all the stamens 

 and pistils had become petals. Could one suppose that things 

 of that sort could ever produce an offspring, vigorous and 

 efificient enough to overcome the difficulties of ordinary outside 

 existence? He thought not. And, besides, if they looked to 

 the general behaviour of the different wild species in this countrv 

 they could see not what they should expect on this theory of 

 sports, but exactly the condition which ought to come about if 



