Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Annals of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya, Vol. 4
The numbers are very fairly evenly grouped about the mean length. Now it is generally supposed that evolution takes place by there existing 8. Great number of offspring showing similar variation in a character that may be of value in the struggle for existence. Those that have it best marked will survive, those that have it poorly marked will go under, and so generation by generation the character will increase, till at last by progress in this and other characters we may get a plant so distinct that it will be a new species. The other theory is that of mutation, on which the new characters are supposed to arise at one step, as in fact they often do in the produc tion of new garden varieties. Once they have appeared the new characters are hereditary, and the new form does not go back to the old one. Evidence has been accumulating in favour of this View for some time now, but that set forth in this paper seems to afford a final argument for it. Be it specially noted that on the theory of natural selection of the infinitesimal variations every part must be shown to have some use, while on that of mutation this is not necessary, though of course variations that are actually harmful may be killed out in the struggle for existence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
