Mail's Place in Nature 193 



researches of De Vries, Bateson, and others, we 

 know that discontinuous (or as Gal ton called them 

 **transilient") variations often occur. They rep- 

 resent sudden and brusque emergences of new 

 constitutional patterns, and they often show great 

 stability, i, e., they tend to breed true. The birth 

 of a genius gives us a hint of what a mutation may 

 mean, but, unfortunately, geniuses do not usually 

 beget geniuses. They do not breed true like 

 De Vries' evening primroses! In suggesting that 

 Man arose as a mutation, we do not mean, of 

 course, that he sprang suddenly to the height of 

 his dignity. It was perhaps more like what we see 

 every day in the growth of a child. Probably his 

 origin was like that of life itself, a great step was 

 suddenly taken, but it was a long time before it 

 began to tell. It may seem to some that there is 

 not much to choose between a theory of Man's 

 origin by a hypothetical mutation, which one 

 would not understand even if one knew it had oc- 

 curred, and a theory of IMan's origin by special cre- 

 ation in which one does not believe. But the point 

 is really, whether we do or do not regard Man as 

 a natural and predetermined product of the ante- 

 cedent order of nature. 



Possible Factors in the Evolution of Man. — In re- 

 gard to the conditions of Man's emergence as an 

 anthropoid genius, we can only speculate. From 

 what we know of men and monkeys, it seems likely 



