12 DEGENERATION : I 



new forms, and are doing so wherever they have 

 opportunity." He had accordingly to bring the 

 matter to the test of observation by seeking for 

 some case of the production of new forms of plants, 

 or of animals, by natural causes at the present day. 

 Such cases he found in the production of new forms 

 or varieties of plants and animals, by breeders. 

 Breeders (the persons who make it their business 

 to produce new varieties of flowers, of pigeons, of 

 sheep, or what not) make use of two fundamental 

 properties of living things in order to accomplish 

 their purpose. These two properties are, firstly, that 

 no two animals or plants, even when born of the 

 same parents, are exactly alike; this is known as 

 Variation: secondly, that an organism, as a rule, 

 inherits, that is to say, is born with the peculiarities 

 of its parents ; this is known as Transmission, and 

 is simply dependent on the fact that the offspring 

 of any plant or animal is only a detached portion 

 of the parent — a chip of the old block, as the saying 

 is. The breeder selects from a number of specimens 

 of a plant or animal a variety which comes nearest to 

 the form he wishes to produce. Supposing he wished 

 to produce a race of oxen with short horns, he would 

 select from his herd bulls and cows with the shortest 

 horns, and allow these only to breed ; they would 

 transmit their relatively short horns to their offspring, 

 and from these again the cattle with the shortest 

 horns would be selected by the breeder for propagation, 

 and so on throuo:h several o^enerations. In the end a 

 very short-horned generation would be obtained, differ- 



