i86 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



generation. It is to demand Nature to violate her own 

 natural laws. 



The rule is simply this, at least for plants : " Seeds are 

 sown in a new soil. They may grow up in some respects 

 different from the parent form by acquiring new characters. 

 If f/teir seeds be sown iti the same soil, under precisely the same 

 conditions^ the characters acquired by the parent will not only 

 be repeated by inheritance but intensified in the next, and 

 still more so in each succeeding generation. They then tend 

 to become fixed ; so that after five or six years the characters 

 are fully formed, fixed and become permanently hereditary. 

 Such is the experience of agriculturists and horticulturists. 



Any demands outside these conditions are hypothetical 

 and unreasonable. 



The reader will observe that certain points are overlooked 

 by the Darwinian. First, the acquiring any new character is 

 done by the individual during the period of its development 

 from seed to maturity. Secondly, the seed of the next year 

 7nust be sown in the satne cotiditions. It is useless to ask for 

 proof when the arbitrary condition of removing the offspring 

 to new conditions is demanded. Thus the late Prof. Jas. 

 Buckman, experimenting with seed from the wild cabbage, soon 

 secured several varieties under cultivation, "the tendency to 

 vary being much increased by repeated transplantation". On 

 the other hand, he adds: "It may be remarked, as throwing 

 light on the nature of the changes by which the cultivated 

 varieties of this genus have been attained, that experiments 

 with seeds of plants showing any particular tendency, and 

 especially if repeatedly ^row7i in the same soil, will ever result 

 in an increase of the peculiarity ".^ 



It may be added that if the offspring did not reproduce the 

 character at all, but had to acquire the same amount of change 

 as the parent, how could the full amount seen in our established 

 races of plants and breeds of cattle ever be obtained ? Each 

 generation adds an increment to its predecessor. I would call 



^ The Treasury of Botany, s. v. " Brassica ". 



