DARWIN'S ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION OF EVOLUTION. 6l 



in order to meet the conditions, if perchance the seeds happen to 

 reach a sea-coast ; or the inland brine-spring of Bad Nauheim, where 

 several plants have assumed the " maritime " characters ? Why did 

 they become conspicuous without any crossing ? 



On the other hand, is it not more probable that Life in plants has 

 the power to vary the structures in response to the exterior conditions ? 



Of cultivated flowers, Professor Bateson thinks it probable that the 

 majority are descended from crossed plants, and he mentions Primula 

 sinensis and Chrysanthemums. But we know the wild form of these. 

 He mentions the Sweet Pea as an instance, in which no two wild 

 varieties are known, just as Dr. Lotsy mentions Antirrhinum majus, 

 beans, &c, as " homozygotes " ; but neither he nor Professor Bateson 

 replies to this fundamental question, not only of flowers, but we may 

 add vegetables as well, such as cabbage, radish, parsnip, beet, turnip, 

 and carrot. We do know how the " turnip " form arose ; but it was 

 without crossing, as no two varieties occur in any of the wild forms 

 of these species. 



The Professor, however, asks : "Is there such a thing as sponta- 

 neous variation anywhere ? " The answer is that there is not ? On 

 this point, therefore, one must " agree to differ." 



With regard to his supposed process of Evolution, Professor Bateson 

 suggests that there may be an " unpacking of an original complex, 

 which contained within itself the whole range of diversity which living 

 things present." 



This would seem to be a revival of the old " theory of Emboitement, 

 or ' preformation,' i.e. that the original germ of every species contained 

 within it all the countless individuals which in process of time might 

 issue from it ' boxed up ' as it were potentially." * 



Professor Bateson asks : " Is it easier to imagine the powers " 

 [i.e. to " produce the types of life"] " could have been conveyed by 

 extrinsic additions ? " e.g. " We are told that salts of iron in the soil 

 may turn a pink hydrangea blue. The iron cannot be passed on in the 

 next generation. How can the iron multiply itself ? 



" This illustration may seem too gross ; but what refinement will 

 meet the requirements of the problem, that the thing introduced must 

 be, as the living organism itself is, capable of multiplication and of 

 subordinating itself in a definite system of segregation ? . . . The 

 invocation of additions extrinsic to the organism does not seriously 

 help us to imagine how the power to change can be conferred." 



If I understand Professor Bateson aright, the words I have 

 italicized do not at all represent what Darwin and present-day 

 Ecologists understand by the " direct action of changed conditions of 

 life." They only provide the stimulus to which the "Life responds ; the 

 consequences being the construction of adaptive changes or novelties 

 in the tissues and organs of the plant. 



Like the iron he alludes to, salt acts directly upon a plant ; hence 



* I quote this from my Evolution and Religion, p. 19, 1873, when giving 

 accounts of various theories of former days. 



