‘XI PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE 399 
from the primitive stock—that it produces flowers 
of a different colour or make, or some deviation 
in one way or another. This is what is called the 
“sporting ” of plants. 
In animals the phenomena of non-sexual pro- 
pagation are so obscure, that at present we cannot 
besaid to know much about them ; but if we turn to 
that mode of perpetuation which results from the 
sexual process, then we find variation a perfectly 
constant occurrence, to a certain extent; and, in- 
deed, I think that a certain amount of variation 
from the primitive stock is the necessary result of 
the method of sexual propagation itself; for, inas- 
much as the thing propagated proceeds from two 
organisms of different sexes and different makes 
and temperaments, and as the offspring is to be 
either of one sex or the other, it is quite clear that 
it cannot be an exact diagonal of the two, or it 
would be of no sex at all; it cannot be an exact 
intermediate form between that of each of its 
parents—it must deviate to one side or the other. 
You do not find that the male follows the precise 
type of the male parent, nor does the female al- 
ways inherit the precise characteristics of the 
_mother,—there is always a-proportion of the female 
character in the male offspring, and of the male 
character in thefemale offspring. That must be quite 
"plain toall of you who have looked atall attentively 
; on your own children or those of your neighbours ; 
_you will have noticed how very often it may hap- 
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