WILLIAM BATESON 7 



the contrary, primaeval, is the epiphany of a property possessed 

 by the forerunners of the species which all along has lain latent, 

 present but unable to manifest itself in consequence of the co- 

 existence of inhibitory factors. 



That I may not be thought to exaggerate or misstate, let me 

 quote, in the first place, from his address on Heredity delivered 

 to the International Medical Congress here in London in 1913 : 



" Perverse as such a suggestion may appear, I do not think 

 we should close our minds to the possibility that these dominants 

 arise by a process of loss of some inhibitory factor. . . . Let me 

 call your attention also to the inference which this suggestion 

 would have on the conception of evolution. We might extend 

 the same reasoning to all cases of genetic evolution, and thus 

 conceive all alike as due to loss of elements present in the original 

 complex." 



That clearly this was not a passing fancy is shown by the 

 address delivered by him at Melbourne in the summer of 1914, 

 as President of the British Association for the Advancement 

 of Science. 



" We are even more sceptical," said Mr. Bateson, " as to 

 the validity of an appeal to changes in the conditions of life 

 as direct causes of modification, upon which, latterly at all 

 events, Darwin laid much emphasis. ..." 



" Abandoning the attempt to show that positive features can 

 be added to the original stock (the italics are mine), we have further 

 to confess that we cannot often actually prove variation by 

 loss of factors to be a real phenomenon." Nevertheless this 

 must be so, and he quoted the case of the " Coral King " Primula 

 given off from the " Crimson King," concluding that here " the 

 salmon (pigment) must have been concealed as a recessive from 

 the first origin of the variety," and continued : " Variation both 

 by loss of factors and fractionation of factors is a genuine 

 phenomenon of contemporary nature. If we have to dispense, 

 as seems likely, with any addition from without, we must begin 

 seriously to consider whether the course of evolution can at all 

 seriously be represented as an unpacking of an original complex 

 which contains within itself the whole range of diversity which 

 living things present." And further : 



" At first it may seem rank absurdity to suppose that the 

 primordial form or forms of protoplasm could have contained 



