REVIEW OF THE POSITION 11 



Hilaire and Richard Owen, of whom this is true. If that were all 

 one would not wish the reader to be troubled with any criticism 

 of one's betters, indeed such remarks as are here made do not 

 amount to criticism at all, but just plain text-book statements. 

 It is also evident that the outlook of Prof. Bateson was being pre- 

 pared for a revelation which had not yet come, in which he took a 

 prominent, if not dominant part, I mean the great rediscovery of 

 Mendel's work by de Vries, Correns and Tschermak and himself in 

 England. His keen and close attention to anatomical structures 

 was preparing his mind for the germinal conceptions of unit- 

 characters, dominance and segregation. The intensive cultivation 

 of the fertile field of genetics proceeded apace, and Prof. Bateson 

 in his contribution to the jubilee-volume of 1909 betrayed the 

 trend of his devotion to a system of distribution rather than forma- 

 tion of the qualities of an organism. The organism as an historical 

 functioning, striving being, had receded once for all from his vision. 

 He hazarded the suggestion in Heredity and Variation in Modem 

 Lights that " variation consists largely in the unpacking and re- 

 packing of an original complexity," and that "it is not so certain 

 as we might like to think that the order of these events is not pre- 

 determined." Incidentally one may remark that, malgre lui, Prof. 

 Bateson stands forth as a modern Paley as does Weismann in his 

 great rival and opposing scheme. It is true that he says " I see 

 no ground whatever for holding such a view, but in fairness the 

 possibility should not be forgotten and in the light of modern 

 research it scarcely looks so absurdly improbable as before." 

 Having drawn the sword he threw away the scabbard in 1914 when 

 he occupied the presidential chair of the British Association of 

 Science at Melbourne and Sydney. He had said in 1894 in his 

 book on variation as stated before, " Inquiry into the causes of 

 variation is as yet, in my opinion, premature," and then in 1914 

 at Melbourne, after twenty more years of study of the subject in 

 the Mendelian direction, " It is likely that the occurrence of these 

 variations is wholly irregular, and as to their causation we are 

 absolutely without surmise or even plausible speculation . ' ' (my italics ) . 1 

 So, on this fundamental point, he stands where he did when he 

 began the study of variation, but apart from this point he again 

 threw out his suggestion of 1909 as to the unpacking and repacking 

 of an original complexity. At Melbourne he said, " Lotsy has 

 lately with great courage suggested to us that all variation may be 

 due to such crossing. I do not disguise my sympathy with this 

 effort." 2 All variation ! He said later, " In spite of seeming per- 



1 Nature, 1914. 2 Op. cit., Aug. 20th and Aug. 27th, 1914. 



