An Introduction to a Biology 



have been engaged in investigating this phenomenon have 

 suggested that the difficult problem of the nature and deter- 

 mination of sex may be elucidated by applying Mendelian 

 conceptions to it. But Dr. Reid says : " You have got hold 

 of the wrong end of the stick. The Mendelian phenomenon 

 is not fundamental at all. It is merely an anomalous here- 

 ditary process. The inheritance of sex is the real starting- 

 point. Mendelian phenomena are merely due to the acquisi- 

 tion by non-sexual characters of the mode of inheritance 

 the alternative which was primarily evolved to keep the 

 sexes separate. Mendelian phenomena do not form a starting- 

 point, but are the last terms of a series." l I do not express 

 an opinion for or against this view. I am merely concerned 

 now in pointing out that the Mendelian has great difficulty 

 in adopting it. To him it is simply unthinkable nonsense. 

 His feelings are like those of a man who, standing on the 

 top of a pyramid which he himself has constructed, is told 

 by a cheeky one down below that the pyramid is the wrong 

 way up, and that he must come off it and ,put it the other 

 way up. The reason that the man on the pyramid absolutely 

 refuses to do anything of the kind is that he has spent years 

 in building it. The reason that the man down below is 

 able to see that the pyramid is really upside down (sup- 

 posing that it is) is that he has played no part in its erection. 

 Indeed, in the instance we are discussing, he only had his 

 attention drawn to its existence a year before he saw that 

 it was upside down. 



j^t There is seldom any difficulty in convincing people of the 

 existence of a particular form of mental disease ; but it is 

 never easy to convince them that they themselves are suffer- 

 ing from it. We are ready enough to point out the frailty 

 of the human intelligence, but are (perhaps unconsciously) 

 apt to exclude our own from the general condemnation. I 



F: i ; * A fuller discussion of this point will be found under my name in the 

 proceedings of the International Conference on Plant-breeding, 1906. 

 Vide supra, pp. 217-218. 



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