rious
races of domestic fowl known to us came from _Gallus bankiva_, the
jungle-fowl of India; in fact I think I have seen that form enthroned
amongst its supposed descendants in more than one museum. "So we are
taught; but try to reconstruct the steps in their evolution and you
realise your hopeless ignorance" (M., p. 11). If we cannot construct a
"tree" for fowls, how absurd to adventure into the deeper recesses of
Phylogeny. If all that Professor Bateson says is true, is not Driesch
right when he speaks of "the phantasy christened Phylogeny"?[4]

The addresses, however, were not solely concerned with throwing contempt
upon views which were yesterday of great respectability, and which even
to-day are as gospel to many. They devoted themselves chiefly to the
consideration of the question of heredity, viewed, as might be expected,
from the Mendelian standpoint.

Now, at this point it may be said that there are at least two things
which we should like to know about heredity--the vehicle and the laws.
It is clear that we might know something, perhaps even a good deal,
about one of these without knowing anything about the other.

Such in fact is the case; for we know, it may fairly be said, nothing
about the vehicle. There are two very widely distinct opinions on this
point. There is the mnemic theory, recently brought before us by the
republication of Butler's most interesting and suggestive work with its
translations of Hering's original paper and Von Hartmann's discourse and
its very illuminating introduction by Professor Hartog.[5]

And there is the continuity theory which teaches that in some way or
another the characteristics of the parents and other ancestors are
physical parts of the germ. An attempt to explain this was made by
Darwin in his theory of Pangenesis. Others have essayed what Yves Delage
calls "micromeristic" interpretations. As to all of these it may be said
that when they are reduced to figures the explanation becomes of so
complex a character as utterly to break down. We shall see that
Professor Bateson adopts a third very nebulous explanation. But as
regards the laws of heredity there is something else to be said; for
here we really do know something, and that something we owe in large
measure to the innumerable experiments which have been made on Mendelian
lines since the re-discovery of the methods first adopted by the
celebrated Abbot of Bruenn. It is no intention of the writer of this
paper