Part 63 (1/2)
”Well, his experiments have proved that there are certain vegetable species which, all at once, without any preparation, without anything to make you expect it, change type absolutely and take on other characters.”
”The devil! That really is extraordinary.”
”Vries verified this rapid transformation first in a plant named OEnotheria Lamarckiana, which, all of a sudden, with no influence from the environment, with nothing to justify it, at times changes and metamorphosizes itself into a different plant.”
”But this transformation may be due to a disease,” said Alzugaray.
”No, because the mutation, after taking place, persists from generation to generation, not with pathological characteristics, but with completely normal ones.”
”It is most curious.”
”These experiments have produced Neo-Darwinism. The Neo-Darwinists, with Hugo de Vries at their head, believe that species are not generally gradually transformed, but that they produce new forms in a sudden, brusque way, having children different from the fathers. And if such brusque variations can take place in a characteristic so fixed as physiological form, what may not happen in a thing so unstable as the manner of thinking? Thus, it is very possible that the men of the Italian Renaissance or the French Revolution were mentally distinct from their predecessors and their successors, and they may even have been organically distinct.”
”But this overthrows the whole doctrine of evolution,” said Alzugaray.
”No. The only thing it has done is to distinguish two forms of change: one, the slow variation already verified by everybody, the other the brusque variation pointed out by Hugo de Vries. We see now that the impulses, which in politics are called evolution and revolution, are only reflexions of Nature's movements.”
”So then, we may hope that Castro Duro will change into an Athens?”
asked Alzugaray.
”We may hope so,” said Caesar.
”All right, let's hope sleeping.”
They ordered the porter to prepare two berths in the car, and they both lay down.
THE RECEPTION
In the morning Caesar went to the dressing-room, and a short while later came back clean and dressed up as if he were at a ball.
”How spruce you are!” Alzugaray said to him.
”Yes, that's because they will come to receive me at the station.”
”Honestly?”
”Yes.”
”Ha... ha... ha...!” laughed Alzugaray.
”What are you laughing at?” asked Caesar, smiling.
”At your having arranged a reception and brought me along for a witness.”
”No, man, no,” said Caesar; ”I have arranged nothing. The workmen of the Club will come down out of grat.i.tude.”
”Ah, that's it! Then there will be only a few.”