VARIATIONS, DUE TO REVERSION. 89 



have arisen in the peach, the plum, the rose, and the 

 camellia, he says : 



" When we reflect on these facts, we become deeply- 

 impressed with the conviction, that, in such cases, the 

 nature of the variation depends but little on the condi- 

 tions to which the plant has been exposed, and not 

 in any especial manner on its individual character, but 

 much more on the general nature or constitution, in- 

 herited from some remote progenitor, of the whole 

 group of allied beings to which the plant belongs." 



This shows that the variations are due to reversion. 

 If they are due to reversion ; then, his hypothesis of the 

 community of origin of the species is refuted, because it 

 was by means of these variations, and by means of the 

 assumption, that these variations arose for the first 

 time, that he sought to prove the community of origin 

 of the species. Yet, here he assumes the community of 

 origin of the species (which was the conclusion at which 

 he professed to arrive by means of the accumulation of 

 variations arising for the first time), to account, by past 

 degeneration and present Reversion, for the appear- 

 ance of these very variations ! Leave out this assump- 

 tion of the community of origin of the species, — which 

 is the very conclusion which is in dispute (!), — and 

 assume, that the degeneration which has confessedly 

 taken place, has occurred within the limits only of 

 each species ; and assume, that»the variations, arising 

 in each species, are due to the mere regain of charac- 

 ters lost by such species ; and all the phenomena 

 of growth and development will round themselves 

 into a perfect, scientific whole, rigidly exclusive of 



