264 THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNLIKE. [xiV. 



cannot be perpetuated. Now, there are several ways 

 of looking at this Weismannian philosophy. In the 

 first place, so far as plants are concerned in it, it is 

 mere assumption, and, therefore, does not demand ref- 

 utation. In the second place, there is abundant asex- 

 ual variation in flowering plants, as we have seen ; 

 and many fungi, which have run into numberless forms, 

 are sexless. In the third place, since all agree that 

 plants are intimately adapted to the conditions in 

 which they live, it is violence to suppose that the 

 very adaptations which are directly produced by those 

 conditions are without permanent effect. In the fourtli 

 place, we know, as a matter of common knowledge 

 and also of direct experiment, that acquired charac- 

 ters in plants often are perpetuated. 



I cannot hope to prove to the Weismannians that 

 acquired characters may be hereditary, for their defi- 

 'nition of an acquired character has a habit of retreat- 

 ing into th§ germ, where neither they nor anyone else 

 can find it. But this proposition is easy enough of 

 proof, viz. : Plants which start to all appearances 

 perfectly equal may be greatly modified by the con- 

 ditions in which they grow ; the seedlings of these 

 plants may show these new features in few or many 

 generations. Most of the new varieties of garden 

 plants, of which about a thousand are introduced in 

 North America each year, come about in just this 

 way." A simple experiment made in our greenhouses 

 also shows the truth of my proposition. Peas were 

 grown under known conditions from seeds, in the same 

 manner as the petunias were which I have mentioned. 

 The plants varied widely. Seeds of these plants were 

 saved and all sown in one soil, and the characters, 



