Modification of Germinal Constitution of Organisms 171 



Peas," which gave impetus to investigations that strength- 

 ened and extended the saltationist conception. 



It would be rash indeed to deny that there are "sports" 

 in the Darwinian sense, and DeVries' "mutations" are 

 asserted by some to be but the same kind of variations 

 with a new name, but the fact of the occurrence of sudden 

 variations is estabHshed beyond doubt. However, next 

 to nothing is known concerning the rise and behavior of 

 these sports and the part they play in the transmutation of 

 organisms in nature, and it may be wisest to suspend judg- 

 ment as to the relative importance of saltation as a method 

 of evolution. The saltation conception, however, considered 

 in its broadest sense, has decided advantages over the neo- 

 Darwinian and neo-Lamarckian positions, because it is 

 directly open to experimental study and does serve as a 

 fairly logical and workable hypothesis for investigation. In 

 its broadest aspects it is in no way like Weismann's theory, 

 although DeVries has endeavored to give it a position not 

 unlike that of germinal selection by placing all essential 

 processes in the hypothetical pangenes. Out of this situa- 

 tion perhaps the greatest advance that has been produced 

 is the revival of interest in bionomic investigations and the 

 clearing of the mist from many questions, even though the 

 questions have not been fully answered. Regardless of what 

 the future may have in store, the saltationist school has 

 rendered biology a very real and lasting service in arousing 

 new enthusiasm for the experimental study of evolution 

 problems and in breaking away from neo-Darwinianism, 

 neo-Lamarckianism, and orthogenesis, whose deadly chants 

 were slowly but surely lulling into complacent inactivity the 

 greatest heritage from Darwin — the experimental study of 

 evolution problems. 



