RECAPITULATION 113 



variations must have occurred in different parts of the 

 same organ at the same time. Regressive variations, then, 

 are the failure on the part of the offspring to recapitulate 

 some particular step in the life-history of the parents with 

 regard to some particular character. 



Unless we believe that evolution has not taken place by 

 gradual forward steps, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion 

 that the development of the individual is a recapitulation 

 with abbreviations and alterations of the life-history of the 

 race. If we do not admit this, it seems necessary to assume 

 that at some period or other there was a break, and that the 

 ancestors of any given species produced individuals that 

 were very different from themselves ; that an individual, or 

 rather a whole generation of individuals, gave origin to 

 monstrous and even miraculous offspring. "The parent 

 did not reproduce his like ; the child did not follow in the 

 developmental footsteps of the parent; but an individual 

 of one species reproduced an individual of quite another 

 species." * Even mutation will not explain an event of this 

 kind, for an individual that exhibits a mutation follows in 

 the main the developmental footsteps of its parents and 

 simply shows a progressive variation, or perhaps several 

 variations in one or more individual characters. Besides 

 this, if such a break in development had ever taken place, 

 it would be necessary to assume that the individual that had 

 broken away from the usual order of things still remained 

 adapted to its environment. Had not this happened it could 

 not have survived and produced offspring. 



Among domesticated races cases are very common in 

 which the offspring of particular parents exhibit characters 

 of remote ancestors rather than those of their immediate 

 parents. Such cases are particularly common when different 

 breeds of the same species are crossed. Thus, if two different 

 kinds of domesticated pigeons are crossed there is a great 

 tendency to produce the colours of the wild blue-rock. Even 

 without the crossing of two breeds the markings of the wild 



1 Archdall Reid, op. cit. , p. 54. 



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