MODERN VIEWS ON EVOLUTION 185 



powers which produce changes on individuals in their own 

 persons, but to those more important causes, which, acting 

 on the parents, so influence them that they produce an 

 offspring endowed with certain peculiar characters, which 

 characters, according to the law of nature, become heredi- 

 tary, and thus modify the race '. 



The sentence I have last quoted concludes the Section 

 and very naturally introduces Section iv, entitled, Theory 

 of the Origin of Varieties (p. 548). 



This Section opens with a sentence which might well 

 have been written by Darwin : ' Varieties of form or 

 colour, as they spring up in any race, are commonly called 

 accidental, a term only expressive of our ignorance as to 

 the causes which give rise to them.' On the other hand — 

 1 how, by what infliieiice, and in what manner ' they are 

 produced, 'we shall perhaps never be able to ascertain.' 



Examples of new varieties which have sprung up within 

 the experience of man are then given: the 'porcupine' 

 and six-fingered man, albinos, and variations in colour. 

 He next describes the sudden origin of the ancon or otter 

 breed of sheep, quoting from Colonel Humphries in the 

 Philosophical Transactions for 18 13 (part i). 



Prichard favours the view that when the offspring does 

 not exhibit a new variety but follows the main lines of its 

 race or breed it is apt to be influenced by the father rather 

 than the mother ; and he quotes a number of statements 

 and opinions believed to favour this view ; and finally 

 alludes to the celebrated cross between the mare and the 

 male quagga, in which it was confidently believed that so 

 great an effect was produced on the former that her later 

 offspring, although begotten by a stallion, were influenced 

 in the direction of the quagga (telegony). 



The mother, on the other hand, was believed to be in 

 the main responsible for the new varieties which arise 

 from time to time. This opinion Prichard considered to 

 be probably well grounded ; and the conclusion that size 

 and stature chiefly depend on the mother he also thought 

 to be well established. Hence we see that his judgement 

 and penetration were not always proof against popular 

 convictions insufficiently sustained by evidence. These 



