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SCOPE OF GENETICS 35 



by a suspicion that the discovery can be 

 applied. No harm is done to the investigator 

 if he can resist the temptation to deviate 

 fiom his aim. With rarest exceptions the 

 discoveries which have formed the basis 

 of physical progress have been made without 

 any thought but for the gratification of 

 curiosity. Of this there can be few examples 

 more conspicuous than that which Mendel's 

 work presents. Untroubled by any itch to 

 make potatoes larger or bread cheaper, he set 

 himself in the quiet of a cloister garden to find 

 out the laws of hybridity, and so struck a mine 

 of truth, inexhaustible in brilliancy and profit. 

 I will now suggest to you that it is by no 

 means unlikely that even in an inquiry so 

 remote as that which I just described in the 

 case of the Sweet Pea, we may have the clue 

 to a mystery which concerns us all in the 

 closest possible way. I mean the problem of 

 the physiological nature of Sex. In speaking 



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