156 DARWINISM AND HUMAN LIFE 



genetics with every hope that something can be 

 done in these laudable directions. But here I 

 would plead what I cannot but regard as a higher 

 usefulness in our work. Genetic inquiry aims at 

 providing knowledge that may bring, and I think 

 will bring, certainty into a region of human affairs 

 and concepts which might have been supposed re- 

 served for ages to be the domain of the visionary." 

 He alludes to liability to particular disease, addic- 

 tion to a particular vice, and so on, and says : " As 

 regards the more tangible of these physical and 

 mental characteristics there can be little doubt 

 that, before many years have passed, the laws of 

 their transmission will be expressible in simple 

 formulae/' * 



MUCH PEOGRESS, BUT GREAT UNCERTAINTY. 

 Especially through the work of the Mendelians 

 great strides have been made in the last ten years 

 in our knowledge of the laws of inheritance. By 

 breeding two pairs of rabbits which, to the ordinary 

 eye, seem identical, an experimenter like Mr. Hurst 

 acquires a knowledge of their inherent germinal 

 qualities (or gametic constitution), and he can 

 successfully predict the difference between the 

 results of mating the two pairs. The statisticians 

 can predict average results in 1,000 offspring ; the 

 Mendelian breeder can predict the distribution of 

 certain characters in a litter. In spite of this 

 progress, and partly because of it, we are confronted 

 with an array of unanswered questions concerning 

 this most fascinating of problems. In what cases 

 are the facts of inheritance clearly Mendelian, 

 and how do these cases differ from others that 

 seem as clearly non-Mendelian ? Is it the case 



1 W. Bateson, " The Methods and Scope of Genetics " (1908). 



