MUTATIONS 137 



is more likely, a new combination of the elements out of which 

 characters are made up. 



Every new being is the result of a new combination of racial 

 faculties transmitted from two family lines, possibly differing 

 in essential particulars. This new combination is certain to 

 throw some characters into prominence and others into the 

 background, and results occasionally in strikingly new effects. 

 This is usually the case in hybridization, but it follows in less 

 degree in ordinary reproduction, which differs from hybridiza- 

 tion more in degree than in kind. 



Again, many characters, though exceedingly noticeable, rest 

 after all upon a comparatively simple basis. Such, for example, 

 is pubescence in plants, which depends upon the activity or 

 non-activity of a few cells in developing a hairy growth. Nearly 

 all species present both forms, the one in which the character 

 is present, and its opposite in which it fails to develop. Simi- 

 larly, almost any character may fail, giving rise to a distinctly 

 new creation. If the failure is not at a vital point it may be 

 transmitted, in which case a new type has arisen. 



The origin of a new type by the addition of a character is, 

 biologically considered, much more complicated and difficult of 

 understanding; yet even this is not beyond some degree of 

 comprehension. The probability is that what we call racial 

 characters are less complicated than we may at first suppose. 

 The unlearned savage could scarcely believe that the almost 

 infinite variety of colors of natural objects are due to different 

 combinations of very few primaries. The effects produced by 

 three-color printing are almost beyond belief, yet we are fully 

 advised as to the real basis for all these variations ; while the 

 effects are striking, the means are simple. 



So it is, we may imagine, in the ultimate make-up of what we 

 call racial characters : their elements are doubtless fewer than 

 we have supposed, and the possibilities of their combinations 

 and recombinations are greater than we have hitherto imagined. 

 Whether all possible combinations of these elements actually 

 take place we do not know, but all facts go to show that they 

 occur in great variety, the most striking and permanent of which 

 we call mutants. 



