VARIATIONS, DUE TO REVERSION. 65 



for a hundred or a thousand years, and when placed in 

 a solution, like that in which it was originally formed, 

 it will restore the lost edge. No one will say, that the 

 lost edge remained in embryo, or in any way, within 

 the crystal, during that period. It was the correlation 

 of the forces of the crystal, which conspired to effect 

 the reintegration which was so necessary to. the nor- 

 mal coordination of the whole. So is it with organic 

 reversion. The capacity for reintegrating is, generally 

 to the full as efficient, after a thousand generations, as 

 it would be after the lapse of a day, or of an hour. 

 All of the improvements, effected by breeders, fanciers, 

 horticulturists, and agriculturists, are but reintegra- 

 tions, partial or complete, of the animals and plants. 



"This principle of Reversion is the most wonderful 

 of all the attributes of Inheritance. * * * Rever- 

 sion is not a rare event, depending on some unusual or 

 favorable combination of circumstances, but occurs so 

 regularly, with crossed animals and plants, and so fre- 

 quently, with uncrossed breeds, that it is evidently an 

 essential part of the principle of inheritance. We 

 know that changed conditions have the power of evok- 

 ing long-lost characters, as in the case of some feral 

 animals. The act of crossing in itself possesses this 

 power in a high degree." 



The reason, that " changed ' conditions have the 

 power of evoking long-lost characters," is because, 

 upon a change, those conditions are restored to the 

 individual, the absence of which entailed the loss of 

 those characters. Crossing " possesses the power in a 

 high degree," because the union, in the offspring, of 

 the two peculiarities, derived respectively from the two 



