i 
xi PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE 407 
you have that monstrosity or variation diluted 
in the first imstance by an admixture with 
a female of normal construction, and you would 
naturally expect that, in the results of such an 
union, the monstrosity, if repeated, would be in 
equal proportion with the normal type; that is to 
say, that the children would be half and half, some 
_ taking the peculiarity of the father, and the others 
_ being’ of the purely normal type of the mother; 
_ but you see we have a great preponderance of the 
abnormal type. Well, this comes to be mixed once 
more with the pure, the normal type, and the ab- 
normal is again produced in large proportion, not- 
_ withstanding the second dilution. Now what 
would have happened if these abnormal types had 
_ intermarried with each other ; that is to say, sup- 
_ pose the two boys of Salvator had taken it into 
_ their heads to marry their first cousins, the two 
first girls of George, their uncle? You will remem- 
_ ber that these are all of the abnormal type of their 
_ grandfather. The result would probably have been, 
_ that their offspring would have been in every case 
PLD 0 ees - 
a further development of that abnormal type. You 
see it is only in the fourth, in the person of Marie, 
that the tendency, when it appears but slightly in 
the second generation, is washed out in the third, 
while the progeny of André, who escaped in the 
first instance, escape altogether. 
We have in this case a good example of nature’s 
tendency to the perpetuation of a variation, Here 
