HEREDITY AND VARIATION 215 



sophical explanation such as would satisfy the 

 mind of the man who wants to get a real and 

 not a partial knowledge of the things around 

 him."* 



The instance of heredity alluded to a few lines 

 above may act as an introduction to the con- 

 sideration of this much-debated subject, It is 

 matter of common knowledge that whilst on the 

 whole offspring do resemble their parents yet 

 they are never identical with them. That is : 

 there is such a thing as Heredity and there is Heredity 



also such a thing as Variation. Both of these and 



11 -j *. TT j-j. variation 



topics will repay consideration. Heredity ex- 

 ists, and since the re-discovery of the writings 

 of Abbot Mendel of Brunn and the vast amount 

 of work consequent upon that re-discovery, we 

 seem to be acquiring some knowledge of some 

 of the laws under which it works. But of the 

 Mechanism of it we are still ignorant. We 

 know that the offspring of a cat will be kittens 

 not puppies a wonderful enough thing if we 

 were not hardened to it by constant repetition 

 that is we know that one kind of thing breeds 

 that kind and not another. 



We know from Mendel and his followers that 

 we must examine the separate characters, 

 rather than the tout ensemble when we are 

 examining into the laws of heredity. We may be 



* Science and Morals. Burns & Gates, 1919. 



