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means in the origin of species, out of court, for there are no different or 

 1 indefinite ' variations." 



This is really extraordinary, especially the assertion that " experience 

 proves that all the seedlings of a plant vary alike and in direct response 

 to the new conditions," and in this particular connection I very much 

 fear that Professor Henslow will have a difficulty in finding any practical 

 plant grower who will endorse his so-called "fact," and until he can do 

 so I need not dispute the very broad assertion based upon it. As a case 

 in point I have recently seen at Messrs. Sutton's, at Reading, a number of 

 potato seedlings all raised from seed contained in one berry, and no two 

 plants were alike in haulm or tuber, each presenting, not slight, but 

 very marked differences ; and this is the rule with the seed of variable 

 cultivated plants generally. 



5. u No instance of indefinite variation has ever been known to exist in 

 nature, whereas all experimental evidence favours definite variation, i.e. in 

 direct adaptation to the environment " (p. 91). 



6. " Natural selection therefore has nothing to do with the origin of 

 species " (p. 96). 11 The weight of experience proves that it is the changed 

 conditions of life which first stimulate the organism to vary, the hereditary 

 feral constancy is broken, and then responsive action on the part of the 

 being follows " (p. 161, re critique on Morgan's "Evolution and Adapta- 

 tion "). 



7. " Both in Darwin's and Dr. Morgan's theories it is maintained that 

 variations arise without any correlation to the environment being 

 provided for. In the Neo-Lamarckian view the variation does not arise 

 unless the new conditions of life excite the variability of the organism. 

 This arouses the plant, i.e. the seedling, as it grows, develops new 

 structures in response to the new conditions. . . . While Darwin's and 

 Morgan's views are both unproven hypotheses, adaptation by response is 

 based upon an infinite amount of actual proof, both in nature and 

 cultivation " (p. 163); 



These three I will take together, as they embody Professor Henslow's 

 favourite theory that variation is always due to change of environment 

 and is sympathetically responsive thereto. Darwin's theory, it may be 

 remembered, is that variation occurs in all directions. This obviously 

 permits a plant which scatters its seeds far afield to produce progeny 

 fitted for a different environment from its own, so that in this way the 

 chances of successful dissemination are increased. The idea that a plant 

 only varies in situ in response to its present environment involves a much 

 narrower issue, limiting its progeny to a similar one. I will, however, put 

 forward a few facts involving to my mind flat contradictions to both No. 

 6 and No. 7. I visit the Lake districts and wander away from the beaten 

 track until I reach the soaring flanks of, say, the Long Sleddale 

 mountains. At their feet are a scattered farm or two, but a few hundred 

 feet up we are practically in an environment which is the same now as it 

 has been from time immemorial. The soil is mingled boulder, steep 

 rock, or slopes of bracken and coarse grass, and amid this chaos of debris 

 are innumerable ferns ; here and there are thousands of these waist-high, 

 while in the gullies, worn deep by mountain streams, we find other species 

 large and small. This is an ideal hunting-ground for varieties, and on 



