1899] PROPER AND IMPROPER VIE W OF HEREDITY 93 



association of science and art is one of our dearest ideals. We are 

 afraid, however, that our mineralogical colleagues might not like the 

 make-up of this "journal of universal information," for in the number 

 before us the 5th heading is mineralogy and the 6th is science. It 

 was an announcement under the last heading that arrested our hungry 

 eye — " The Proper and Improper View of Heredity " — for this went 

 beyond our furthest ambitions. We had cherished an idea that, with 

 the help of Galton and Weismann and their opponents, we might in 

 the course of time arrive at a discrimination between the true and 

 untrue view of heredity, but the criterion of propriety seemed unattain- 

 able. We wondered before we opened the pages what revelation might 

 await us — an exposure of Pearson's prolegomena as prurient, of Weis- 

 mann's wisdom as wanton — and our fancies flew to Zola and Ibsen and 

 other students of heredity, as we speculated whose views The New Age 

 regarded as " improper." The very title, we say, was a wonderment to 

 us. We had never thought of looking at the facts in the light of 

 propriety, and yet how luminous it is ! But when we came to the 

 article we found only a feeble protest against the old, absurd misunder- 

 standing that to recognise one factor in life means a denial of the 

 others. " Let us never fold our hands and say, because we have 

 inherited a poor memory, a small order, poor calculation, or imperfect 

 digestion and weak lungs, that we are fated by that inheritance and 

 cannot overcome it." Thereafter followed some verses on " Heredity's 

 Opposites " — e.g., " Lowest sinner, highest saint, dull of wit and full 

 of plant " (the italics are ours), ending with the appropriate words 

 " curses deep." 



Darwin's Doggedness. 



In the charming address which the veteran botanist, Sir Joseph D. 

 Hooker, delivered on June 14, when Mr. Hope Linker's statue of 

 Darwin, presented by Prof. Poulton, was unveiled at the University 

 Museum at Oxford, there are many little touches which vivify the 

 picture which modern naturalists have of their master. The proof- 

 sheets of the Beagle journal impressed Hooker profoundly, even 

 despairingly, " with the genius of the writer, the variety of his acquire- 

 ments, the keenness of his powers of observation, and the lucidity of 

 his descriptions." In 1844 Hooker was shown confidentially a sketch 

 of " The Origin of Species," and on his many visits to town he was 

 habitually " pumped " after breakfast with botanical cpiestions, the 

 answers to which were deposited in bags or pockets that hung against 

 the wall. " If I were asked," he said, " what traits in Mr. Darwin's 

 character appeared to me most remarkable during the many exercises 

 of his intellect that I was privileged to bear witness to, they would be, 

 first, his self-control and indomitable perseverance under bodily suffering, 



