

94: THE PERPETUATION OF LIVING BEINGS, 



uncle? You will remember that these are all of the 

 abnormal type of their grandfather. The result would 

 probably have been, that their offspring would have 

 been in every case a further development of that ab- 

 normal type. You see it is only in the fourth, in the 

 person of Marie, that the tendency, when it appears 

 but slightly in the second generation, is washed out 

 in the third, while the progeny of Andre, who escaped 

 in the first instance, escape altogether. 



We have in this case a good example of nature's 

 tendency to the perpetuation of a variation. Here it 

 is certainly a variation which carried with it no use 

 or benefit ; and yet you see the tendency to perpetu- 

 ation may be so strong, that, notwithstanding a great 

 admixture of pure blood, the variety continues itself 

 up to the third generation, which is largely marked 

 with it. In this case, as I have said, there was no 

 means of the second generation intermarrying with any 

 but five-fingered persons, and the question naturally 

 suggests itself, What would have been the result of 

 such marriage? Reaumur narrates this case only as 

 far as the third generation. Certainly it would have 

 been an exceedingly curious thing if we could have 

 traced this matter any further ; had the cousins inter- 

 married, a six-fingered variety of the human race might 

 have been set up. 



To show you that this supposition is by no means 

 an unreasonable one, let me now point out what took 

 place in the case of Seth Wright's sheep, where it hap- 

 pened to be a matter of moment to him to obtain a 

 breed or raise a flock of sheep like that accidental va- 

 riety that I have described — and I will tell you why. 

 In that part of Massachusetts where Seth Wright was 



