6 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



destroying the contrast. Qualities black and white, 

 good and bad, are in the parentage and in the stock. 

 The offspring must be made up and entirely com- 

 pounded out of either black or white or good or bad, 

 one or the other, this is the " alternative." In the 

 case of sheep the creature must be, as we all know, 

 clearly and absolutely either one thing or the other. 

 This is alternative heredity working at its perfection.* 

 How far is this true for mental and moral traits ? 

 Though man cannot be divided into good and bad, 

 great and small, there is nevertheless much more 

 alternative heredity at work than is commonly 

 supposed. This can be the more readily demon- 

 strated if one divides individuals into three classes. 

 Let the great mass be placed in the middle or common 

 grade, and then watch the appearance and reap- 

 pearance of either one of the types belonging to the 

 extreme ends of the scale, either the rare superior or 

 the rare inferior. If these types are traced through 

 long pedigrees of human beings by studying inten- 

 sively families where most of the brothers and sisters 

 and uncles and aunts can be traced and accounted 

 for, the phenomenon of alternative inheritance can 

 be seen to have an universal value. Everywhere we 

 find certain children inheriting the peculiarity in 

 question, while, if the records are complete, it is 

 equally clear that others do not. 



* The phrase, alternative heredity, Mas in use before the rediscovery' of 

 Mendel's law in 1900. It is a broader, looser term than strict MendeUan 

 heredity-, and does not raise the question of dominance and recession. It 

 does, however, involve the idea of segregation of the germ plasm, and is a 

 convenient term to employ when " factors " and " units," " dominance " 

 and " recession " have not yet been unravelled. 



