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of unimportant unit-characters, whereas the true and most important 
Unit in inheritance is the egg itself, reproducing the, individual 
with all these qualities. 
This of course is nothing but a play of words, and if it 
means anything at all, it means that the use of the Word character 
in this connection is too little exact. If^ instead of concerning iis 
in the first place with the characters we give our attention to all 
the different factors, which ultimately in their Cooperation will 
make the individual with all its characters as we know it^ we 
see that we can do without a number of technical niceties which 
are not only superfluous but in many cases positively harmfull 
where they detract from the obvious simplicity of the whole 
thing. It is rather curious that the only thing which is not simple 
in Mendelism is its terminology. 
The litterature of the subject fairly bristles with new names 
for all kinds of characters, and all sorts of hybrids and inheri- 
tances. I believe this is a serious error. There seems to be no 
reason why experiment should not enrich Biology by at least 
three new terms, as cumbersome as the phenomena they stand 
for are simple. Especially are these terms superfluous where the 
phenomena are perfectly well understood, and can easily be 
circumscribed in terms like : distribution of genetic factors over 
the gametes produced by a heterozygote, absence of one causing 
inactivity of others and action of non-genetic factors. 
If, for instance, two individuals are crossed and the hybrid 
has a quality which neither parent-form had, we may call this 
combination of factors, and it is a secondary point what these 
factors have done in the parents. I thing it absolutely superfluous, 
not to call it by another name, to say that some „character" of 
the hybrid was „latent" in one of the parents. 
If in a bakery one evening there will be all the factors 
for producing bread, such material things as flour and salt and 
yeast and such factors as the ovenheat and the skill of the baker 
and his assistants, but that one single factor, water, fails, there 
will be no bread produced in that bakery during that night. 
Would it help anyone to understand the Situation, if, instead of 
simply stating that water Avas not to be had, we said that bread 
was there all the time, only in latent condition V 
It is not even feasible to devide tlie cases of „latency" into 
such where one factor would produce a character but is al)scut, 
15* 
