April 7, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



373 



Dr. Fhank Thilly, professor of philosophy 

 at Cornell University, and Professor Madison 

 Bentley, professor of psychology in the Uni- 

 versity of Illinois, will lecture during the sum- 

 mer session of the University of California. 



Dr. William A. R. Taylor, now instructor 

 in botany in the University of Pennsylvania, 

 has been promoted to an assistant professor- 

 ship. 



Mr. Arthur Lee Dixon, M.A., F.E.S., 

 fellow and tutor of Merton College, University 

 of Oxford, has been appointed Waynflete pro- 

 fessor of pure mathematics in succession to 

 Professor E. B. Elliott, fellow of Magdalen, 

 who has resigned. 



Mr. Arthur Lapworth, D.Sc. (London), 

 F.R.S., at present professor of organic chem- 

 istry in the University of Manchester, has been 

 appointed to the Sir Samuel Hall chair of 

 chemistry and to the directorship of the chem- 

 ical laboratories. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPOND- 

 ENCE 



GENETICAL ANALYSIS AND THE THEORY 

 OF NATURAL SELECTION 



In my Toronto address I lately referred to 

 John Ray as the first who laid stress on the 

 sterility of interspecific hybrids. I was then 

 writing away from books and must apologise 

 for this slip. The passage in the Historiu 

 Plantarum 1686, 1, pp. 40 and 42, that I had 

 in mind is probably the first in which anything 

 approaching a genetieal definition of species 

 is attempted. Ray there lays down the excel- 

 lent principle that forms which, though differ- 

 ing from each other, can be bred from seed of 

 the same plant, should be regarded as of the 

 same species. Not till the Linnean period, 

 more than half a century later, did the cognate 

 question of the sterility or fertility of inter- 

 specific crosses assume prominence. 



Professor Osborn has expressed great vexa- 

 tion at the tenor of my address. After con- 

 sidering his remarks, I do not know that I can 

 add much to what I have said. The diver- 

 gence between the conceptions to which genet- 

 ieal analvsis introduces us and the doctrines 



of which Professor Osborn has been so long 

 a distinguished champion is indeed wide. 



Paleontological observations have served a 

 useful purpose in delimiting the outline of 

 evolution, but in discussing the physiological 

 problem of interspecific relationship evidence 

 of a more stringent character is now required; 

 and a naturalist acquainted with genetieal dis- 

 coveries would be as reluctant to draw conclu- 

 sions as to the specific relationship of a series 

 of fossils as a chemist would be to pronounce 

 on the nature of a series of unknown com- 

 pounds from an inspection of them in a row of 

 bottles. The central tenet of Darwinism that 

 species are merely the culminations of varietal 

 differences, such as we find contemporaneously 

 occurring, is not easily reconcilable with the 

 new knowledge. It was my purpose once more 

 to direct the attention of naturalists, espe- 

 cially geneticists, to this deficiency in the evi- 

 dence, by no means without hope that it may 

 be supplied. 



Professor Osborn, in extenuation, suggests 

 that my tongue ran away with me and that I 

 could not have meant what I said. That de- 

 fense, however, is not available, for I had taken 

 the precaution which I understand he learned 

 from Huxley, and I had prepared a written 

 text. This, in all important passages, I fol- 

 lowed verbatim, and it appears without serious 

 modification in Science for January 20. I 

 may even plead guilty to having spoken and 

 written to the same effect on many previous 

 occasions, and Professor Osborn will find the 

 theme developed in "Problems of Genetics" 

 (New Haven, 1913, and in my presidential 

 address to the British Association in Australia 

 (1914). 



W. Bateson 



March, 1922 



A SUGGESTION TO MR. BRYAN 

 I THINK most readers of Science must feel 

 indebted to you as I do for reprinting W. J. 

 Bryan's attack on Evolution. It may be true 

 that only the psychologists will be able to find 

 in it data of value to their science but to them 

 the importance of this contribution of Mr. 

 Bryan's must be large indeed. The rest of us 

 welcome the diversion which it affords. A Don 



