TI.] ON HEREDITY. 99 



also enquire whether he might not have been as great a musi- 

 cian as he was painter if, instead of Hving during the historical 

 highwater mark of painting, he had lived, under favourable 

 personal influences, at the time of highly-developed and wide- 

 spread musical genius. A great artist is always a great man, 

 and if he finds the outlet for his talent closed on one side, he 

 forces his way through on the other. 



From all these examples I wish to show that, in my opinion, 

 talents do not appear to depend upon the improvement of any 

 special mental quality by continued practice, but they are the 

 expression, and to a certain extent the bye-product, of the 

 human mind, which is so highly developed in all directions. 



But if any one asks whether this high mental development, 

 acquired in the course of innumerable generations of men, is 

 not dependent upon the hereditary effects of use, I would 

 remind him that human intelligence in general is the chief 

 means and the chief weapon which has served and still serves 

 the human species in the struggle for existence \ Even in the 

 present state of civilization — distorted as it is by numerous 

 artificial encroachments and unnatural conditions — the degree 

 of intelligence possessed by the individual chiefly decides 

 between destruction and life ; and in a natural state, or still 

 better in a state of low civilization, this result is even more 

 striking. 



Here again, therefore, we encounter the effects of natural 

 selection, and to this power we must attribute, at any rate, a 

 great part of the phenomena we have been discussing, and it 

 cannot be shown that — in addition to its operation— the trans- 

 mission of characters acquired by practice plays any part in 

 nature. 



I only know of one class of changes in the organism which is 

 with difficulty explained by the supposition of changes in the 

 germ ; these are the modifications which appear as the direct 

 consequence of some alteration in the surroundings. But our 

 knowledge on this subject is still very defective, and we do not 

 know the facts with sufficient precision to enable us to pro- 

 nounce a final verdict as to the cause of such changes : and 

 for this reason, I do not propose to consider the subject in 

 detail. 



^ Compare Darwin's ' Descent of Man.' 

 H 2 



