72 BASIS OF INVESTIGATION. 



EXPLANATION OF NEO-DARWINIANS. 



We thus see that our deduction from the theory of use-inheri- 

 tance is supported by history at all points. But the Neo-Darwinians 

 object to this interpretation of history. They insist that education 

 goes no further than to furnish opportunities for the mind which 

 is potentially great to educate itself and thus become great in fact. 

 This explanation would imply that congenitally great intellects were 

 just as common during the dark ages as at present, and that the 

 reason why we have no record of them is partly because of the lack 

 of records and partly because the lack of education robbed many of 

 them of their opportunities. But this explanation of the Neo-Dar- 

 winians does not account for the advance in relative greatness after 

 educational facilities were obtained. Neither does it account for a 

 man like Franklin, who had no educational facilities other than such 

 as he made for himself. Nor does it account for the fact, which will 

 be shown later, that there never has been produced a brain having 

 a great functional capacity except as a descendant from a man who 

 had previously made large use of his brain. 



WEISMANN'S STATEMENT. 



The explanation, however, is forced by the theory of continuity 

 of the germ plasm and the apparent impossibility of such a thing as 

 brain-use affecting in the remotest degree a material so completely 

 isolated. Weismann says: 



"The germ cells arise in their essential and distinctive substances, 

 not by any means from the body of the individual, but directly from 

 the parent germ cells. Inheritance takes place wholly and solely 

 because a substance of definite chemical, and above all, molecular 

 composition, passes over from the germ cells of one generation to 



