82 Heredity, Variation and Genius 



dity, according to which the different features of 

 plants and animals are treated as so many separate 

 units segregated in transmission and inherited 

 independently of one another, has been an im- 

 portant and valuable biological conception, even 

 if it should turn out that the prolonged and 

 patient experiments on which it was founded be 

 not, as Bateson declares, worthy to rank w T ith 

 those which laid the foundation of the Atomic 

 laws of Chemistry.* For the first time it has done 

 something to clarify our notions of heredity ; and 

 it may be expected to do much more to prove its 

 worth in time to come when the diligent experi- 

 mental researches which are now being patiently 

 prosecuted according to its method bear full fruit. 

 Thus far these researches have proved that in a 

 large range of plants and animals physiological 

 characters are treated as units in the divisions of 

 the reproductive cells ; so that when the product 

 of a crossing of plants in which the characters are 

 closely combined forms its reproductive cells, 

 these characters are segregated, each germ-cell or 

 so-called gamete carrying either one character or 

 another, not both, and an equal number of each 

 kind being formed. When in the process and its 

 results one character is more potent and prevails, 

 as often happens, it is called dominant, the other 

 which recedes into the background being called 

 recessive. 



* "Mendel's Principles of Heredity." By W. Bateson, 

 M.A., F.R.S. 



