32 
FOURTEENTH REPORT. 
grade or be conditioned on tlieir environment. Theories seem to differ 
largely in matters of nomenclature and of emphasis. Darwin empha- 
sized small saltations that were heritable, de Vries large saltations and 
fluctuations, the latter not being heritable. The breeder will use them 
all for even a fluctuation may be propagated as a clone. Unit char- 
acters will have a place in all sound work, but we do not know when a 
character is a unit, behind the molecule is the atom and now we have 
the electron. Variations that are heritable are probably discontinuous, 
but if the break is sometimes so small that it cannot be detected, and we 
have been told that this is so, the practical worker may be forgiven for 
treating the variation as continuous. Mendel’s law is the greatest con- 
tribution to genetics in half a century, but it does not seem to be applic-, 
able in all cases. We hear of its modification by external conditions, 
and as fertilization is subject to such influences, as for instance when 
with the aid of chemicals we induce liybribity between widely differing 
organisms or development of the egg without the sperm, we should be 
prepared for vagaries in the results of crosses. The genotype theory 
needs further confirmation. We are assured that a biotype is as definite- 
ly recognizable as a cat or a dog. This may be true, but though we 
have known cats longer than biotypes, we have as yet no all-inclusive 
cat theory. And besides are we prepared to answer the question, ‘‘What 
is a cat?” It has been said that effects of environment are not inherited. 
A question mark has to be placed with that statement in the light of 
recent work, and till we get an organism without any environ- 
ment, how are we to know what the effects of the latter may be? Lar- 
marckism we are told is dead, but somehow, its ghost will not be laid. 
But the great thing is that in the present century, young as it is, 
we have learned so much. That we have applied experimental methods 
to the great problems of life with such success, that a control of the 
plants greater than man ever enjoyed before has been secured, that this 
lias been accomplished by the cooperation of many workers and sup- 
ported by a genuine public interest. To the many who say — I believe 
unjustly — that wo live in a material age when the higher things of life 
are neglected, the history of biology will furnish a refutation. Dar- 
win's epoch making work revolutionized our science, but not till its 
effects on religion, philosophy, history, sociology and our whole mental 
and spiritual life had been discussed for nearly half a century did the 
evident possibility of using evolution for material progress receive at- 
tention. Now the time seems ripe for those principles to be applied to 
more practical affairs, to contribute to our material well-being as they 
already have to our intellectual. To add to our wealth, our comfort, 
our health, to the beauty and the joy of life. The great evolutionary 
river of life sweeps by us, flowing from the unknown to the unknown, 
with powers and forces in its mighty current we as yet cannot measure. 
What powers may be turned 1o usefulness, what desert places may be 
made fertile by even a partial control of that current is also unmeasured 
and unknown. But what has already been accomplished by clumsy 
and primitive means, gives confidence to the prophecy of mighty works 
when organized knowledge and exact methods shall be used. 
WM. E. PRAEGER, 
