MONSTROSITIES 313 



The unfortunate thing is that in all these questions we try to 

 evolve theories with an insufficient number of facts to build upon. 

 For it cannot be said that either the geology or the palaeontology 

 pf our earth is all known. 



We do not know yet whether a teratological form simulating 

 a totally different type from that of its immediate progenitor is 

 possible. All our present knowledge tends to show that heredity 

 would restrict a great deviation from the normal type. 



Darwin and his followers, in order to get over this difficulty, 

 supposed that there was no such thing, now or ever, as identical 

 heredity, and that every new being varied in some way from its 

 progenitors. Therefore there can only be heredity with variation, 

 as we see it among domestic animals. And as these variations may 

 be very small, the great differences we see in animals is accounted 

 for by the accumulation of small differences, whenever useful, over 

 long periods of time, through natural selection. There may have 

 been many intermediate forms between the present types, but 

 these have become extinct in the struggle for existence, or from 

 other causes. 



M. Guinard 1 says: ( II est impossible de separer variation et 

 anomalie, car en sens vrai du mot, la variation est toujours une 

 anomalie.' 



I would add that it is impossible to separate either from 

 monstrosities. For if we are to classify as simple variations the 

 absence of the tail in a Dog, or of horns in an Ox, why not other 

 monstrosities ? 



* Pour ces raisons/ he continues, ' nous ne separerons pas, dans 

 notre etude, la variation de 1'anomalie, qui sont Tune et 1'autre des 

 deviations du type specifique.' 



On p. 7, however, he seems to put aside all this logic ; for he 



1 Precis de Teratologie, p. 5. 



