Your expression, "and tends to depart
in a slight degree," I think hardly grammatical; a _tendency_ to depart
cannot very well be said to be in a slight degree; a _departure_ can,
but a tendency must be either a _slight tendency_ or a _strong
tendency_; the degree to which the departure may reach must depend on
favourable or unfavourable causes in addition to the tendency itself.
Mivart's words, "and tending to depart from the parental type," seem to
me quite unobjectionable as a paraphrase of yours, because the "tending"
is kept in; and your own view undoubtedly is that the tendency may lead
to an ultimate departure to any extent. Mivart's error is to suppose
that your words favour the view of _sudden departures_, and I do not see
that the expression he uses really favours his view a bit more than if
he had quoted your exact words. The expression of yours he relies upon
is evidently "the whole organism seeming to have become plastic," and he
argues, no doubt erroneously, that having so become "plastic," any
amount or a larger amount of sudden variation in some direction is
likely.
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