Modification of Germinal Constitution of Organisms 169 



to the quadrille of the centrosomes. The last of the curious 

 hypotheses developed by the neo-Darwinians is that weird 

 phrase of biology which took its rise from the work of Bates, 

 Miiller, and Trimen, and which has been developed into the 

 present theory of mimicry. Its supporters would have us 

 believe that much transmutation is based upon a mimetic 

 principle aided by the subsidiary principle of recognition 

 marks. Here utilitarian variation and purposeful selection 

 run riot and produce in every case a definite end, a pro- 

 tected form. Naturally, these curious and thoroughly 

 uncritical ideas, current among the neo-Darwinians, are 

 their own answer. 



At present the neo-Darwinian concepts offer nothing 

 that is of use as a working hypothesis in the further investi- 

 gation of evolution, nor any logical ground for observation 

 and induction in nature. The neo-Darwinian situation, 

 and, also, the neo-Lamarckian are in reality two of those 

 common developments which arise in every line of human 

 thought intellectual culs-de-sac . 



More as a protest against the neo-Darwinian situation 

 than for any other reason, there arose, simultaneously, in 

 England, on the Continent, and in America, the modern 

 saltationist school. Thoroughly bored with the repetition 

 by the neo-Darwinians of the same old facts sung to the 

 same old tune, Bateson in England, DeVries on the Conti- 

 nent, and others, determined to find an outlet, and all, I 

 think, obtained their original inspiration from the recog- 

 nition by Darwin that in many species variations repeatedly 

 occur which stand apart from the rest of the population, and 

 frequently are prepotent when bred back to the parent 

 stock. Further, Darwin in his Origin of Species and The 

 Variations of Animals and Plants under Domestication cites 



