PATENCY AND LATENCY 159 



pure dominant offspring resulted in the first hybrid generation. 1 

 Millardet's ' false hybrids ' are celebrated. He " found that when 

 certain varieties, especially of strawberry, are crossed together, 

 (i) the cross-breds may precisely reproduce the maternal type, 

 without any indication of the paternal characters ; (2) in other cases 

 the cross-bred individuals may show either the maternal characters 

 pure (save in one case the colour of fruits) or the paternal characters 

 pure. Seeds from plants thus exclusively reproducing one parental 

 type themselves gave plants again exclusively of that type. To 

 such forms he gives the name 'faux hydrides' or ' hydrides sans 

 croisement! " 2 Other similar cases might be mentioned. 3 



271. All these facts are inconsistent with the Mendelian 

 doctrine. For example, if unit segregation and gametic purity are 

 realities, how is it possible (i) that only pure dominants, having 

 only dominant descendants, can occur in the first hybrid genera- 

 tion, or (2) that recessives can ever produce dominant offspring and 

 descendants ? We may indeed adopt the far-fetched hypothesis 

 that in the first case recessive units or gametes were not produced, 

 or perished, leaving only dominants to continue the race, and in 

 the second the more probable conjecture that the recessives were 

 in reality impure dominants in which the recessive units had 

 temporarily become dominants. 



272. But another explanation not only inherently more pro- 

 bable, but supported by evidence that appears massive and 

 conclusive, is possible. We saw that the development, not 

 inheritance, of the sexual characters is alternative. In every 

 individual, for example man or woman, one of each pair of sexual 

 characters is as a rule entirely dominant over its alternative. The 

 alternative, however, is present in a latent condition, that is 

 every individual is an impure dominant. Thus, in man bearded- 

 face is dominant over smooth-face, whereas the latter is dominant 

 in a woman ; but the man transmits the latent female character to 

 his daughters and the woman the latent male character to her 

 sons. Here the inheritance, so-called, is alternative in a completer 

 sense than in the case of Mendelian characters ; for each character 

 is in turn dominant over its alternative. But in some cases male 

 characters may become latent for prolonged periods, as in aphides 

 during the summer. Female characters are seemingly, permanently 

 recessive in the ova of the queen bee, for unfertilized eggs produce 



1 Op. cit., p. 80. * Op. cit., p. 154. 



*Op.cit.,p. 8 1. See also Bateson, Mendel's Principles of Heredity, chapter 



