128 THE GROWTH OF GROUPS 



from (Enothem, holding their own even in crossing with 

 the parent species. The experiments with pallida are 

 strong evidence in favour of the origin of species by rapid 

 change, better perhaps, than that afforded by De Vries' 

 plants, because pallida, given the necessary start, needs 

 neither selection nor attention to take care of itself, and 

 my cultures would, I have no doubt, have spread widely 

 in nature, as they began to do, had I allowed them to 

 continue." 



After this the summing up on the last page comes as 

 a surprise. " This view differs, therefore, from that of 

 De Vries, who sees in mutants the origin of species ; the 

 real test is, as De Vries clearly sees, the fate of these 

 mutants in nature. This I have been able in some 

 measure to test, and at present there seem to be insuper- 

 able difficulties in the path of all observed mutants in 

 Leptinotarsa. I therefore regard mutations as prophetic 

 variations indicating what may perhaps be the next 

 species in the evolution of the race." 



No doubt there is truth in the belief that mutants 

 are " prophetic variations," but what will be the manner 

 of the fulfilment of that which they prophesy? They 

 prophesy the arrival of a new race of their own kind. 

 Why should we assume that they will arrive by the 

 process indicated in the theory of Natural Selection, a 

 process which has not been observed when the actual 

 method of arrival was observed in one case to be growth 

 from unity ? 



Of the many facts leading to the conviction that 

 groups arise from mutants, those observed in the case 

 of rubicunda are perhaps the most convincing, but scarcely 

 less so is the fact that in the case of pallida steps had to 



