78 PRINCIPLES OF STOCK-BREEDING. 



For many years I have been inclined to the belief 

 that all characters are directly transmitted as physio- 

 logical units or elements of the organization, some of 

 which may be dominant, and thus determine the ob- 

 vious characteristics of the animal, while others re- 

 main latent until they are transmitted to offspring in 

 which favorable conditions lead to their development, 

 when they, in their turn, may become dominant, and 

 thus obscure other characters. 



Tnat characters are transmitted in their integrity, 

 without transformation into other characters, is clearly 

 asserted by Herbert Spencer, who says, " There must 

 arise not an homogeneous mean between two parents, 

 but a mixture of organs, some of which mainly follow 

 the one parent, and some the other." * 



The last clause of this statement cannot, however, 

 be literally accepted as a law of inheritance, as we 

 have already seen that the dominant characters, in a 

 given case, may be inherited from some remote ances- 

 tor, while the dominant characters of the parents may 

 become latent. 



Mr. Sedgwick, in his paper on " Hereditary Dis- 

 ease," says : " It may be observed that in the offspring 

 of two dissimilar parents there is never, as a rule, 

 complete fusion of the two parents, but a distribution 

 of the characters peculiar to each ; and although this 

 is less strongly remarked in the offspring of the human 

 race than it is in that of the lower animals as, for ex- 

 ample, in the case of some hermaphrodite insects, in 

 which the family quarterings may result from specific 

 distinctions of sex being associated without fusion in 



1 " Principles of Biology," vol. i., p. 267. 



