LAWS OF INHERITANCE. 205 
former by conservative inheritance. We have now first to 
examine the phenomena of conservative inheritance, that is, 
the transmission of such qualities as the organism has 
already received from its parents or ancestors. (Gen. Morph. 
i. 180.) 
Among the phenomena of conservative inheritance we are 
first struck by that which is its most general law, and which 
we may term the law of uninterrupted or continuous 
transmission. It is so universal among the higher animals 
and plants, that the uninitiated might overestimate its action 
and consider it as the only normal law of transmission by 
inheritance. This law simply consists in the fact that 
among most species of animals and plants, every generation 
is, on the whole, like the preceding—that the parents are as 
like the grandparents as they are like the children. “Like 
produces like,” as is commonly said, but more accurately 
“similar things produce similar things.” For, in reality, the 
descendants of every organism are never absolutely equal 
in all points, but only similar in a greater or less degree. 
This law is so generally known, that I need not give any 
examples of it. 
The law of interrupted or latent transmission by inherit- 
ance, which might also be termed alternating transmission, 
is in a measure opposed to the preceding law. This im- 
portant law appears principally active among many lower 
animals and plants, and manifests itself in contrast to the 
former in the fact that the offspring are not like their 
parents, but very dissimilar, and that only the third or a 
later generation becomes similar to the first. The grand- 
children are like the grandparents, but quite unlike the 
parents. This is a remarkable phenomenon, and, as is well 
