BY HEBER A. LONtiMAK. i> 



comparatively trivial features of the organism which 

 must have arisen during the last stages of phylogony.'"* 



It is interesting to note,, as H. F. Roberts has pointed 

 out,t that as a necessary application of his theory of 

 pangenesis, Darwin in his '" Animals and Plants under 

 Domestication '" gave what is virtually a statement of the 

 Mendelian theory of the distribution and recombination 

 of factors in hybrid offspring. A recognition of these facts 

 is a very different thing from the sweeping generalisation 

 which would use the formulae of Mendelism as a key to 

 the whole course of evolution. 



Darwin did not believe that variations were due to 

 " chance." On the contrary, he expressly points out 

 that his use of this "incorrect expression'' was due to 

 '" our ignorance of the cause of each variation."' J 



Darwin is greater than Darwinism. He outstrijjped 

 his own theories and, here and there, exhibited a breadth 

 and a depth of mind and a range of knowledge Avhich might 

 be envied by the controversialists of to-day. In certain 

 quarters there is a tendency to restrict Darwin's views in 

 an unwarrantable way. and to present him as the exponent 

 of arbitary principles. But his own books provide the 

 material for an instauration. and we may often turn with 

 advantage from present-day writers back to the pages of 

 the great master. His transparent honesty caused him 

 to extend some of his earlier views. Huxley gives an 

 important quotation from a letter wTitten by Darwin in 

 1876 to M. Wagner, where he says : — '" In my opinion, 

 the greatest error which I have committed has been not 

 allowing sufficient weight to the direct action of the 

 environments, i.e., food, climate, etc., independently of 

 natural selection. . . . When I ^vl■ote the ' Oi'igin,* 

 and for some years afterwards, I could find little good 

 evidence for the direct action of the environment ; now 

 there is a large body of evidence "j 



*Dcndy : Report British Assn., Au.stralia, 1915, p. 393. 

 t " Nature," August 14, 1919. 



jC. Darwin: The Origin of .Spoeies, Oth edit., 188(). j). 10(i. 

 §Proc. Royal Society, Vol. 44, 1888. 



