CHAPTER V 



MAN A CREATOR 



It is very evident from even so elementary a 

 discussion of the matters involved in Mendel's 

 law that at least some hereditary characters 

 are pretty definite things which when once in a 

 stock remain in it persistently. Yet by appro- 

 priate hybridizing of unlike stocks the groups 

 of characters that have been united for genera- 

 tions may be shaken apart and reunited in new 

 combinations. This possibility was recognized 

 before the world generally knew of Mendel's 

 law, but it was looked upon as a chance phenom- 

 enon; the successful breeder of race horses, for 

 instance, was thought to be a good guesser, a 

 skUful juggler, but it was scarcely deemed that 

 there was any scientific basis for his procedure. 

 The work of a few such breeders was so uni- 

 formly successful that it was undoubtedly 

 founded on some of the fundamental con- 

 ceptions of hereditary transmission, even if the 

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