PLANT-LIFEFORMATION. ^99 



could be an annual, or even a triennial. Then 

 each variation would breed its own, and prop- 

 agate itself, quitting apparently its former 

 changeful character for a settled heredity. 

 Thus IJeVries obtained a number of new spe- 

 cies, which would keep on reproducing their 

 own kind. So this one Primrose seems to 

 have the power of generating not only indi- 

 viduals but species, and of passing from the 

 regular transmitted Homogenesis to a sudden 

 explosive Heterogenesis, which ejects all at 

 once new Plant-forms, which again become 

 homogenetic. Such is the Mutation Theory 

 (a poor designation of the fact) which to the 

 slow orderly Evolution of Darwin has added 

 the rapid catastrophic Revolution, as a stage 

 of the innocent paradisaical Plant-world, so 

 that this is getting to be as bad as man, quite 

 as much of a fallen soul. In fact one may 

 think of that Primrose of DeVries as ex- 

 pelled, or rather fleeing from the Garden of 

 Eden fixed in a kind of sacred order, to the 

 liberty of the potato patch, where it could 

 rollick in the creation of new Forms, repro- 

 ducing not only Primroses after the old pat- 

 tern, but reproducing new patterns in a free 

 diversity of creative energy. The little silent 

 flower, symbol of innocence and submission, 

 has, then, in its heart, too, the revolutionary 

 impulse, the protest against its traditional 



