262 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [SEPTEMBER, 1909. 
Dr. Asa Gray, and it seems unlikely that those who kept aloof would have 
found in Mendelism anything more satisfying. 
We may be warm admirers of the thoroughness of Mendel’s 
work, and of the sagacity with which it was planned—especially 
considering the period—without accepting all the conclusions which 
it has recently been sought to attach to it. And we may doubt the 
definiteness of some of the differentiating characters; indeed, Mendel 
remarked, ‘‘some of the characters noted do not admit of a sharp 
and certain separation, since the difference is of a ‘more or less’ nature, 
which it is difficult to define.” And if we doubt the definiteness of 
some of these now-called ‘‘ units,” still more do we question the praticability 
of ascertaining their nature by Mendelian analysis. For example, Mendel 
pointed out that if the parents differ in seven characters, the combination 
series of their union would contain 2,187 various forms. We doubt whether 
in practice there would be so many, for some would be correlated together, 
but if their number and kind could only be ascertained by experimental 
analysis, the magnitude of the task before us staggers the imagination. And 
organisms have been crossed which differ in more than seven characters. 
And we doubt the reality of some of the modern extensions of Mendelism, 
especially that relating to sex. There are hosts of correlated secondary 
sexual characters, all of which may be represented in the same individual, 
as in Catasetum and Cycnoches, only manifesting themselves under certain 
conditions, and we fail to see the utility of speaking of their presence or 
absence as due todominance or recessiveness of the sex factor. 
Some of the modern conclusions seem to be entirely ‘‘in the air.” We 
read of ‘‘imperfect dominance” where an intermediate condition or 
unconformable factor disturbs the even tenor of the argument. Dominance, 
where it exists, might be supposed to have some relation to a pre-existing 
order of things, but our author considers that the idea of dominance being 
an attribute of the phylogenetically older character has not been borne out 
by more extended investigation. Tlie continued absence of a lost character 
when “‘selfed ’’ and its return when “‘ crossed” might be supposed to have 
some relation to reversion to the normal, and to the well-known effects of 
cross and self-fertilisation which obtain in biparental organisms in a state of 
nature, but we find no mention of it. 
Another important consideration is that the organisms obtained under a 
continuation of strict Mendelian methods are abnormal, and whole hosts of 
them would in a wild state not survive to leave descendents. Its subjects 
would largely disappear under the bracing influence of natural selection, a 
fact which illustrates very well the subordinate position of Mendelism in any 
attempt to explain the origin of species. That it has contributed its quota 
to the great fabric of evolutionary philosophy no one doubts, but it does not 
