type. Well, this comes to be mixed once
more with the pure, the normal type, and the abnormal is again produced
in large proportion, notwithstanding the second dilution. Now what would
have happened if these abnormal types had intermarried with each other;
that is to say, suppose the two boys of Salvator had taken it into their
heads to marry their first cousins, the two first girls of George, their
uncle? You will remember that these are all of the abnormal type of
their grandfather. The result would probably have been, that their
offspring would have been in every case a further development of that
abnormal type. You see it is only in the fourth, in the person of
Marie, that the tendency, when it appears but slightly in the second
generation, is washed out in the third, while the progeny of Andre, who
escaped in the first instance, escape altogether.

We have in this case a good example of nature's tendency to the
perpetuation of a variation. Here it is certainly a variation which
carried with it no use or benefit; and yet you see the tendency to
perpetuation may be so strong, that, notwithstanding a great admixture
of pure blood, the variety continues itself up to the third generation,
which is largely marked with it. In this case, as I have said, there
was no means of the second generation intermarrying with any but
five-fingered persons, and the question naturally suggests itself, What
would have been the result of such marriage? Reaumur narrates this case
only as far as the third generation. Certainly it would have been
an exceedingly curious thing if we could have traced this matter any
further; had the cousins intermarried, a six-fingered variety of the
human race might have been set up.

To show you that this supposition is by no means an unreasonable one,
let me now point out what took place in the case of Seth Wright's sheep,
where it happened to be a matter of moment to him to obtain a breed
or raise a flock of sheep like that accidental variety that I have
described--and I will tell you why. In that part of Massachusetts where
Seth Wright was living, the fields were separated by fences, and the
sheep, which were very active and robust, would roam abroad, and without
much difficulty jump over these fences into other people's farms. As
a matter of course, this exuberant activity on the part of the
sheep constantly gave rise to all sorts of quarrels, bickerings, and
contentions among the farmers of the neigh