ATAVISM. YT 



inability to predict what a given combination would 

 produce. 



Moreover, the phenomena of atavism cannot be 

 reconciled w^ith this hypothesis, without the further 

 supposition that the elements of the organization, 

 combining to form a new compound, may be again 

 resolved into their original constituents. 



"When characters that have remained latent for 

 several generations make their appearance again, with 

 all the peculiarities that formerly distinguished them, 

 it does not seem probable that they have passed 

 through a series of transformations in the formation 

 of new characters, and, at the same time, retained 

 their original constitution. 



From the facts of heredity already presented in 

 the cases cited, it must be evident that the sum of the 

 characters Or physiological units that enter into the 

 organization of the animal cannot be represented in 

 the external peculiarities that alone are obvious to the 

 senses. It is well known to breeders that many of 

 the most important characteristics of the organization, 

 in a given case, may not appear upon the surface, or 

 in the functional activities of the system, and that 

 they can only be traced in the ancestral history, and 

 in the inherited peculiarities of offspring. 



In the further discussion of these peculiar forms 

 of heredity, it will be necessary to distinguish between 

 the more obvious and prominent characters of the ani- 

 mal and those obscure characters that can only be 

 shown to exist by their hereditary transmission to off- 

 spring. The former may be termed dominant char- 

 acters, and the latter obscured or latent characters. 



