WHAT MAY ANIMALS BE TAUGHT ? 179 



be at least doubtful. There have been very serious and learned con- 

 troversies respecting the possibility of the transmission by generation 

 of acquired advantages. Weissmann decides the question in the nega- 

 tive. Only aptitudes are transmitted by descent. The discussion ap- 

 pears to be, to some extent, an affair of words. Some say pointer- 

 dogs have been formed by hunters, who taught particular individuals 

 not to chase after game, but only to signalize its presence, and that 

 the knowledge of the fathers passed to their posterity. Others reply 

 that this is not the case ; even in the times of the corporations or trade- 

 guilds the sons of shoemakers were not born shoemakers. Special 

 aptitudes, manifested by particular individuals, have been turned to the 

 best advantage ; they have been cultivated, and thus breeds have been 

 created by selection. I say that this is a question of words, because 

 in any case the re-enforcement of the aptitude is something acquired, 

 and this acquisition, it is admitted, passes to descendants. 



Let us suppose, then, that we have created a race of calculating 

 dogs. We might, by a bold but legitimate generalization, infer from 

 that that all animals would be susceptible of acquiring abstract notions 

 or of thinking by symbols. But the dog would have had an educator. 

 Must man, then, also have had his educator? We see, thus, how this 

 question would take shape, and it certainly would be no less grave or 

 less perplexing than the alternative. 



Again, let us suppose that the attempts utterly fail. We might, 

 indeed, contend that the check was only a temporary one. But let us 

 waive the evasion, and reason as though the dog were radically incapa- 

 ble of representing his thoughts by symbols. Would not absolute 

 transformism, that is, the applicability of transformism to man, receive 

 a mortal blow ? I do not believe it. The only really legitimate con- 

 clusion would be, that not all species are indefinitely perfectible, but 

 that only a few species, perhaps only one, have really entered upon the 

 road to infinite progress, while the others have gone into a kind of 

 blind alley. It is in the same way that the main stem of a tree may 

 theoretically grow up indefinitely toward the sky, while the develop- 

 ment of the lateral branches is necessarily limited by the power of the 

 wood to resist rupture. 



We thus see that this problem is one of an exceedingly interesting 

 and tempting character. Although Malebranche has no partisans now, 

 those who agree to some extent with Schwann form legions, and in 

 their eyes transformism has only the value of a general doctrine. It 

 is the question of the origin of man and his place in the world, which 

 is raised by Sir John Lubbock's cards, and on which, with the co-op- 

 eration of his dog Van, he has contributed to throw a little light. 

 Anthropology also can only follow his experiments, the abortive ones 

 as well as the successful ones, with legitimate curiosity, and return its 

 most earnest thanks for them. Translated for the Popular Science 

 Monthly from the Mevue Scientiflque. 



