ii.] PROCESSES IN HEREDITY. 9
they did. They form what is well expressed by the word " traits," traits of feature and character-that is to say, continuous features and not isolated points.
We appear, then, to be severally built up out of a host of minute particles of whose nature we know nothing, any one of which may be derived from any one progenitor, but which are usually transmitted in aggregates, considerable groups being derived from the same progenitor. It would seem that while the embryo is developing itself, the particles more or less qualified for each new post wait as it were in competition, to obtain it. Also that the particle that succeeds, must owe its success partly to accident of position and partly to being better qualified than any equally well placed competitor to gain a lodgment. Thus the step by step development of the embryo cannot fail to be influenced by an incalculable number of small and mostly unknown circumstances.
Family Likeness and Individual Variation.-Natural peculiarities are apparently due to two broadly different causes, the one is Family Likeness and the other is Individual Variation. They seem to be fundamentally opposed, and to require independent discussion, but this is not the case altogether, nor. indeed in the greater part. It will soon be understood how the conditions that produce a general resemblance between the offspring and their parents, must at the same time give rise to a considerable amount of individual differences. Therefore I need not discuss Family Likeness and Individual Varia-
