Origin of Species Variorum

Comparison with 1860

It must, however, be confessed that we cannot understand, excepting on vague hypotheses, several facts with respect to the sterility of hybrids; for instance, the unequal fertility of hybrids produced from reciprocal crosses; or the increased sterility in those hybrids which occasionally and exceptionally resemble closely either pure parent. Nor do I pretend that the foregoing remarks go to the root of the matter: no explanation is offered why an organism, when placed under unnatural conditions, is rendered sterile. All that I have attempted to show, is that in two cases, in some respects allied, sterility is the common result, — in the one case from the conditions of life having been disturbed, in the other case from the organisation having been disturbed by two organisations having been compounded into one.

It may seem fanciful, but I suspect that a similar parallelism extends to an allied yet very different class of facts. It is an old and almost universal belief, founded, I think, on a considerable body of evidence, that slight changes in the conditions of life are beneficial to all living things. We see this acted on by farmers and gardeners in their frequent exchanges of

does not diminish, but is apt to increase; this increase being perhaps intelligible, as before explained, on the principles of inheritance and from too close interbreeding. The above view of the sterility of hybrids being caused by two different constitutions having been confounded into one has lately been strongly maintained by Max Wichura; but it must be owned that the sterility, so like in every respect to that of hybrids, which affects the illegitimate offspring of dimorphic and trimorphic plants of the same species (as will be immediately described), makes this view rather doubtful. ↑

It must also be owned that we cannot understand, .. on this or any other view, several facts with respect to the sterility of hybrids; for instance, the unequal fertility of hybrids produced from reciprocal crosses; or the increased sterility in those hybrids which occasionally and exceptionally resemble closely either pure parent. Nor do I pretend that the foregoing remarks go to the root of the matter: no explanation is offered why an organism, when placed under unnatural conditions, is rendered sterile. All that I have attempted to show, is that in two cases, in some respects allied, sterility is the common result,—in .. the one case from the conditions of life having been disturbed, in the other case from the organisation or constitution having been disturbed by two organisations being compounded into one.