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There does not appear at first sight to be much connection between such distinct and apparently disconnected phenomena as 1, the orderly normal progress of development; 2, atavism and the resumption of feral characteristics; 3, the more ordinary resemblance inter se of nearer relatives; 4, the benefit of an occasional cross, and the usual sterility of hybrids; 5, the unconsciousness with which alike bodily development and ordinary physiological functions proceed, so long as they are normal; 6, the ordinary non-inheritance, but occasional inheritance of mutilations; 7, the fact that puberty indicates the approach of maturity; 8, the phenomena of middle life and old age; 9, the principle underlying longevity.

Tall, branched stems with fan-shaped tops arise, constituting a series of steps towards complete atavism. This last however, is not to be reached easily. It often requires several successive generations grown from seed collected from the most atavistic specimens. And even such selected strains are always reverting to the crested type.

Whether his beauty was the result of 'atavism' of the reappearance, under the black skin and woolly hair, of some old stain of white blood; or whether, which is more probable, he came of some higher African race; one could not look at him without hopeful surmises as to the possible rise of the Negro, and as to the way in which it will come about the only way in which any race has permanently risen, as far as I can ascertain; namely, by the appearance among them of sudden sports of nature; individuals of an altogether higher type; such a man as that terrible Daaga, whose story has been told.

Indeed, so repeatedly have temperaments of this character appeared in France, not only in her music, but also in her letters and other arts, from the time of the Pléiade, to that of Charles Louis Philippe and André Gide and Henri de Regnier, that it is difficult not to hold theirs the centrally, essentially French tradition, and not to see in men like Rabelais only the Frank, and in men like Berlioz only the atavism to Gallo-Roman times.

So the intellectual faithlessness and the material servility of the age are flattered together and taught to justify themselves theoretically. They cry joyfully, non peccavi, which is the modern formula for confession. M. Bergson's philosophy itself is a confession of a certain mystical rebellion and atavism in the contemporary mind.

The ideal results of victory one cannot see with one's eyes or applaud with one's hands, but a dismantled banner one can." "That does not explain everything. Atavism comes into it. The inhabitants of towns in ancient times need to rejoice and cheer in the same way when their victorious troops brought home the tutelary gods of their enemies.

It was considered to be the greatest enemy of the breeder, and was generally spoken of as a definite force, working against and protracting the endeavors of the horticulturist. No clear conception as to its true nature had been formulated, and even the propriety of designating the observed phenomena by the term atavism seemed doubtful.

Though it seemed to be of democratic origin, it was henceforth riveted to that Roman soil, it remained kingly in spite of everything, forced to cling to the principle of temporal power under penalty of suicide, bound by tradition, enchained by dogma, its evolutions mere simulations whilst in reality it was reduced to such immobility that, behind the bronze doors of the Vatican, the papacy was the prisoner, the ghost of eighteen centuries of atavism, indulging the ceaseless dream of universal dominion.

The love of Phedre is excusable on account of the fatality which hangs over her family and descends pitilessly upon her. In our times we should call that fatality atavism, for Phedre was the daughter of Minos and Pasiphae.

"The wig is representative of the seventeenth as the silk hat is of the nineteenth century. I wonder why I am so strongly fascinated with the seventeenth century? I, a peasant; atavism, I suppose; my family were not always peasants." Turning from the old Latin inscription he viewed the church, so evocative in its fortress form of an earlier and more romantic century.