xx MUTATION, MEN DELI SM, ETC. 



regards ' real mutability ', a negative result. 1 The lethargy 

 of the Dutch plants, contrasted with the volcanic energy 

 of the American, appears to have wounded De Vries's 

 national pride so sharply that he felt bound to meet the 

 situation with a hypothesis which gave promise of equal 

 powers to his compatriots. He found comfort in the 

 startling speculation ' that species are subject to com- 

 paratively short periods of mutability which recur at 

 relatively long intervals, and that all the species he 

 examined except the CEnot/iera were in this intermediate 

 stable period of their existence '. 2 



It would be interesting and probably amusing to hear 

 the words with which a speculative edifice equally vast, 

 on a foundation equally insecure, if such were possible, 

 would be assailed by the leader of Mutation in England, 

 had it been erected in relation to continuous evolution. 



The comparison between the other plants and the 

 Oenothera did not apparently lead De Vries to conjecture 

 that there might be something wrong with the latter, 

 even though the original wild plant was unknown. ' It 

 is unfortunate,' as R. H. Lock remarks, 'from the point 

 of view of de Vries' interpretation of this case that the 

 behaviour of O. Lamarckiana should suggest in some 

 respects, as Bateson has pointed out, the phenomena of 

 hybridization.' 3 The supposed fact ' that the species 

 appears to exhibit the same phenomenon in other locali- 

 ties ' 4 is, however, brought forward by Lock in support 

 of De Vries's hypothesis. Well, the form O. lamarckiana 



1 Hugo De Vries, Species and Varieties, London, 1905, p. 520. 



3 R. H. Lock, 1. c., p. 140. Lock adds somewhat laconically, 'Direct 

 proof of this suggestion is naturally out of the question.' By a printer's 

 error the word ' stable ' in the above-quoted passage appears as ' staple ' 

 in the original. 



* 1. c., p. 278. 



4 Ibid. 



