CROSSING AND CLOSE-INTERBREEDING. 19t 



viduals, is also proven by the fact, that, if the varia- 

 tion under domestication be of a negative character, — 

 that is, if any character be reduced or suppressed, — the 

 evils are observed to be proportionally augmented. 



As then, the loss or reduction of any character entails 

 physiological evil, the deficient, physiological condition 

 of- individuals, previous to their development of posi- 

 tive variations under domestication, proves that such 

 individuals have had characters lost or reduced, under 

 Nature; and, as the development of positive variations 

 under domestication, abates the physiological evils 

 (when such variations are proportionately developed), 

 it follows that such variations are but the regain of 

 those lost or reduced characters. 



That evil is caused by a departure from the perfect 

 type of the species, is shown by the phenomena of 

 close-interbreeding. That good is occasioned, — or, 

 rather, that the evils of a departure from the perfect 

 type, are retrieved, — by a return to such normal type 

 of the given species, is shown by the phenomena of 

 Crossing. 



Darwin asserts, reiterates again and again, and seem- 

 ingly never tires of adducing facts to show, that good 

 results from crossing distinct varieties of the same 

 species, and that evil follows from interbreeding indi- 

 viduals of the same variety. Why these effects should 

 flow, he does not know. But, such results, while con- 

 fessedly wholly inexplicable upon Darwin's hypothesis, 

 are, a priori, to be expected upon the theory of Rever- 

 sion. 



By crossing, each parent variety supplies, in the 



