146 



Arend. L. Hagedoorn and A. C. Hagedoorn. 



Such relations of any part, of the thing to be described, to that of 

 another, may for practical purposes be called single characters. Thus, 

 one plant is hairy, hairier, that is, than a plant which otherwisely 

 looks very much like it. This "hairiness" we call a character. A 

 bull is hornless, and we call him so, because the general run of bulls 

 have horns; it would never occur to anyone to call a dog hornless. 

 This "hornlessness" we call a character. 



The horn itself is an organ, not a character, and such a question 

 as: "Are horn in sheep a sex-limited character" is absurd. It may be 

 said that special organs are present or absent, such as hairs or horns, 

 and again, that developmental factors are present or absent from the 

 germ, but it is inadmissable to speak of the presence or absence of 

 characters. 



As soon as anyone should want to count an organisms characters, 

 he would meet this difficulty, that it is possible to ascribe to it as 

 many "negative" characters as one wants to. Thus, it may be said 

 of a dog, that it is hornless and thornless, that it is not pink, not 

 branched. It is manifestly impossible to rule out of court all nega- 

 tive characters, we saw that in the example of the hornless bull. 

 And the line, which devides off the absurdities from "legitimate 

 characters" does not exist. It may seem unnecessary to say of a 

 dog that it has no quadruple stomach, still, this quality is one of 

 those, which distinguish Carnivorae from Herbivorae. In looking over 

 detailed descriptions of plants or animals, in using determination- 

 tables, it looks, as if the organisms different qualities are so many 

 separate, separable things, but it may well be, that this definiteness 

 is only apparent. Different pre-biomechanic theories of heredity and 

 development would have us believe, that several "determinants" each 

 called into being a special kind of cell or tissue, or even a special 

 character of the organism. We now know several developmental 

 factors, genetic as well as non-genetic ones, well enough, to be sure, 

 that they influence the organisms in many of their organs, and thus 

 in all kinds of "characters". Still, there are exceptional cases. There 

 are some genes which may influence the development of a plant or 

 animal in such a way, that two individuals, to tlie development of 

 one of which they cooperated, differ markedly in only one point. 

 Such, for instance, are those genes, under whose influence the organism 

 comes at a young stage, and whose cooperation is necessary for some 

 parts, to enable them to develop so far, that they come under the 

 influence of other factors. 



